In blue zones, these people are eating mostly plant-based foods; they're moving every 20 minutes or so; they're hugely socially connected; they're suffused with purpose—not because they've tried; it's because they're a product of their environment. They live in places where the cheapest and most accessible food is peasant food—it's whole grains, it's nuts, it's greens, it's tubers.

A reporter, one time, asked Maharishi [Mahesh Yogi]... 'What's the single most important quality any person needs to have in order to have a better chance of living a healthy, successful, happy life? ... He said, 'Discernment' ... How do I [make] my choices? Who do I spend my life with? What do I eat? Where do I invest my time? Because those choices are what brings back happiness—those deep, simple choices.

Happiness has three macronutrients: enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose—which you need in balance and abundance. And if you don't have all those three, you're not going to be a happy person.

If I have to make a decision, I see it as an organizational failure.

Americans probably lose six years of life expectancy eating the standard American diet—this is at middle-age, by the way—over eating, say, a blue zones diet, which is largely beans, whole grains, greens, nuts, and tubers, and fruits & vegetables as well.

For people that want to change their brain, the power of focus is really the entry point—and the ability to access deep rest and sleep. Most people don't realize this, but neuroplasticity is triggered by intense focus, but neuroplasticity occurs during deep sleep and rest.

David [Sinclair] and Charles [Brenner] basically go back and forth about two different molecules, NR and NMN, as precursors for NAD. And again, I would say say no disrespect to them, but that's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic compared to exercise.

The data for the efficacy of NR and NMN as a tool to boost longevity is nonexistent at this point in time ... The interventions testing program at the NIH... unequivocally showed that NR did not work. So, if there are benefits to NR and NMN, we haven't seen them yet. And I would argue that if they do exist, they're not going to be that big. They're certainly not going to be on the order of what we see with exercise.

We've got to throw away our preconceptions of what being old is ... Being 50 is not old anymore ... Even 80, like my father, that's not old anymore if you take care of yourself. You extrapolate that into the future, they'll be a day when being 100 isn't old.

I just couldn't even imagine this in the past- having one single plane [Twitter] where anyone around the world can just share how they're thinking and wish wish well upon one another

If happiness were a cake recipe, the important ingredients... So, you need food, you need shelter, you need some healthcare... You need some education... A trusting environment is really important, having the right partner in life, having a job with meaningful work, the feeling of giving back—these are all measurable ingredients in happiness... Where you live is the one with the biggest variance.

When it comes to happiness, most people in this country are misguided or just plain wrong. And it's not because they're stupid; but because we're relentlessly marketed this idea that if we have more, if we look better, if we're younger, if we could just get this one thing—financial freedom, a better-looking partner, a bigger house— that that's going to deliver us happiness, and that's always misguided.

The world we want to get to is - I want people to walk away from Twitter feeling that they learned something, and right now I feel walk people walk away from Twitter feeling outraged or feeling overwhelmed

If you don't know what your purpose is, I can't tell you what your purpose is; you have to discover that for yourself. And that journey of self-discovery requires you to look inward, also in a rigorous and objective way, to try to figure out what it is about who you are that a) makes you uniquely you and b) that you feel inspired to uniquely express.

When it comes to maximizing health, if a person's overweight and wants to lose weight, if a person has heart disease, diabetes, if they've got cancer, or if they're healthy and their goal is to live the maximum healthy life possible, I believe the evidence supports the idea of an exclusively whole plant food diet that's free of SOS. SOS is the international symbol of danger—and it stands for salt, oil, and sugar.

When you build that into a habit where being of service to other people in a selfless way is a reflex rather than a burden or an obligation, that, in my experience, and what I've seen with other people, is probably the best way to set you on a trajectory that's going to connect you with some kind of purpose in your life.

I think the most important thing for anybody to live healthier for longer, if there was just one thing I could say, it would be eat less often. Don't eat three meals a day.

When it comes to wanting to shift the way that you function—to get better, or to perform better, or to show up better, or to move away from things like addictive behaviors; it's absolutely foolish for any of us—me included—to think that we can do that by changing our thoughts first. Its behavior first; thoughts, feelings, and perceptions follow.

I think of Twitter as insanely useful, but I think of most technologies as a crutch to point back to what we're inherently capable of

If you're young, you are growing up in an exciting time