"Anti-aging methods are getting increasingly outrageous. Off the top of my head, we've got adults injecting themselves with the blood of teenagers, surfing eBay for bottled breast milk and ingesting off-label rapamycin (because it extends lifespan in mice). Slide down a tax bracket, visit a contrast therapy studio and you'll find people treating relaxation like a competitive sport. A recent article in The New York Times reported that Europeans are "baffled" by Americans' dead-serious approach to saunas."
"In Finland, sauna-goers lounge naked, take swims in the sea (without timing or posting their "plunge") and share wood-fired sausages. They unwind and laugh. It's fascinating, and somewhat sad, that people so determined to live longer are so far outside the joke. Especially - with a hefty dose of irony - when research indicates that good humor is a longevity powerhouse."
Extreme anti-aging practices—from youthful-blood injections to off-label rapamycin—contrast with relaxed social rituals like Finnish sauna culture, where people unwind and laugh. A 15-year follow-up of Norway's Trøndelag Health Study links sense of humor to markedly lower mortality, including reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and describes humor as a "health-protecting cognitive coping resource." The research indicates good humor can cut adult men's infection-death risk by 74%. Affiliative humor, in particular, supports positive interpersonal relationships and social well-being.
Read at InsideHook
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