Improvements.

Seeing as I've been sufferig from blogger's block lately, I thought maybe I'd do a week or so of reposts of old favorites.  While I was looking for some, clicking through my old posts, I found this one from about six years ago:

Here's an interesting mortality calculator.  Not only does it tell you how long you're slated to live, it tells you how much you could increase that by changing certain habits.

I'm supposed to last until mid-2063, when I'm nearly 89 years old.  This is a bit less than the median (the median survival age of the general population, or of those taking the test?)  I blame my parents.

Apparently I could live about eight months longer if I stopped driving, avoided all major stress (at least in the last year of my life), became a conditioning exerciser instead of just an "occasional" exerciser, and stopped having sex.   Six of those months come from exercising.  Apparently avoiding driving is only good for about ten days, and stress for three weeks.   Sex is costing me two whole weeks of my life!

For some odd reason, the model also cheerfully informs me that if I don't mind cutting my life short by 0.34 years, I can increase my alcohol consumption to 2-3 drinks per day.  Is that good news?

I wouldn't call the post a favorite, but of course I couldn't help but check, and it turned out that the mortality calculator is still there.  I took the quiz again today.  With my new lifestyle, and (I suppose) a few extra years in which to demonstrate my survivability, this time I get to live to ... 2068.

In six years, I gained five years of my life!

And I didn't even have to stop having sex.

Comments

[Margaret in MN]

Ha! Lucky for you and lucky, too, for Mark.

[Darwin]

"Having 2-3 drinks a day has maximized your life expectancy"

Heh. I like this test.

[Barbara C.]

I got 88 some odd years. I get to live to watch my oldest become an old woman, too. ;-)