25 Lessons from IKIGAI

1. The keys to longevity are diet, exercise, finding a purpose in life(an ikigai), and forming strong social ties- that is, having a broad circle of friends and good family relations.
2. Maintaining an active, adaptable mind is one of the key factors in staying young.
3. Just as a lack of physical exercise has negative effects on our bodies and mood, a lack of mental exercise is bad for us because it causes our neurons and neural connections to deteriorate- and, as a result, reduces our ability to react to our surroundings.
4. It is important to expose yourself to change, even if stepping outside your comfort zone means feeling a bit of anxiety. When presented with new information, our brain creates new connections and is revitalized.
5. Mental work out such as Interacting with others, playing games can help prevent the depression that can come with solitude.
6. Our neurons start to age while we are still in our twenties. This process can be slowed by performing intellectual activities, curiosity, and a desire to learn. Dealing with new situations, learning something new every day, playing games, and interacting with other people seem to be essential antiaging strategies for the mind. Furthermore, a positive outlook in this regard will yield greater mental benefits.
7. Whether or not the threats we perceive are real, stress is an easily identifiable condition that not only causes anxiety but is also highly psychosomatic, affecting everything from our digestive system to our skin. Stress has a degenerative effect over time. A sustained state of emergency affects the neurons associated with memory and inhibits the release of certain hormones, the absence of which can cause depression. Its secondary effects include irritability, insomnia, anxiety, and high blood pressure.
8. Most of the time our brain works on autopilot mode, where things just happen and you have no control over the flow of your actions. We have to learn to turn off the autopilot that’s steering us in an endless loop. One way to reach a state of mindfulness is through meditation, which helps filter the information that reaches us from the outside world. It can also be achieved through breathing exercises, yoga, and body scans.
9. A small dose of stress is a positive thing, as those who live with low levels of stress tend to develop healthier habits, smokeless, and drink less alcohol. According to research, people who maintain a low level of stress, who face challenges and put their heart and soul into their work in order to succeed, live longer than those who chose a more relaxed lifestyle and retire earlier.
10. The people who live the longest have two dispositional traits in common: a positive attitude and a high degree of emotional awareness. In other words, those who face challenges with a positive outlook and are able to manage their emotions are already well on their way towards longevity.
11. Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
12. Our health depends on the natural tension that comes from comparing what we’ve accomplished so far with what we’d like to achieve in the future. What we need, then, is not a peaceful existence, but a challenge we can strive to meet by applying all the skills at our disposal.
13. It’s important for us to learn to accept our emotions without trying to control them. Our feelings change as a result of our actions.
14. When we have to complete a task we don’t want to do, every minute feels like a lifetime and we can’t stop looking at our watch and the time flies when we are doing tasks that we want to do and enjoy doing. What makes us enjoy doing something so much that we forget about whatever worries we might have while we do it? When are we happiest? These questions can us discover our IKIGAI.
15. Flow is the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.
16. In an increasingly unpredictable world moving ever more quickly, a detailed map may lead you deep into the woods at an unnecessarily high cost. A good compass, though, will always take you where you need to go. It doesn’t mean that you should start your journey without any idea where you’re going. What it does mean is understanding that while the path to your goal may not be straight, you’ll finish faster and more efficiently than you would have if you had trudged along a preplanned route.
17. Concentrating on one thing at a time may be the single most important factor in achieving flow.
18. If we are not truly being challenged, we get bored and add a layer of complexity to amuse ourselves. Our ability to turn routine tasks into moments of microflow, into something we enjoy, is key to our being happy since we all have to such tasks.
19. The happiest people are not the ones who achieve the most. They are the ones who spend more time than others in a state of flow. The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
20. The people who live longest are not the ones who do the most exercise but the ones who move the most. In today’s scenario where most of the population is working from home and has the least body movement, it’s important for us to take periodical breaks and move our bodies.
21. Resilience isn’t just the ability to persevere, it is also an outlook we can cultivate to stay focused on the important things in life rather than what is most urgent and to keep ourselves from being carried away by negative emotions.
22. We use the word fragile to describe people, things, and organizations that are weakened by when harmed, and the word robust and resilient for things that are able to withstand harm without weakening, but we don’t have a word for things that get stronger when harmed. The term is antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.
23. The key is to accept that there are certain things over which we don’t have control, like the passage of time and the ephemeral nature of the world around us.
24. We should focus on the present and enjoy each moment that life brings us because the moment exists only now and won’t come again. (Ichi-go Ichi-e: shorturl.at/eCD36 )
25. We should appreciate the beauty of imperfection as an opportunity for growth (Wabi-sabi-https://www.utne.com/mind-and-body/wabi-sabi )

There are a lot of methods that the authors have conveyed in the book, you can research and apply these methods in your life to make it better.

Ways to improve life:

1. It’s easy to be less sedentary; it just takes a bit of effort and a few changes to your routine. We can access a more active lifestyle that makes us feel better inside and out-we just have to add a few ingredients to our everyday habits:

• Walk to work, or just go on a walk for at least twenty minutes each day.
• Use your feet instead of an elevator or escalator. This is good for your posture, your muscles, and your respiratory system, among other things.
• Participate in social or leisure activities so that you don’t spend too much time in front of the television.
• Replace your junk food with fruit and you’ll have less of an urge to snack, and more nutrients in your system. Get the right amount of sleep. Seven to nine hours is good, but any more than that makes us lethargic. Play with children or pets, or join a sports team. This not only strengthens the body but also stimulates the mind and boosts self-esteem.
• Be conscious of your daily routine in order to detect harmful habits and replace them with more positive ones.

2. Morita theory: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4806496/

3. The Seven Conditions for Achieving Flow

According to researcher Owen Schaffer of DePaul University, the requirements for achieving flow are:

1. Knowing what to do

2. Knowing how to do it

3. Knowing how well you are doing

4. Knowing where to go (where navigation is involved)

5. Perceiving significant challenges 6. Perceiving significant skills

7. Being free from distractions

3. Ideas for creating a space and time free of distractions, to increase our chances of reaching a state of flow and thereby getting in touch with our ikigai:

• Don’t look at any kind of screen for the first hour you are awake and the last hour before you go to sleep.
• Turn off your phone before you achieve flow. There is nothing more important than the task you have chosen to do during this time. If this seems too extreme, enable the “do not disturb” function so only the people closest to you can contact you in case of emergency.
• Designate one day of the week, perhaps a Saturday or Sunday, a day of technological “fasting,” making exceptions only for e-readers (without Wi-Fi) or MP3 players.
• Go to a café that doesn’t have Wi-Fi.
• Read and respond to e-mail only once or twice per day. Define those times clearly and stick to them.
• Try the Pomodoro Technique: Get yourself a kitchen timer (some are made to look like a Pomodoro or tomato) and commit to working on a single task as long as it’s running. The Pomodoro Technique recommends 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest for each cycle, but you can also do 50 minutes of work and 10 minutes of rest. Find the pace that’s best for you; the most important thing is to be disciplined in completing each cycle.
• Start your work session with a ritual you enjoy and end it with a reward.
• Train your mind to return to the present when you find yourself getting distracted. Practice mindfulness or another form of meditation, go for a walk or a swim-whatever will help you get centered again.
• Work in a space where you will not be distracted. If you can’t do this at home, go to a library, a café, or, if your task involves playing the saxophone, a music studio. If you find that your surroundings continue to distract you, keep looking until you find the right place.
• Divide each activity into groups of related tasks, and assign each group its own place and time. For example, if you’re writing a magazine article, you could do research and take notes at home in the morning, write in the library in the afternoon, and edit on the couch at night.
• Bundle routine tasks such as sending out invoices, making phone calls, and so on and do them all at once.

4. Radio Taiso, Yoga, Sun Salutation, Tai Chi, imitating cloud, Qigong, and Shiatsu are some practices/exercises suggested in the book that promotes health and longevity.