Adding 10 Years to Life

Recently, my social media feed has been bombarded with studies that have found if you want to add 10 years (9.7 years to be exact) to your life compared to people who are sedentary – play tennis. Tennis ranks higher for longevity than other sports like soccer (4.7 years), cycling (3.7 years), swimming or gym workouts.

Why? Tennis offers High-Intensity Cardio: The explosive stop-and-start bursts during rallies improve heart rate recovery and cardiovascular health. Also, tennis provides for Brain Stimulation: described as "high-speed decision training," calculating trajectories and anticipating opponents actively builds grey matter, which helps delay cognitive decline. Plus, the Social Interaction of playing matches, paired with the focus required to track the ball, keeps stress low and motivation high over the course of decades.

I am counting that my energetic sessions hitting with Coach Juhani Mäkinen will enable me to live longer, while my daily encounter with the New York Times crossword puzzle will, in future, help me to remember the names of my grandchildren and where I left my glasses.