10 Simple Japanese Habits for Healthier & Longer Life🌱the secrets of longevity.

when I was 18 I moved to the United States it was my very first time living outside of Japan and I noticed the good and the bad in my own culture and me just being a teenager I started to focus on the bad I wanted to look and act as Americanized as possible and I started to hate Japan it was almost like putting a lid on the jaes part of me it wasn't until a couple years after moving back here I started to fall back in love with my own country the culture and the lifestyle

I learned to allow myself to love me for who I really am and embrace my Japanese Roots as I relearn and fall back in love with my own culture I noticed there are so many healthy habits that we do naturally in our daily life that makes our life so much better and today I want to share that with you so that you can make your life a little bit better wherever you are start your day with a hot water I love drinking coffee but sometimes it's just too much for my stomach to handle the first

thing in the morning if you have a similar experience starting a day with saou or hot water can be a great alternative drinking a hot water can help you stay hydrated while keeping your body warm especially during winter it can also activate the digestive system and it can help you feel nice and relaxed you can drink it as it is or you can squeeze lemon to add some flavors go hard for breakfast if you have stayed in a nice hotel in Japan you know how hard we go for breakfast and I'm 100% here for it

every time I book a hotel in Japan I make sure that the plant includes breakfast people who eat breakfast more often tend to be happier and more positive and it's pretty interesting because the same study shows that people who don't eat breakfast or eat less frequently tend to feel less happy and tend to have higher screen time on the phone traditional Japanese breakfast include white rice Misa soup gred fish nut pickles egg rolls and so on it's very healthy nutritious and filling and it's known to Boost energy and promote longevity eat balanced meal with the

right knowledge I know that many tourists like to eat Convenient Food like every day when they visit Japan but many of us actually don't do that a lot of Convenient Food includes additives and many times they lacking important nutrition like protein fibers and vitamins from young age we learn about nutrition and how to eat balanced meal at school in my school we had a school Chef come into a classroom explaining which dish serves which roles in terms of nutrition we also had a cooking class starting from fth grade to learn how to prepare a balanced

meal I remember we had a colorful chart to learn about different food group and each color represented different nutrition like protein mineral vitamin and so on and I didn't go to a special private school or anything like that I went to Normal Public Schools so it should be the same for pretty much every school in Japan we eat a lot of fermented food and condiments and personally I love eating n which is the Japanese superfood I know that some people think it's stinky and gross but I think many people are preparing it wrong I'll probably

make a how to prepare n probably video in the future but the tip is to mix n really really well according to my own study mixing it 100 times will get you the right stickiness and it's very convenient for me cuz eating nle will promote your heart health it's good for your skin digestion bone strength immune system and the list goes on and on and nto is just one of the many from fermented food that we eat just for pickles we have over 3,000 different kinds and when it comes to cooking some of the most

commonly used ingredients like soy sauce miso miring and sake are all fermented as well drink green tea and make matcha the right way at this point I feel like matcha is more popular outside of Japan but matcha is one type of green tea and as you know both of them have amazing health benefits I definitely think many Japanese people tend to drink green tea more often than matcha because it's more convenient it's cheaper and it's quicker if you saw my last Vlog you might know this but I took a tea ceremony Workshop in Kyoto and

learned how to properly make matcha and ever since then I've been pretty into making matcha but not because of the health benefits more than anything it really brings peace within me and it's such a nice like Z moment so when you're making matcha next time pause the podcast you're listening to and take a seat at a table instead of standing up in the kitchen enjoy the smell of green tea the sound of whisking and don't forget to show gratitude before drinking I wish I follow this next rule but I literally fail every single day and

that is the 80% rule we say harah in Japanese and it means you only eat until you're 80% full and this full is considered to be the secret to longer and healthier life life it helps you maintain a healthy weight by preventing overeating when you overeat it takes longer for your digestive system to process the food and it can accelate cellular oxidation which can ultimately agid you faster use small plates and eat a little bit of everything traditionally it's very common to serve Japanese food in small plates and small bowls called kobachi and a lot

of us just love eating a little bit of everything this helps your body to intake different nutrition from different source and also it's a great way to prevent overeating and on top of that they have so many different kinds of kobachi and they make preparing food more fun and they bring colors to the table the only downside of using Kachi is doing the dishes afterwards so when I'm lazy I like using play like this so that it's easier afterwards this one is probably well known but I don't think many people know the actual meaning behind

this think before and after eating we say it alakim Mas before eating and after eating we say they both mean thank you for the meal but it has deeper meaning we say those words to show gratitude to the person who cooked and prepared the meal to the farmer who grew the ingredients and to the lives of plants and animals who Express appreciation for mother nature and we do this naturally so we don't even think about it but I think it's a great way to practice gratitude consume vinegar I know that there was a trend to

drink vinegar directly to get the health benefits of it but did you know that when you're eating authentic Sushi the sushi rice contains vinegar and that's one of many ways of how we use vinegar when we are cooking my favorite way is to make dressing with vinegar and also I love using ponza sauce which also contains vinegar it's perfect when you're in Hot Pot when you're eating dumpling when you're eating Sashimi it can go with pretty much anything and you can easily make it at home if you don't have access to Asian market to make

homemade ponzu all you need is three ingredients vinegar soy sauce and lemon I'm going to add a half tbsp of lemon juice 1 and 1/2 tbsp of soy sauce and 1 tbsp of vinegar if you have a dash powder adding it will give you an extra Umami boost growing up my brother was always such a fast eater and my mom would always be like yuk have in aide which means eat slowly this actually a study shows that people F eat fast pasta and to have higher BMI meaning they have higher chance of being overweight eating

slowly can help your stomach feel more filled satisfied and it's a great way to just enjoy the meal and be mindful if you enjoyed this video make sure to check out this video next and let me know what you thought in the comment below thank you so much for watching and see you in the next one [Music] bye