As the old saying goes, life is seventy years old. This shows that it is difficult for the ancients to live to 70 years old!
But don't forget the old saying, stand at thirty! Because, in the eyes of the ancients, a person may have the ability to do one thing at the age of 30.
So, although the average life expectancy in ancient times was very low, it doesn't mean that you should be proud of living past 26!
In ancient times, due to the extremely low medical level, children were easy to die before 10 years old, because their immunity was low and they were easy to get sick. If you can grow up healthily to adolescence, you will rarely get sick because of the increase of your body immunity. If it weren't for natural and man-made disasters, you would live to be 60 years old in most cases!
However, due to the high early mortality rate, the average life expectancy has been lowered!
Relatively speaking, scholars live longer. Take the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period as an example. At that time, there was a class called scholars, which was the lowest level of nobility and the highest level that civilians could reach. As long as you study hard, you can become a scholar after graduating from college! So this level concentrated the largest elite in society at that time. At the same time, the average life expectancy of this class far exceeds that of the civilian class! When ordinary people think that it is lucky to live to 60 years old, the life span of scholars often exceeds 65 years old, even 80-90 years old!
Mencius, a famous educator, lived to be 83 years old, Confucius 76 years old, Xunzi 75 years old, Zhuangzi 94 years old, and Mozi is said to have lived to be over 90 years old!
The reason for longevity is simple. Nothing more than a high standard of living, strong self-discipline, proper exercise, and good at easing emotions!
High standard of living: Although Confucius often went hungry when traveling around the world, he was an advocate of insatiable greed! It can be seen that his living standard is still quite high most of the time. Mencius and Xunzi, as great scholars at that time, enjoyed special allowances from various countries, and their lives were not rich, but they were still carefree! Strong self-discipline: At that time, intellectuals were still very ambitious, so they developed a regular life and self-discipline ability. This prevents them from getting carried away in the face of temptation and hurting their strong bodies by overindulgence: life lies in sports, while ancient education not only attaches importance to cultural education, but also attaches importance to physical exercise and military training. Confucius is proficient in six arts, two of which are related to the military. Mastery means that even if he doesn't teach culture, many people will learn to teach military lessons! Good at soothing emotions: Emotion is an important factor affecting health. So, don't let negative emotions affect you. The most typical is Zhuangzi's carefree outlook on life, so he lived to be 94 years old! Sima Yi is a typical taxi! Scholars must first have a set of values that constrain their hearts. Sima Yi is knowledgeable and obedient to Confucianism. Because Cao Cao was born with "too much castration, and his dirty linen can't be publicized", he once refused the official position granted by Cao Cao, which is still a bit of a small character.
A strong body, without a good body, it is impossible to travel all the year round.
Sima Yi is good at soothing emotions and will not be influenced by emotions. Cao Cao asked Sima Yi to be an official, but he refused. Cao Cao told his opponent that if he didn't come, he would be arrested! Scared Sima Yi to take office quickly. The most famous thing is that he refused to go out in the face of Zhuge Liang's challenge, and his inner strength was far from his comparison.
Not to mention the high standard of living, as a senior leader, he can eat whatever he wants!
So it is not surprising that Sima Yi lived to be 72 years old.