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Comment by agumonkey | Hacker News Reader

Ironically, when going to less stressful place, many westerners dislike the slow pace of life, which probably increase their blood pressure for a little while. I'm in the caribean right now, and things are weird, slow, transient.. but there's a very very gentle side to it. People are way calmer, they smile, they let you pass in front of them. Not everybody, but it's easy to see the difference to most European city. We're running nowhere there.

[unsurprisingly] I saw many 90yo persons there with good health. Walking with family to rituals. Good memory, good spirit. These people often lived in tiny houses with not much. Something to think about.

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Once upon a time, I had a boss who cut a lake house vacation short because she was bored and wanted to come back to work. She spent the rest of the week in a frightening turbo mode, almost as if she were trying to cram all the work she didn't do the first three days of the week into the last two days.

I gather that people who are addicted to stimulants also become anxious if they start to sober up.

Interestingly, this gets into the territory of the Framingham Heart Study, a long-running, prospective cohort study of cardiovascular disease risk.

The data are mixed. One analysis, for example, showed that "Type A behavior" was not correlated with CVD[1]. Another showed that increased tension was associated with heart disease[2]. You can find plenty of other papers on the subject as well.

Job-related stress is a particularly interesting aspect of this. Conceptually, it makes sense that demanding work would increase cortisol levels and lead to CVD, but a number of studies don't bear this out after correcting for smoking, exercise, and so on. However, one could argue that job-stress leads to higher rates of smoking, drinking, etc., which makes the interpretation harder. It may also be that stress at work is not the only factor, and that the combination of high stress plus low control over one's work is substantially worse than one or the other alone.[3]

It is a bit unsatisfying to not have a clear answer, but I think the issue is more nuanced than I would have assumed.

[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/665654 [2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16204425 [3]https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/jaha.117.008073

I noticed much of the same thing on the big island, Hawaii.

I grew up in a slow, small town so the pace and friendly nature felt more natural to me than living in the city does (don’t smile too much or be too engaging if that’s not your station or people will treat you with suspicion at first).

At the same time (in and around Kona) I constantly saw people excercizing. And everybody seems to hangout outside regularly. And they get up with the sun because it tends to set pretty sharply after 12 hours.

> And they get up with the sun because it tends to set pretty sharply after 12 hours.

exactly, tropical sun makes you rise early too, which is quite nice. We're really animals tied to sun cycles etc.

Also being around nature makes you lock in its rhythm too. Rain, insects, animals.. it's such a different feeling I can't really describe it. It has no meaning, just tree waving, rivers flowing but you feel happy moving along.

I can't say I could live all year long on an island, because I was born and raised near Paris so.. if pains me a little not to see it. But I know I feel very different on this island.

I looked it up. See table 3 in https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2678018

Hawaii has the highest life expectancy of any US State, over 81 years vs some other states that are over 5 years less!

I think that you would have to correct for socio-economic status, which is strongly tied to health outcomes.

Wow, I'm a bit shocked! I was just in Kona, and healthy food (even just basic produce) was really expensive. I had thought to myself that must take a toll.

Healthy food is extremely cheap on the big island. It's literally growing on trees everywhere and the locals make fun of those who overpay for it.

It's true that avocado, papaya, pineapple, and other classically tropical fruits were very cheap. However I found carrots, onions, green onions, garlic, etc were quite expensive at the KTA.

But, I was only a visitor- did not bargain-hunt- and I am only an anecdote of one.

My grandmother's land is actually used to grow carrots. I don't know how hard nor how good they are though. I think most things can be grown there so you can have a local but still varied diet.

Chinese medicine, for instance, consider onions and garlic generally unhealthy, not something to be consumed all the time or even as part of almost any dish depending on the western cuisine.

Can you share more? I feel like in my quest to learn more about authentic Chinese cuisine onions, scallions and garlic all are incredibly common ingredients.

He's referring to buddhist cuisine. Buddhist philosophy states that pungent herbs or spices alert your senses and fog your brain, preventing mindfulness.

From the wiki:

>In addition to the ban on garlic practically all Mahayana monastics in China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan specifically avoid eating strong-smelling plants, traditionally asafoetida, shallot, mountain leek and Allium chinense, which together with garlic are referred to as wǔ hūn (五荤, or 'Five Acrid and Strong-smelling Vegetables') or wǔ xīn (五辛 or 'Five Spices') as they tend to excite senses. This is based on teachings found in the Brahamajala Sutra, the Surangama Sutra and the Lankavatara Sutra (chapter eight). In modern times this rule is often interpreted to include other vegetables of the onion genus, as well as coriander. The origins of this additional restriction is from the Indic region and can still be found among some believers of Hinduism and Jainism. Some Taoists also have this additional restriction but the list of restricted plants differs from the Buddhist list.

I actually learned this from Chef's Table S3E01 which is a great intro to Buddhist Cuisine if you're interested in learning more. It seems ironic that the five "pungent" herbs are avoided but fermented vegetables are not.

I just came out of some nearly abandonned farming area. Trees full of avocados, mangos, you name it. Makes you think deep.

Tropical climate is really strong so much sun and rain.

I missed the farmer's markets while I was there. Did you happen to hit any of those?

I didn't find food too bad except for certain items that aren't common on the Island. Then again I'm from Canada and we have to ship a lot up from Mexico in the winter if it hasn't been frozen.

The Costco in Kona is your friend.

We did not find time to visit the farmers markets, I would certainly hope those were good.

I think what surprised me the most is that imported things with indefinite shelf lives were still quite expensive.

But it's certainly true that I am accustomed to having access to produce & spices that are probably not grown locally in Hawai'i.

Is it possible that expensive food keeps people from eating too much? Overeating can have a bigger negative impact on lifespan than the type of food that you eat. Almost any food can be healthy in moderation.

Is that possibly because of retirees from the mainland moving to Hawaii?

Are you sure you are not just looking at things from the perspective of being on holidays? The violent crime rate on a lot of Caribbean islands is horrendous.

Violent crime is not incompatible with a slow paced way of life.

"Come to our island, life is so relaxed even criminals are cool"

True, homicide is the highest in the world in the Caribbean and Central America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

Lots of that is civil war, it's a "hidden civil war" because it's basically turf fights between middle management of the cocaine industry.

I don't deny problems, but I'm up north, near the volcano, here life is extremely different. Now in large cities (closer to western lifestyle :p) things are sour..

"There's no proof that stress by itself causes long-term high blood pressure."

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-pr...

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