Sitting kills you, saturated fats kill you, disposable chopsticks kills you, sugar kills you... We're so concerned about how to extend the time we have, that we're neglecting the time we actually do have.
Here's me: I haven't eaten vegetables since I was 8 years old. I sit down in front of a computer screen for multiple hours a day. I eat any junk food I want, as long as it tastes good. I drop a ton of water weight before a fight for weighing purposes. I've learned the physically straining technique, Needle through Glass (throwing a sewing needle through a pane of glass), and I do a lot of binge training.
Although I'm perfectly healthy right now, is it possible that I'll die when I'm 60? Yeah. But at least I'll have fully enjoyed my life. It beats the hell out of half living for 90 years. Not to mention, it's also possible your life will be cut short by a rampaging bus... and that has nothing to do with preventable measures.
I generally find that being healthy in certain ways makes me enjoy the time I have more. Sugar or refined carbohydrates makes me tired and lethargic -- I never knew how much energy I could have until I gave them up. Standing at my Series 7 desk instead of sitting also gives me more energy, keeps me more focused, keeps me in better positions that reduce carpal tunnel, and I think helps me sleep better.
I do eat saturated fat, however, but I'm not convinced after reading Taubes's "Good Calories, Bad Calories" that it is unhealthy for me. So, I eat my vegetables sauteed in lard, bacon fat, or duck fat. It tastes great, and I wouldn't want to give them up for a chocolate bar.
Nobody should make health a top value above everything else, and I know some do -- health is a means to your life and I would sacrifice some of my health if it meant more enjoyment. But in most cases, I find better health means not just longevity, but enjoying the time I actually do have.
You do have a valid point - sometimes being healthy is a good thing. I'm not advocating not being healthy. I'm just advocating that perhaps, there needs to be a shift in focus. Subjective, surely!
A) the notion that eating fatty food and sitting in a chair all day is the peak of "pleasure" or "satisfaction", which in my opinion is a very shallow viewpoint. The accomplishment of running a marathon or achieving a related athletic goal is much more satisfying than cheetos, to me at least.
B) the notion that every person's 60-80 years are equal regardless of health choices. Eating healthily and exercising make my life better now in ways that cheetos can't. Even if an unhealthy person and a healthy person both died at 60, the quality of life during those 60 years would no doubt be higher for the latter.
"Cheetos" is not my idea of pleasurable, yet fatty, food. It would rather be fine dining; probably even more fattening, but my life would be rather less without it. I would name two experiences that made my life before the experiences pale in comparison: expertly prepared multi-course meal with matched wines, and motorbike riding. Both statistically shave years off your life, but I would not settle for a life without either.
You don't have a multi-course meal with matched wines every night.
Sometimes (most of the time unless you have a really deep bank account) you just have to feed yourself. When you just have to feed yourself, eat something healthy.
Exercise releases all of the good feeling brain chemicals. As A life long computer-nerd/couch potato, I will testify that it is shocking how good it feels to exercise.
Eating properly and being in shape does a ton to boost self image. (As i'm sure motor bikes and nice meals do too).
Of course, none of pleasurably food, excitement and a healthy lifestyle are mutually exclusive.
I will attest to all of that. Exercising feels great, your self-esteem goes through the roof, and, in my case, it just makes moving around (like, actually moving one's body, squatting, bending over, walking, running, etc), much, much easier.
Hm. I'm about 5'11" (~1.8m) and I weigh about 65kg (that's about 143 pounds), and have never had difficulty moving around, squatting, running etc. I typically climb stairs (e.g. multi-story stairs at car parks) by running up two at a time. But I've never had a day's deliberate exercise in my life outside of school; though historically, I've used walking and cycling a lot as means of transportation. I've never owned a car.
I'm 1.90, 92 kg (about 18% fat) and, although I also go up multiple flights of stairs two steps at a time no problem, I used to have a bit of trouble squatting comfortably, as my knees would hurt.
A month of squats at the gym later, I feel great. Half of it might be good technique, but my knees no longer hurt or crack...
I remember hearing a guy say something along the lines of: You do all these things to extend your life, but you're not extending your 20's and 30's. You're extending your 70's and 80's.
Depends on what you mean. A healthy 40 year old has more stamina and well-being than an obese 30 year old. So at least in one way, you actually are extending your 20s, and your 30s, and your 40s, and your...
While I get your logic here, there is a flaw. Your assumption is you'll live a great life enjoying its fruits then die suddenly. However its probably just as likely you could spend those last few years in painful decline, say from a slow spreading cancer. would it have been worth it then?
What if Ray Kurzweil is right, and by the 2050's transhumanist technologies become sufficient for us to live healthy lives indefinitely? Having the technology to live forever won't help you if you die of a heart attack before it exists.
Not to mention the incredible predictions from medical researchers.
Where's the cure for cancer? Where's the cure for diabetes? Heart disease? Hell, they're just now passing around the (new?) concept that a hi-carbo diet is _bad_ for you! Organized medicine still doesn't know it's ass from a hole in the ground.
We're all gonna die like everyone else does today: organized medicine isn't going to save us. The only question is, how much of our earned income are we willing to pass to those charlatans before we die.
Live forever? Hah! Not with those clowns in charge!
Cancer treatment has made huge progress in the last decade. The survival rates are way up from what they have been and many types of cancer are basically curable as long as you notice it before it ate through every organ in your body. We haven't "cured cancer", because cancer is not a single disease. It is not even caused by a common set of factors.
In the history of medicine, we have seen the following development:
1) We first learned how to deal with purely physical trauma types of problem - bandaging, splinting etc.
2) we then learned how to do pain relief (opium, aspirine)
3) we then learned how to deal with external microbes (antibiotics)
4) we are just starting to learn how to deal with viruses, which requires understanding their DNA. I would not be surprised to see viruses under control in the next 10 years or so, as gene sequencing / analysis gets better.
Now the thing about 3 and 4 is that they're relatively independant of the genotype/phenotype of the person being treated. You can take the same medication and apply it to anyone suffering those types of disease, and it will work.
What's remaining is the admittedly large class of diseases that are mostly caused by a person's own genotype/phenotype. Here we're talking about heart disease, immune system diseases, cancer. It is not likely that we will be able to find a one-size-fits-all solution to these diseases, which means that we won't be able to knock them over until we gain the capacity to manufacture a medication for an individual.
Still, with the ever-increasing CPU capability that we have at the moment, it doesn't seem inconceivable that these types of drugs will be available in 40 years or so, at which point it starts to become interesting to try and figure out just how we are going to die. At that point we will presumably have the necessary control over cell reproduction to allow the regeneration of tissue etc. For example, at the moment we think aging is linked to the loss of telomeres. Imagine taking a single heart muscle cell, and replacing all of the lost telomeres through genetic manipulation, and then re-inserting the heart cell into a patient. If aging theory is correct, this one cell will eventually (on the timeframe of decades) come to to dominate the number of cells in the heart, as non-modified cell lines will die out due to the loss of telomeres during reproduction. No more heart attacks.
Now, I've just plucked that 40 year figure out of the air, it might be 100 years, or 200 years, which of course would probably be too late for most of us. But the thing is that it is useless to compare the rate of medical advances of the past with what we're expecting to see in the future. Future development is going to be based on a very fine-grained understanding of life processes, whereas that has just not been possible up until very recently.
You can use the same reasoning in reverse if you're in your 20s or younger. I don't believe I'll die when I'm only 60 or so, even if I'm super unhealthy, and by then they'll be able to fix all my supposed problems anyway.
The fact that you fight competitively means that you're not sedentary for a good portion of your time. Binge training is still training.
People who do nothing physically demanding and sit at a desk all day are a lot more at risk. And probably not enjoying a full range of activities either.
Actually, that's the unsettling thing about the latest studies... people who do physically demanding things apparently don't benefit from them if they spend the rest of their time sitting. And that describe the lifestyle of a lot of exercise-friendly "hackers," your correspondent included.
Depends on what your definition of "enjoying your life" is. And then certain habits such as binge drinking are largely promoted as enjoyable via peer pressure/peer brainwashing. I mean, we have only so much sensitivity to alcohol, and so many GABA receptors to saturate, it's not like people would want to drink as much if they were on their own. And, in the end, a hedonistically-driven life is only superficially rewarding. It also shows lack of goals, focus, potential for impact.
" I haven't eaten vegetables since I was 8 years old...I eat any junk food I want"
Ok, so most junk food uses some vegetables as a filler. Usually desiccated starch from potatoes & the like. So you are certainly eating vegetables, maybe not raw but cooked.
"I sit down in front of a computer screen for multiple hours a day"
Don't. The damage from laptop radiation is irreversible, unlike gaining 50 lbs on purpose and then reversing all of it by going on a crash diet like chuck noland.
paraphrasing - " low frequency magnetic fields can produce changes in biological systems... Current scientific
understanding does not yet allow us to interpret the evidence...Even more frustrating, it does not yet allow us to offer advice to avoid potential risks"
CRT screens have been around since 1907, Liquid Crystal Displays have been here since 1964. If there were clearly harmful effects from spending time near them, epidemiologists would've noticed by now.
I almost died of complications from blod clots in my left leg 4 1/2 years ago. I recovered OK, but I have been on the warpath since then warning people about not sitting too long - both my doctor and I think that working too long at a desk without breaks caused my blood clots.
I recommend simply setting a timer for about 20 minutes as a reminder to get up and walk around for a minute or two. Also, it is probably a good idea to walk around the block (at least) a few times each work day.
Hmm, maybe I should start a rule of 20 minutes of sitting/2 minutes of jumping rope. With the calories jumping rope burns, I'll look amazing in no time.
Has there been any study about whether standing desks are actually any better? I can easily imagine that sitting motionless for 6 hours and standing motionless for 6 hours have virtually the same effect on the body.
That is, let's not be so quick to patch the problem with the first thing that isn't a chair.
From Wikipedia, "[...] sedentary drivers of London's double-decker buses had higher rates of cardiovascular disease than the conductors who climbed the stairs" and "[Jerry Morris] performed further studies that showed slow movements such as gardening helped very little and exercise had to be more vigorous to help."
I recently got a combination sit/stand desk and I feel that when I stand I tend to move more overall, however, so "motionless" might be less of a factor. I sway back and forth a lot, or rock on my heels slightly, etc...
I've found that breaking my day into about half sitting / half standing has been roughly optimal. I've been unable to stand for the entire day without a fair amount of ankle/foot pain.
Just bought a standing desk. I really like it. It isn't as comfortable (obviously), and my legs, feet and back are sore by the end of the day. But they're sore in a good, used way and fine by the next morning.
It definitely feels healthier then the sore back and thighs I'd get from sitting still all day.
If standing desks ever take off, I wonder if we'll eventually face news articles with titles like: "Standing for hours can shave years off life"...
Very, very unlikely.
The whole "exercise good, sitting kills you" thing was first noticed in England among bus drivers in 1953. There the driver and conductor were from similar socio-economic backgrounds, similar pay, etc, but one sat all day, and the other stood. Drivers died much faster than conductors. Every significant followup since has confirmed the basic conclusion. Sitting all day is not healthy for us.
Thanks for the link. The conclusion actually indicates standing is not sufficient, exercise is necessary.
From Wikipedia, "[...] sedentary drivers of London's double-decker buses had higher rates of cardiovascular disease than the conductors who climbed the stairs" and "[Jerry Morris] performed further studies that showed slow movements such as gardening helped very little and exercise had to be more vigorous to help."
I've tried both extensively and the conclusion I've reached is that staying in one position, standing or sitting, for many hours is the real culprit. The only real cure to sedentariness (which is probably what really shaves off lifespan) is to be as mobile as possible.
In Denmark they are everywhere. I've been consulting/freelancing for a number of years and only on very rare occasions have I not had an adjustable desk. I haven't yet heard about negative conseuences.
Fortunately with a desk that goes up and down that is an easy one to fix ... someone just needs to do a study of the ideal proportion time and frequency for changing between sitting and standing.
I am fortunate to have a desk that has adjustable legs, so I was able to try out with a standing desk. I have been doing this for about two weeks now and my verdict thus far is the same as yours.
The first week was a bit brutal and my heels were really sore at the end of the day, but luckily my dad does ergonomic consulting and had an anti-fatigue mat lying around, now I can stand 8+ hours a day and not feel any pain or soreness. I get to walk around more and I feel a lot more productive than when I was sitting. Oh, also I am burning about 1300+ calories for standing each work day, which is about an hour of intense cardio.
If you have been on the fringe about working standing up, I say do it. Just make sure you get an anti-fatigue mat because that will take a lot of pressure off your feet.
From my experience, it's probably your shoes. I've been using a standing desk for about a year and can definitely notice a difference in my feet dy to day depending on the shoes I'm wearing (personally, I find five fingers the most comfortable for me, but I think that's because I move around the most while wearing them). I did notice that adding a mat (currently it's just some really thick shelf lining, although I've thought about getting one of the restaurant style floor mats) made all shoes feel better. The shelf liner costs ~$5 so it's worth giving it a shot. Mixing in some sitting breaks as well (~30 minutes a few times a day) can also make a big difference since it gives your feet some time to rest.
2) a brick. A brick sculptor friend of mine was advised by a worker at the brick plant to keep one foot on a brick to rest it, alternating as needed. Says she's never had another day of back or foot pain.
I've used this larger (3' x 5') one for over a year, usually with shoes but more recently in socks, and it's been great. It looks like the one in first picture but gray and only slightly glossy. Recommended.
As a marketer, I love this study because it's a variation on the "Make people think they are thinking and they love you. Make them think and they'll hate you." concept.
You're working hard. On your feet all day but this study proves that you're going to outlive those people at corporate who are sitting at a desk all day. You're better than them.
I can think of a lot of great products to market with this study like beer or DIY stuff. Here in the US, I would not be surprised to see this study touted by politicians looking for working class votes.
Make people think they are exercising more than others and they'll love you. Make them exercise more and they'll hate you.
I like using an exercise ball as my computer desk chair. That helps me move around more as I'm at the computer. But there is no substitute for getting outside and taking a walk, which I think I will do just now on one of our first really pleasant, rain-free days of this year.
If you decide to get an exercise ball as a chair substitute, the advice I have received from a YMCA trainer is to size it so that your hips are higher than your knees when you sit on it. For a lot of men of near-average height, a 65cm ball will do. The size can be adjusted up or down a little by how much you inflate the ball.
I too like them. Careful though, I had been using an exercise ball for a chair for the better part of a year, just a couple weeks ago it popped while I was sitting on it.
A couple other caveats: 1)it can bit quite tiring on your back (especially at first) to sit on one for 8-10 hours. 2) since you're sitting on rubber, if it's the least bit warm, things tend to get a bit sweaty down there... :)
Further, even if the relationship is in some sense causative, it doesn't imply that removing what may just be one aspect of a complex system will fix the problem. Medical history is replete with treating "not-quite-underlying causes" simply because the not-quite-underlying-cause was easily visible; one of the more recent examples is cholesterol. You can't solve a problem you don't fully understand, not even if the problem is really really important.
You can't even say "you might as well just try it, it can't hurt"... are you that sure that standing in one place for years at a time is that much better than sitting in one place for years at a time? What if standing in one place without activity is even harder on you than sitting in one place without activity? Is even being on a treadmill that much better? That's not a very natural activity pattern either, is it?
In this case, I find it likely there's an underlying common cause. I suspect the real culprit is the overall activity level of the person, and sitting is just a part of that.
What's particularly interesting about recent research is the revelation that sitting for extended periods of time does significant damage to human health that cannot be undone by exercising. Sitting for several hours each day is bad for you, like smoking is bad for you, regardless of whether you do healthful activities, too.
Which is why this story keeps coming up. Sitting for 8-10 hours a day is NOT countered by going to the gym for another 2.
The study, as far as I can tell from CNN's reporting, does not support this conclusion. The relevant data: In particular, the American Cancer Society study finds that women who sit for more than six hours a day were about 40% more likely to die during the course of the study than those who sat fewer than three hours per day. Men were about 20% more likely to die.
They make no mention of also measuring overall activity levels, which you would need to do to account for that potential confounding common cause. Perhaps the real study did this, but CNN does not tell us, nor do they tell us which study this actually was so we can look for ourselves. I suspect the real study's conclusions are not as strong as this reporting on it.
Why is your quote from the article meaningful while mine is not? It's right there!
"What's particularly interesting about recent research is the revelation that sitting for extended periods of time does significant damage to human health that cannot be undone by exercising."
Crappy reporting on science as usual, but it says it right there "recent research" + "revelation" + "sitting for extended periods" + "damage" + "cannot be undone by exercising."
Because I find it less likely for the reporter to get basic facts wrong. Conclusions are more subtle, and I don't know if it's the reporter's own conclusions, the reporter's interpretation of the conclusions from the original study, or an almost direct lift from the conclusions from the original study. Since the data the reporter does present does not support the conclusions he presents, I remain skeptical of them.
Your back and leg muscles are much more active while standing than sitting. You are actively burning calories, building bone mass, building muscle mass. Despite tightening my belt a notch over the last year of having a standing desk, I have stayed the same weight with only marginal additional exercise.
Your experience is not inconsistent with my hypothesis: your overal activity level increased. A counter-example would be someone who is active on a regular basis, sits for many hours in the other parts of the day, and still suffers from the same health problems as someone who is inactive.
Haha, great idea--They could code name it, "project barking dogs"--if only because I've always liked the phrase "my dogs are barking" used when peoples feet are tired/hurt.
I wonder what would happen if the findings for this were also detrimental for ones health?
I guess the thing to think about is; moderation is the key to success in a lot of things in life.
The "Conference Bike" is not quite the same thing as a non-stationary bike desk, but it still insane. (Google has some of these.)
*"The ConferenceBike is pedaled by 7 riders sitting in a circle. One person steers while the other 6 pedal (or not) as the bike moves effortlessly along."
I drink Diet Dr. Pepper when I'm working. It's stored about 25' away from where I sit. So I end up getting up, getting another, getting up to drop one off, and sometimes bending and lifting to restock. I didn't realize how much I was doing for my health until this line of research came up :-).
From a mental perspective however sometimes getting up and walking around the office or the building helps me focus because there are so many windows on my desktop feeding me information.
You phrased this wrong. Correlation absolutely implies causation; that is, it's a nice indicator that one should look closer at these things. As opposed to throwing darts in the dark. The correct phrasing is "Correlation is not the same as causation."
Yeah there's the logical imply, but that's not exactly what we're after here (I don't think) since the truth table can be tricky and doesn't have to correspond to anything in reality. The truth table for "If P, then Q" (P->Q) evaluates to "True" in all cases of P and Q except when P is True and Q is False. (That is, we don't want true premises to lead to false conclusions, so p->q is false when p is true but q is false.)
I'm actually more interested in the mathematics of causality which is formally contained in Probability Theory. (See Judea Pearl's "Causality" for a full treatment...) One expression can be in the form of Prob(Y = y | do(X = x)) (essentially invoking a "do" operator in your given information), another form of representation is with graphs and arrows; electrical engineers have no problems with causality (at least for normal things). Here's my speculation, but I'd say that in the framework of probability theory, a correlative implication can be expressed as background information. And so you ask if prob(short life given unhealthy and some common set of bg info) > prob(short life given just the bg info) to see if there's an "implication" there you may want to investigate and perhaps infer a causation by performing a do() operation (e.g. controlled experiment).
Also I find it interesting that physics doesn't have any notion of "causality" in the equations, they just state a relationship. "F = m*a" works in time-reverse as well as time-forward (though this isn't always the case for all the laws, some change under mirror reflection or charge differences).
Anyway, I'm not a formal mathematician, someone more knowledgeable can correct me on anything. Read Pearl, Jaynes, etc. if you want more probability theory!
Then I guess I have to trash my series of studies on coughing, lying in bed, and depression shaving years off your life. Getting grants is hard! /annoyance
He's got a PhD in Physical Therapy, so I'd rather listen to what he has to say about being healthy behind a desk than a story with a sensationalist headline.
I'd rather enjoy what little life I have left than spend it avoiding all the things that are supposedly going to shave years off my life and spending the entire day standing. I got a nice cushy knowledge-worker career precisely so I wouldn't spend the entire day standing while flipping burgers or digging ditches, thanks.
Besides, I'm in pretty poor health due to my own lack of attention to it and of all the things I could bother with, "standing all day at my desk" is pretty far down on the list of what would actually make an important improvement.
Plus, you know, I'd rather spend thousands of dollars on something else. A desk of any useful size that is able to bear any useful weight load on it and is also adjustable in ranges enough to go from sitting to standing are incredibly expensive. I'd rather use the money to pay three or four months of my mortgage.
If you bothered to look at the above linked article/video prior to replying you'd find it is not some stirring endorsement of standing desks. He actually explicitly makes the point that sitting or standing poorly all day will be detrimental to your health, and in reverse taking a few minutes to learn to do either properly can have a significant positive impact.
I've been wanting to install an adjustable height desk at home to do just this. The problem is I can't find one for less than $600-800. I'm comfortable putting something together myself, but am not sure where to start. I'm open to any suggestions that would get me to a large sit/stand adjustable desk in the $200-400 range.
Currently I am using two treated pine planks balanced on four pepsi can crates as my temporary standing desk to see how I like it. It's in the office, not at home. Linkage: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17301814/IMG_0306.jpg
Works great. I love it, even though it's a bit ugly.
I have a hack against sitting: have always a glass of water on your table and drink from it permanently, this way you always need to go to refill the glass and go to rest room to eliminate that water. So you wont be sitting more than 3 hours (usually you'll stand up at least each hour)
Sitting for hours definitely contributed to my tight, tight hamstrings, and I am paying the price for them right now. I have a bulging disc that is most definitely the result of my tightness. I can barely lift any weight anymore, I can't partake in my favorite activities, even sex has become a chore. It's had a massively negative impact on my enjoyment of life in general.
I have a standing desk now, and I am spending lots of my time and money doing physical therapy and related exercises.
To my desk-bound friends who still have good backs: take frequent breaks and stretch those hammies!
Other factors such as the sitter's balance and type and density of surrounding floor hazards may be considerably more hazardous to the sitter's health. Especially if floor hazards include: acid, alligators, lava, or landmines.
I heard that the bouncing that people tend to do on those balls is hard on the back. (But I also know that weight lifting is hard on the back, and that just makes your back grow back stronger. (If you do it right.))
This may be a stupid idea, but here's the trick I use to force myself to not sit down for too long:
I drink a ton of water, and I mean a ton. I drink so much that I HAVE to get up every hour (at least) to use the restroom. Usually that's closer to 45 minutes. I know drinking too much water isn't healthy either, but I think I am at a nice balance of hydration.
Ignifero it's not because it hits the people around you -- it's because the people around you pay for your care.
You don't grok socialized medicine. Smoking is illegal because it's a huge expense on tax money! Smoking is expensive because it causes higher rates of diseases. Make the behavior illegal and you move those funds to other governmental activities.
Using a ladder is risky, make ladders illegal.
Eating high fat foods is risky, make junk food illegal.
Smoking is illegal because it's a huge expense on tax money!
That just isn't correct... smoking isn't illegal, just (depending on what country you are in) smoking in certain public places.
I've no idea about other countries, but in the UK (and I don't have a source to cite for this, and it's possible I'm incorrect, but as I was told by a GP - a General Practitioner docter) the taxes paid on tobacco more than cover the cost caused to our National Health Service by smokers.
Regardless, even assuming smoking does cost more than the taxes it raises, that's not the reason for public bans - that is simply because your personal health choices shouldn't be allowed to have negative impact on the health of other people.
Depends, depends, depends. For example, the ideal (for the government) smoker or fat person would die on the day they retire and do not need any treatment before that.
In practice, their tax paying capabilities might diminish while they are still working. And they might even require expensive treatment while they languish.
Understand that, but it's no small thing to be able to go out of a bar without your clothes stinking of smoke. Maybe you guys have gotten so used to it you 've forgotten how it was. On the other hand, if junk food becomes so junk that it ends up a public health hazard, then it wouldn't be an overreaction to ban it too.
One must keep in mind that, in essence, tobacco, food, alcohol are all addictive substances, tricks to the brain. And when one can be tricked, one can be manipulated.
Any word on how different sitting positions affect these results? I imagine that kneeling (or worse, in Tate-hiza, kneeling with one knee raised and a foot up your arse) would use more muscles than just sitting on your bum all day long?
I've been told that the buddhist monk lifestyle involves a lot of exercise too (cleaning, chopping wood, washing - basically everything to remain self sufficient.)
Here's me: I haven't eaten vegetables since I was 8 years old. I sit down in front of a computer screen for multiple hours a day. I eat any junk food I want, as long as it tastes good. I drop a ton of water weight before a fight for weighing purposes. I've learned the physically straining technique, Needle through Glass (throwing a sewing needle through a pane of glass), and I do a lot of binge training.
Although I'm perfectly healthy right now, is it possible that I'll die when I'm 60? Yeah. But at least I'll have fully enjoyed my life. It beats the hell out of half living for 90 years. Not to mention, it's also possible your life will be cut short by a rampaging bus... and that has nothing to do with preventable measures.
My two cents.