4 Lessons I Learned at Hacienda AltaGracia’s Longevity Retreat

Close to the Nicoya Peninsula Blue Zone—which affords loads of Costa Rican longevity lessons of its personal—Hacienda AltaGracia is a luxurious resort that embraces the core tenants of longevity-focused dwelling: wholesome consuming (learn: “three sisters” recipes), out of doors exercise, fostering neighborhood, and having a plan de vida (life goal). These pillars are well-known and well-covered, however at Hacienda AltaGracia’s longevity retreat, I discovered one thing deeper, softer, and extra private.

If you would like true longevity—the place your life is lengthy in years, and your years are lengthy in life—caring for your physique and your self can’t be separated.

What are you doing together with your physique as we speak that may enable you to really feel higher and transfer extra simply subsequent 12 months, and even subsequent decade?

The 50-casita resort within the mountains of Talamanca is utilizing the slower summer time season to spotlight the methods we are able to work longevity ideas into our lives. Every week there may be longevity-specific programming: You may take a (surprisingly difficult) yoga class led by Meilyn Solís Elizondo, attend a fascia circulation (extra on that in a bit), or take pleasure in a sound bath. There are small group conversations, meditations, and exercises, and every month a brand new visiting grasp.

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The grasp for Could is Anisha Chaves, a Costa Rican who has used numerous therapeutic modalities for years, and whose data of the physique is spectacular, whereas her demeanor (vibe, if you’ll) is calming and grounding. (When you get the prospect to go in Could, take it simply to get to satisfy Chaves—she led me by way of a River Bath reset, basically water remedy, that I can solely describe as life-changing.)

In a dialog about plan de vida, lead by Lauren Ferioli, Hacienda AltaGracia’s on-staff well being coach and motion specialist, and attended by Chaves, there was nice honesty and openness in regards to the that means of longevity. That that means is shifting even inside Costa Rica, the place fashionable life is taking the place of a lot of the standard (and historically more healthy) way of life. However finally, it got here right down to this: What are you doing together with your physique as we speak that may enable you to really feel higher and transfer extra simply subsequent 12 months, and even subsequent decade?

These are the skilled ideas and methods I’ll take dwelling and use to age properly.

4 stunning classes I discovered at HaciendaAltaGracia’s longevity retreat

The longevity resort programming at Hacienda AltaGracia makes positive to cowl the well-known elements of what it means to dwell a Blue Zone life, however I discovered some particular, stunning issues about how motion and health may help you reside longer.

1. Care for your backbone

All through my keep, the well being of the backbone emerged as a theme. Chaves talked about it, Ferioli talked about it, Elizondo talked about it.

“Backbone well being is essential for general wellbeing and is vital for postural well being, steadiness, and motion longevity,” says Ferioli. “Articulation and adaptability are essential to take care of—plus ‘versatile backbone, versatile thoughts.'”

By the age of 60, greater than 90 p.c of individuals will present proof of some disc degeneration, in line with Columbia University Irving Medical Center, however by together with spine-healthy moves (just like the pelvic clock and articulated bridge, beneath) in our exercises, we give our entire our bodies a greater probability to age properly and really feel good.

Pelvic clock

“I like the pelvic clock motion as a result of it awakens our connection to our nervous system on the base of the backbone and permits us to align the backbone all the way in which up the chain,” Ferioli says. “Pelvic clock additionally offers us vocabulary to speak about the place we really feel constriction or lack of mobility within the pelvic area.”

1. Begin by mendacity in your again on a yoga mat or different comfy floor. Bend your knees so your ft are flat on the ground.
2. Be sure your spine is in neutral and your shoulders are relaxed and away out of your ears.
3. Place your arms in your decrease stomach, letting the information of your pointer fingers relaxation on high of your pubic bone close to the crease of your thighs and the tip of your thumbs close to your stomach button.
4. Think about that your pelvis is a clock, together with your stomach button at 12 o’clock and the underside of your pubic bone at 6 o’clock.
5. Interact your abdominals and convey your stomach right down to your backbone, lengthening the backbone alongside the ground. It will create a pelvic tilt, the place you are tilting down at 12 o’clock (navel) and up at 6 o’clock (pubic bone).
6. Tilt forwards and backwards right here a couple of instances, till you are feeling such as you’re getting a way of the motion.
7. Use your abs to rotate your clock right down to the facet in order that the three o’clock hip is decrease. ​​Tilt between 3 and 9 o’clock a couple of instances, inhaling and exhaling evenly.
8. Repeat one other cycle in the wrong way.

Articulated bridge

“Articulated bridging is a should for any backbone, because it promotes house for our disc tissue to dwell unencumbered,” says Ferioli. “Spaciousness within the backbone will guarantee a lifetime of mobility, steadiness, and wellbeing.”

1. Lie in your again together with your knees bent and your ft flat on the ground.
2. Tilt your pelvis again and start to peel your again off the mat, vertebra by vertebra, till you are in a bridge, together with your hips within the air and ft nonetheless on the mat. Assist your weight together with your shoulders and do not articulate previous them.
3. Strive to do that section by section fairly than simply lifting your hips as much as get into the glute bridge. You need to press by way of your higher again and roll up slowly.
4. Maintain up high briefly, then roll your backbone again right down to the mat slowly, vertebra by vertebra, and repeat.

2. Care for your fascia

Your fascia (aka, connective tissue) as a system is barely simply now beginning to be understood by science—in line with the Cleveland Clinic, researchers lately realized it offers kind and performance to your whole physique. And after one fascial launch circulation led by Chaves, it was clear that my whole physique understands the significance of it.

Chaves recommends checking and correcting your posture each 15 to half-hour and listening to the wants of your physique to assist assist the fascia. “Integrating free and acutely aware actions into our every day routine helps us steadiness, strengthen, and launch tensions, in addition to oxygenate the physique and promote vitality circulation,” she says.

Need some whole-body strikes to strive? Chaves recommends doing the beneath workout routines everytime you really feel they’re vital (in the event you’re tight, stiff, or sore), however factors out that they are particularly useful to do earlier than going to mattress and upon waking up. “[This] can result in important bodily, psychological, and emotional modifications,” she says.

Oppositional rigidity neck pull

1. Sit in a snug place, together with your backbone lengthy, chin tucked barely, and shoulders down and again.
2. Take your proper hand and place the palm on the left facet of your head, dealing with down (your arm can be curved above your head).
3. Push your head into your head, however do not transfer it—that is known as “oppositional rigidity,” and helps launch your fascia.
4. Whereas nonetheless pushing your head into your hand, pull your head down towards your chest till you are feeling a stretch.
5. Preserve pushing and pulling for a couple of seconds earlier than releasing.
6. Change arms and repeat on the opposite facet.
7. Do that entrance to again and facet to facet till the whole lot of your neck has been stretched.

Eagle arms

1. Sit in a snug place, together with your backbone lengthy, chin tucked barely, and shoulders down and again.
2. Inhale, and convey your arms into a large T-shape.
3. Cross your proper elbow over your left, bend at your elbows and convey your forearms perpendicular to the ground.
4. Cross your wrists to attach your palms collectively (or press the backs of the arms collectively).
5. Press your arms collectively for oppositional rigidity as you carry your crossed arms out and up. It’s best to really feel a deep stretch between your shoulder blades.
6. Maintain this for about 30 seconds earlier than releasing and switching sides.

3. Each day motion could be powerful—nevertheless it’s price it

One thing you’ve seemingly heard again and again in regards to the Blue Zones is that one of many keys to longevity is weaving motion into your on a regular basis, by way of gardening or guide labor or lengthy walks up steep hills. However for many people who are inclined to really feel chained to our computer systems or caught at a desk, altering our way of life to be extra movement-centric can really feel inconceivable (carving out an hour a couple of instances per week to hit the gymnasium is tough already!).

However what’s true is that it’s price it: in the original Blue Zone research, it was decided that the oldest dwelling folks have been getting up and shifting each 20 minutes.

And you can begin someplace small and largely painless—significantly! A small 2024 research within the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports discovered that 10 body weight squats each 45 minutes throughout extended (8.5 hours) sitting did a greater job at serving to the physique with glycemic management than a single, 30-minute stroll.

For Chaves, her most popular type of motion for longevity is dance. “Dance encompasses a lot—from breathwork and free motion to rapid reference to pleasure and pleasure,” she says. “It prompts your inner waters, altering your vibration, and induces sweating, which detoxifies your physique.”

And whereas the Hacienda AltaGracia longevity retreat affords golf cart rides to anyplace you need to go, I discovered the nights I walked again to my casita after dinner have been the nights I slept the very best.

4. Contemplate irritation

There’s a time and place for high-intensity exercises (you want affect, for instance, to improve bone health), however restoration and a mixture of modalities is essential to recollect.

Chaves moved my physique for greater than hour within the River Bathtub reset, a type of water remedy, stretching and shifting my limbs, turning me over in a heat, river-fed and fire-heated pool. Afterward, you’ll say that I used to be vibrating at a excessive frequency—my physique felt relaxed and stretched, the soreness from the day before today’s hike dissipated. I had wonderful vitality for the remainder of the day.

“Water facilitates therapeutic by permitting us to launch management and give up to its actions as we float in a horizontal place, unusual in our every day lives,” Chaves says. She considers aquatic remedy a somatic practice that helps us “join what we predict with what we really feel and launch the tensions held within the physique.”

And science agrees that there are anti-inflammatory advantages of shifting your physique in water. Certainly, a 2019 research within the Journal of Pain Research discovered that water remedy improves ache and fatigue in folks with fibromyalgia.

When you’re usually sore, drained, or run-down after your regular exercises, it may be time to work in one thing new.

I found all of this (and extra) in just some days at Hacienda AltaGracia’s longevity retreat, and far of this programming is offered till July 31. Cannot make it to the center of the Costa Rican cloud forest by then? The resort is investing in evergreen longevity programming to be out there year-round. Pura vida!