Herodotus had the fountain of youth, the Immortals on the TV show Highlander had the quickening, and Lord Voldemort had the Sorcerer’s Stone — but if there really is a way to obtain everlasting life, it has yet to be discovered in the real world.

Yet in five specific locations around the globe, people are living longer, healthier lives than anywhere else.

Dan Buettner, an avid adventurer and best-selling author, made this group of so called “blue zones” for longevity famous after going on expeditions around the world.

His website, “www.bluezones.com”:http://www.bluezones.com, proclaims, “Working with National Geographic, the National Institutes on Aging and AARP, we found parts of the world where people live the longest, happiest lives.”

One blue zone is in Sardinia, Italy, where people living in rural, mountainous villages are regularly reaching the age of 100.

Also in the Mediterranean is Ikaria Island, Greece (home to the greatest lady ever — my “YiaYia” or Grandma).

The tiny island is less than 100 square miles in size but boasts the highest percentage of people over 90 years old on the planet. The Ikarian population is also recorded as having a 20 percent lower rate of cancer and 50 percent lower rate of heart disease than Americans.

Two more blue zones are in the Western Hemisphere. One is a community of Seventh-day Adventists living in Loma Linda, California and the other is the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica.

The final blue zone, according to Buettner, is in Okinawa, Japan.

But the longer living populations in the blue zones are also being studied here at the University by Dr. Kenneth Wilund of the kinesiology department.

So why do these people live so long?

According to Buettner and Wilund, they tend to move “naturally” throughout the day.

“A relatively active lifestyle is common among these populations,” Wilund said. “Whether it be farming, working around water or something else, their jobs don’t allow them to be sedentary. So it’s not 30 minutes a day of aerobic exercise at the gym, but it’s eight hours a day of activity.”

Another common characteristic among people in the blue zones is what Buettner calls “downshifting.” They take time each day to meditate, pray, engage in some sort of enjoyable activity or simply rest and relax. For instance, almost the entire island of Ikaria takes daily naps, with stores and restaurants regularly shutting down for a few hours in the afternoons.

People in the blue zones also eat less than we do here.

“Portion control is the biggest thing in our country,” Wilund said. “That’s why we’re gaining weight. I was recently on a trip to South Korea and went to a Starbucks there. The largest size of coffee you could order was still smaller than any of the sizes offered here. You can’t go in and order a 750 calorie mocha. That’s why people aren’t fat there. They don’t eat gargantuan-sized portions.”

Wilund added people in the Okinawa blue zone, specifically, can serve as a great model for how to cut down on calories each day.

“In Okinawan, it’s called ‘Hara Hachi Bu’ and it’s a very simple concept anybody can adopt when it comes to portion control,” Wilund said. “It means eat until you’re 80 percent full. If you can get yourself to stop while you’re full — but not too full — then you’re not going to have to fall down on the couch and sleep for two hours after a meal before you can do anything else.”

According to Buettner, people in the blue zones base their diets heavily on greens, nuts, oils and beans, with fish typically eaten just once or twice a week.

They also tend to drink one or two glasses of wine each day, which is most beneficial when consumed with a plant-based meal.

“They’re obviously all basing their diets on unprocessed food,” Wilund said.

Finally, family is very important to the world’s longest living populations. Keeping a family close together can help keep older relatives active and involved.

“Stress certainly plays a role in aging, and these are very family-oriented societies that use family to cut down on stress,” Wilund said. “They eat meals together, they do lots of family-oriented activities, and this can be seen both in the Okinawans and in the Seventh-day Adventists.”

But can Americans realistically bring these habits to the states?

“I think people have to learn to engineer activity into our lives,” Wilund said. “You have to work at it. People with sedentary desk jobs have to look at ways to become more active, and those can be anything from taking the stairs instead of an elevator to shoveling snow instead of using a snow plow.”

“Too many people are used to the idea that when you make some money you have to buy something that makes your life easier,” he added.

So I guess the least we can do is try. It’s undoubtedly tough to follow the blue zone examples while being a student, but I hope you’ll keep them in mind over the summer and long after college is over.

Then again, moving to Greece or Okinawa doesn’t sound too shabby either.

_Pete is a senior in Media._