# Can I live, bored, for ever?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-live-bored-for-ever/284369
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 12, 2005, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-live-bored-for-ever/284369 "2005-01-12T09:41:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2005, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-live-bored-for-ever/284369/1 "2005-01-12T09:41:40Z")
I gather that living on a low calorie diet, or living in a low oxygen atmosphere, can increase longevity (by living/metabolising slower, I guess).
As the number of heartbeats (at least in mammals…) is also linked to length of life, could you also increase your life-span by artificially slowing your heart-rate?
And further, if you were to employ all three methods simultaneously could you have an enormous, albeit deathly dull, life?
Apologies if this has been covered before - that doggy longevity thread reminded me to ask…
---
### Author:  [@Khampelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khampelf)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2005, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-live-bored-for-ever/284369/2 "2005-01-12T16:45:40Z")
no, It will just seem like forever.
---
### Author:  [@audiobottle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audiobottle)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2005, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-live-bored-for-ever/284369/3 "2005-01-12T17:06:40Z")
I doubt that it’d be able to extend your life any appreciable amount. If anything, the lack of exercise and such could shorten your life since your muscles could atrophy and you’d have all sorts of problems with staying stationary for so long. Plus there’s the whole issue with your telomeres whose length won’t be affected any by this plan.
---
### Author:  [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2005, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-live-bored-for-ever/284369/4 "2005-01-12T22:07:29Z")
> [@The Sonoran Lizard King](#):
>
> no, It will just seem like forever.
Winston Churchill was once asked the secret of longevity, and he replied: "Don’t drink, don’t smoke, stay away from women, and you’ll live to be a hundred. And it will seem like two hundred.
---
### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2005, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-live-bored-for-ever/284369/5 "2005-01-12T22:17:38Z")
The only problem with that is that if you have too low a metabolism, you’ll die. So, there are real limitations to how slow you can make your metabolism, otherwise we’d be a lot further along in cryogenics/cold sleep than we are.
---
### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2005, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-live-bored-for-ever/284369/6 "2005-01-12T22:33:06Z")
> [@Staggerlee](#):
>
> As the number of heartbeats (at least in mammals…) is also linked to length of life, could you also increase your life-span by artificially slowing your heart-rate?
Really? I should stop doing aerobic exercise? :eek: Could you cite a reference, or at least explain what you mean? I could possibly accept that claim at a species level but not at the individual level.
---
### Author:  [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2005, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-live-bored-for-ever/284369/7 "2005-01-12T22:43:12Z")
I was more asking than stating anything. Isn’t it the case that a mouse and an elephant’s hearts beat roughly the same number of times, with the elephant’s beating slower, thus the elephant living longer? It was on that basis I was speculating that to artificially lower heart rate might increase life-span…