Infinitely Curious: ‘Ikigai’ – Reason for being | 08.10.2023

‘IKIGAI’ : IKI (LIFE) GAI (WORTH) This Japanese word literally means “the happiness of being constantly occupied or the reason for being, which can help us to determine what it is that we want to wake up for in the morning. IKIGAI is centered around a person’s true purpose in life. Finding your ikigai is said to make life more meaningful. One of the most popular books about longevity is “Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life,” written by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles. In Okinawa, Japan, a blue zone with the highest concentration of centenarians in the world, ikigai is a common theme, according to García and Miralles who interviewed some of the world’s oldest peoples including residents from 3 more blue zones, Sardinia in Italy, Loma Linda in California, Nikoya peninsula in Costa Rica and the island of Ikaria in Greece. Find out from cardiologist and geriatrician Matoko Suzuki and American Japanese author of ”How to Ikigai: Lessons for finding Happiness and Living your Life’s Purpose”, Tim Tamashiro, why the healthy diet, simple life in the clean air, the herbs they consume, and the climate they live in, is not the main reason for living more than 100 but the ikigai that runs through the veins of those centenarians, in other words the art of always ageing young.