Ditch Your Snow Shoes—You’ve Had Your Share of Cold Weather

sean keenan

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My great-aunt Nell outlived her six siblings by a couple of decades at least. I’m reminded of her every year around this time. February.

Aunt Nell lived in Rochester, New York, but there was no way she’d consider spending the winter there. Rochester’s way up on Lake Ontario. Those Great Lakes ice storms that drop frozen seagulls onto the streets of Brooklyn and freeze unwary ducks into the ice of the Central Park ponds hit it like a tsunami of liquid nitrogen.

Aunt Nell didn’t care for that. She spent her winters feasting on fresh peaches down in Florida, lounging in the garish floral smocks I remember as her signature look, and adding decades to her life.

OK, one man’s great aunt isn’t a comprehensive scientific study, but I can confirm that getting away from the winter didn’t just add years to her life. Forgive me for the cliché, but, it added life to her years. In the dull monochrome of the 1970s, I always remember her in full color.

Last winter, I was in Vilcabamba, Ecuador, a place associated with exceptional longevity. Whether people there do live longer is disputed—every study concludes something different—but what I can confirm is that people live better.

It’s not just Vilcabamba, I’ve seen it all over the temperate world: Outdoor activities every day in temperatures that soothe the muscles and joints; clean mountain air; a rainbow of fresh produce year-round, al fresco socializing with like-minded folk. It all adds up to something.

Longer life? I don’t know. A vigorous, gregarious, Aunt Nell life? Yep, I saw evidence for that. Start planning. Your body doesn’t need another winter.

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