Scientists at Harvard have highlighted five healthy habits that improve our physical wellbeing and help us to live longer. They recommend eating healthy, keeping a healthy body weight, not drinking too much, not smoking, and exercising regularly. Adopting these habits can extend life expectancy by 14 years for women, and 12 years for men. The researchers also examined how many of these extra years were healthy ones, free of diseases such as diabetes or cancer. Extending lifespan is not sufficient, we want to extend healthspan, so the longer life expectancy is healthy and free of major chronic diseases, Dr. Frank Hu, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Women who adopted four out of five of these habits lived for an average of 34 more disease-free years after turning 50. Those who did not follow any of the habits only had 24 more disease-free years after hitting 50 years old. The researchers say that people shouldn’t be discouraged if they find following one or two of the habits difficult. "It’s always better to adopt healthy lifestyle habits as early as possible, but even adopting them relatively late in life is still going to have substantial health benefits later on," Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health