Happy 100th Birthday, Nana!

A few years back, I did a CNN documentary called the “Fountain of Youth.” In an effort to try to figure out why some people live to be 100 while most of us don’t, the show’s producer, Emily Probst, put a call into the Centenarian Project at Boston University looking for centurions to share their secrets for longevity. “They’ve got a great family for us,” Emily told me when she got off the phone with Dr. Tom Perls, who leads the project at Boston University. “Charlotte Chipman is 101 and Sara Weintraub, her niece, is 94. What do you think?”

“What do I think?” I said to Emily. “That’s my great-great aunt and my grandmother!”

Today, Nana turns 100. On behalf of my entire family and with great love, we wish her the happiest birthday ever and all the joy in the world. She’s seen a lot in her life and has kept up with it all (how many centenarians do you know with a cell phone, or email?), and her legions of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren love her very much.

So what’s the secret to reaching your 100th birthday? For starters, don’t smoke and keep your weight under control, says Perls. Of course, good genes help, too. Beyond that, he says staying alive involves having a healthy spirit as well as a healthy body.

1. Stay involved
“You very rarely find a lonely centenarian,” says Perls, noting that the people in his study are very involved with their family and their community. “If there’s a wedding, or a bar mitzvah, or a birthday, all you have to do is invite me. Sometimes I go even if I’m not invited,” said my aunt, who lived on her own until she died at age 101 a few months after our documentary aired in 2003.

2. Let go of the bad
“My secret is resilience,” my grandmother told me when I asked her how she’d lived so long. “Resilience is being able to come back after great disappointments and great hurts and great blows and truly be alive.”

3. Do what you love, love what you do
Rueben Landau, who was also in our documentary, practiced law until the age of 103 – he’s believed to have been the oldest practicing attorney in the United States. “I’m happy with what I’m doing,” said Landau, who died in 2007. “If a person’s happy in what they’re doing, that’s going to eventually affect their health.”