NINA HEALTH

ANCIENT WISDOM & MODERN SCIENCE FOR BALANCE AND WELLNESS

ANCIENT WISDOM & MODERN SCIENCE FOR BALANCE AND WELLNESS
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Longevity in a Cup of Coffee

Longevity in a Cup of Coffee

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A few months ago, I came across a local news story about the oldest bartender in Italy—a woman named Anna, 100 years old, who still runs her bar in a small lakeside village on Lago Maggiore. I felt compelled to meet her as someone inquisitive about aging and longevity—not just as a researcher and health coach but as a storyteller.

 

Over the past year, I’ve been documenting the lives of older women across Italy through short interviews and simple videos. These aren’t glossy documentaries but quiet portraits meant to illuminate the architecture of long lives. Many women I spoke to were in their 80s and 90s, each offering a different shade of strength, humor, and grace. Still, something about Anna lingered with me. So, on Easter Friday, I went to find her.

Anna opened her bar in 1958. Since then, she’s opened it nearly every day—no holidays, no vacations, no retirement. When I asked her why, she said: “I love people. And I’m curious. I’ve always been curious.”

The bar is modest—a handful of tables, notes tacked beside the register, a small glass case filled with homemade cakes. Four chickens in her backyard supply the eggs. In one corner sits a computer where Anna reads the morning news. When she hears a word she doesn’t understand, she writes it down and looks it up.

What struck me wasn’t her energy or the novelty of her age. It was the community she’s built. On the day I visited, the bar filled slowly with visitors—some coming to say hello, others just dropping in for a hug. One of the regular customers, a woman (85), said, “I come every day. Anna gives me the strength to live.”

Anna brushes off the attention. “I’m not special,” she says. “I just try to fill people with love and joy. And I listen.”

She listens like she truly believes every story matters.

 

Scientific research shows that longevity is related to genes, inflammation, and telomeres. While those are critical, the most essential ingredient is harder to quantify: how we live, connect, and contribute.

This was the heart of what drew me to Francesca Morganti’s paper, “Longevity as a Responsibility.” Morganti doesn’t treat aging as a passive biological process but as an ongoing interaction between the individual and their environment—a dynamic and situated evolution. Drawing on developmental psychology and ecological theory, she presents aging as something we enact, not endure.

She argues that aging is not about resisting decline but about engaging with the world—socially, emotionally, and cognitively. It’s about recognizing and responding to the “affordances” around us—the opportunities for action and meaning each context provides. And it’s about cultivating a reserve of personal resources over time—not just cognitive, but relational and emotional—that support us as we navigate later life.

 

In Anna’s bar, this theory becomes tactile. She may not speak of social ecology or motivational models, but she lives them. Her daily rituals—baking cakes, greeting neighbors, reading the news—are not about productivity. They’re about rhythm, relevance, and relationship. She selects what brings her joy. She optimizes what she has. And when she needs help, she accepts it.

Researchers call these selection, optimization, and compensation. Anna doesn’t follow the model; she is the model.

In a world increasingly obsessed with tracking steps, hacking sleep, and reverse-engineering youth, women like Anna remind us that a good life is not about stretching time but inhabiting it. She didn’t become a symbol of longevity by design. She became one by presence.

 

So longevity is not just the sum of the years we get. Maybe it’s a form of daily craftsmanship—a way of tuning into life with curiosity, care, and the quiet bravery of repeatedly showing up.

One cup of coffee. One conversation. One choice to stay connected.

That’s not just how we age well.

That’s how we live well.

 

🔗 Read the complete study Morganti, F. (2024). Longevity as a responsibility: Constructing healthy aging by enacting within contexts over the entire lifespan. Geriatrics, 9(4), 93. https://doi.org/10.3390/geriatrics9040093

 

💜 This article reflects my views and does not intend to replace professional medical advice.