She arrived at 122 years of age in top form! Here are all the secrets of the oldest woman in recorded history!
Who wouldn't want to have an elixir of long life? The person who we want to talk about today did not drink any magic potion, but still managed to prolong her existence for a total of 122 years!
Born in 1875 and died in 1997, Jeanne Calment is considered the oldest woman in history (at least according to available data and old archives). What is the formula for a long life? Certainly, it will shock you to discover that Jeanne was not a health nut!
Jeanne Calment (in the photo she is 20 years old) was a French woman who absolutely did not limit or adjust her lifestyle with the objective of maintaining good health. She used to drink a glass of Portuguese wine practically at every meal, she did not disdain tasty and spicy food, loved red meat and chocolate and liked to smoke cigarettes.
Mrs. Calment avoided having breakfast, the only thing she consumed was a maximum of two cups of coffee, but on the other hand, she loved to do physical activities and kept her body fit and in shape. In the course of her life, she was dedicated to swimming, but also to tennis and skating --- and continued to ride her bicycle until her 100th birthday!
To those who think that her memory may have abandoned her after blowing out her 90th birthday candle, well, you are completely wrong! Ms. Calment kept a clear and lucid mind that was without comparison right up to her death, even remembering in detail when she met Vincent Van Gogh, who used to buy canvases and brushes in her uncle's workshop.
Unfortunately, her long life reserved many sorrows, such as, her only daughter's death due to being struck down by pneumonia at the age of 36 and her grandson, who she had raised with lots of love, and lost when he died at the age of 34 due to a car accident.
But in 1988, she was able to enjoy a moment of unexpected celebrity when the journalists, gathered in the French city of Arles for the centenary of the birth of Van Gogh, interviewed her to find out what she had experienced when she found herself face to face with the famous painter exactly a century earlier, in 1888.
What can we learn from her story? Surely, that life is full of surprises and that we can never know what fate has in store for us. Therefore, the best lesson that Jeanne teaches us is to enjoy every moment that we have available, indulging ourselves, from time to time, even in some (small) vices.
