Dan Buettner Keynote Speaker

Journalist who explored the "blue zone" hotspots where people live longest and healthiest lives
Author of bestselling book "The Blue Zones Secrets for Living Longer"
Works with governments, employers and health insurance companies to implement Blue Zones Projects

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Dan Buettner's Biography

Dan Buettner is an explorer, National Geographic Fellow, award-winning journalist and producer, Netflix Host, and New York Times bestselling author.

He discovered the five places in the world – dubbed blue zones hot spots –where people live the longest, healthiest lives.

His articles about these places in The New York Times Magazine and National Geographic are two of the most popular for both publications. Buettner now works in partnership with municipal governments, large employers, and health insurance companies to implement Blue Zones Projects in communities, workplaces, and universities.

Blue Zones Projects are well-being initiatives that apply lessons from the BlueZones to entire communities by focusing on changes to the local environment, public policy, and social networks. The program has dramatically improved the health of more than 5 million Americans to date.

In his new book The Blue Zones Secrets for Living Longer, Buettner returns to Sardinia, Italy; Ikaria, Greece; Okinawa, Japan; Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula; and Loma Linda, California to check in on the super-agers living in the blue zones and interprets the not-so-secret sauce of purpose, faith, community, down-time, natural movement, and plant-based eating that has powered as many as 10 additional years of healthy living in these regions. And Buettner reveals an all-new Blue Zone—the first man-made Blue Zone yet explored.

Buettner also holds three Guinness World Records in distance cycling.

Dan Buettner's Speaking Topics

To find the path to long life and health, Dan Buettner and his team study the world’s “Blue Zones,” communities whose elders live with vim and vigor to record-setting age. In his talk, he shares the 9 common diet and lifestyle habits – Power 9® – that keep them spry past age 100. What should you be doing to live a longer life? Dan Buettner debunks the most common myths and offers a science-backed blueprint for the average American to live another 12 quality years.

In 2009, Albert Lea, Minnesota, a statistically average American city, completed a one-year community health experiment that raised life expectancy by three years, trimmed a collective 12,000 pounds off waistlines and dropped healthcare costs of city workers by some 40% – and they’ve continued to sustain the results. Harvard’s Dr. Walter Willett called the results “stunning”. Hear how one typically unhealthy American city reversed the trend, reshaped their environment to live longer, better, and boosted happiness. They got healthier without thinking about it.

What makes us happy? Most people are misguided or just plain wrong. Living our best life involves optimizing how we evaluate our life, how we experience it from day to day and how to live out our purpose. Following the model he pioneered with Blue Zones of Longevity, Buettner worked with Gallup to identify the happiest regions of the happiest countries in the world and distilled their lessons. He also drew from data that represents 95% of the world’s population and a consensus of the world’s top experts to debunk some commonly believed myths. Using stunning National Geographic photography, Dan brings the stories and concepts to life, offering an evidenced-based, long-lasting strategy to set up your life to live your happiest life.