From the Land · 6 min read

What Is a Blue Zone? Inside Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula

By Susan Ross · Founder, Pura Vida Collective

“Blue Zone” is the popular term for a place associated with unusually high longevity. Five regions were popularized through the Blue Zones project, including the Nicoya Peninsula in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, where REVIVE is held.

Where the name comes from

The term traces back to demographers studying exceptional longevity in Sardinia, who marked high-longevity areas in blue on a map. Writer Dan Buettner later helped bring the idea to a global audience. The five places most often associated with the Blue Zones concept are:

Okinawa, Japan
Sardinia, Italy
Ikaria, Greece
Loma Linda, California
Nicoya, Costa Rica

What the research on Nicoya shows

What interests me about Nicoya is that there is real demographic research behind the story. Costa Rica’s civil records have allowed researchers, including demographer Luis Rosero-Bixby and international collaborators, to study the region over time. Among the findings:

Older men lived markedly longer. Following more than 16,000 elderly Costa Ricans, researchers found Nicoyan men had a death rate about 20 percent lower than other Costa Rican men between 1990 and 2011, driven mostly by lower heart disease.
One study found longer leukocyte telomeres. Telomeres are protective structures at the ends of chromosomes and are often studied in relation to aging. In that research, social connection was associated with part of the observed difference, including living arrangements and contact with children.
Place and way of life appear to matter. Research on migration found that some of the mortality advantage was reduced among Nicoyans who moved away, suggesting that environment and lifestyle were important parts of the story rather than genetics alone.

The part most articles leave out

A 2023 study by Rosero-Bixby found that Nicoya’s longevity advantage is disappearing. Nicoyan men born before about 1930 are exceptional; those born in the 1940s are not. The hotspot has shrunk as the old way of life has changed.

To me, that does not make Nicoya less interesting. It makes it more relevant. Longevity was never something I wanted to reduce to magic water or a single “secret.” The research points toward a way of living: regular physical work, simple traditional foods, strong social ties, faith or meaning, and reasons to stay engaged with life. When the context changes, the advantage can change too.

What I take from Nicoya

You do not have to move to Costa Rica to learn from Nicoya. Some lessons are directly supported by the longevity research; others are part of what living here has taught me about creating a life that supports health rather than constantly depleting it:

Stay close to your people. Weekly contact with family was tied to healthier aging at the level of the cell.
Move all day, not just at the gym. The elders here worked with their bodies into old age.
Eat simply. Rice, beans, corn, squash, fruit and little processed food.
Know why you get up. Locals call it plan de vida, a reason to live.
Create room for your nervous system to come out of constant demand. This is part of my own interpretation of life here: more time outside, more human connection and fewer hours spent in relentless stimulation.

Longevity at REVIVE

This is one reason REVIVE is held here. We pair ancient ceremony with modern measurement through the REVIVE Baseline, creating a before-and-after snapshot of selected markers while also paying attention to sleep, stress, energy and how you actually feel. We observe patterns; we do not claim that a retreat proves or produces a medical outcome. The point is curiosity, not a promise. And we do it in a region that has given longevity researchers something genuinely worth studying.

REVIVE 2027, a luxury women's healing & longevity retreat in Costa Rica's Blue Zone. January 16 to 23, under the Wolf Moon.

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