Wade through the dirty underwear, discarded magazines and half-eaten sandwiches and you find yourself in the heart of the teenager’s lair. Despite first impressions, this is a high-tech space, bristling with the latest gadgetry. You may call it a bedroom, but to its owner it is an arcade, complete with computer, TV, games console, CD player and other electronic toys. No wonder teenagers stay up till the small hours, then have to be prised from their beds in the morning, only to fall asleep during double history. They are their own worst enemies, willing victims of our 24-hour society.

Or are they? It is comforting to think that teenagers are sleepwalking through their lives by choice, because at least that means we should be able to persuade them to lay down their games consoles and go to bed. But if that is the case, how come their peers in the developing world, in areas that lack basic electricity let alone PlayStations, still stay up late into the night? Is it possible that teenagers just cannot get to sleep earlier? Evidence is emerging to suggest that is indeed the case: teenagers are biologically incapable of going to bed at a sensible time.

This is no trivial matter. If teens are refugees from a different biological time zone, then by making them get up and go to school before their bodies are ready we are not just making school life difficult for them and their teachers, we are also putting them at risk. Sleep deprivation jeopardises their future prospects, their health and even their lives. What’s to be done about it?

Being a teenager is a tiring business. Though experts recommend that adolescents get at least 9 hours sleep a night, only 1 in 5 get that amount, with many saying that they have less than 7 hours on school nights. If late nights are bad for British and Australian teens who have to be in class at 9 am next morning, they have got to be worse for youth in the US, where schools start as early as 7 am, and in much of continental Europe where an 8 am start is the norm. No wonder the most recent survey, published by the US National Sleep Foundation in March, found that more than a quarter of 11 to 17-year-olds fall asleep in class at least once a week, and that over 50 per cent say they do not get enough sleep and feel tired during the day.

So why don’t teenagers just turn out the lights, go to bed and get a good night’s sleep? It’s now looking as though they just can’t.

It has long been clear that different individuals can have markedly different sleep patterns. Most of us display some degree of “morningness” or “eveningness”: we are either “larks” or “owls”. This is largely a matter of genetics. Natural early risers are born that way, and so are people who prefer to get up late and stay up deep into the night.

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Perhaps you think you stand no chance of clocking up a century. You know that longevity depends in large part on having the right genes, and one glance at the family tree may reveal that yours just won’t pass muster. If so, think on this: centenarians are the fastest-growing demographic group across much of the developed world. Assuming there hasn’t been a miraculous Methuselah mutation in the human genome in the past hundred-odd years, we can draw only one conclusion: the way we live is stretching our lifespans. So, what are the secrets of a long and happy life?

1 Go for the burn

How’s this for an elixir of youth: an X-ray, a mild case of sunburn, a couple of beers and a sauna. If you think all that would leave you feeling anything but youthful, think again. Many researchers believe that small doses of “stressors” such as poisons, radiation and heat can actually be good for you - so good that they can even reverse the ageing process. This counter-intuitive effect, called “hormesis”, was once considered flaky, but in recent years it has been shown to extend longevity in yeast, fruit flies, protozoans, worms and rodents. If the findings extend to people, it could stretch the average healthy human lifespan to 90, says biologist Joan Smith-Sonneborn of the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

How so? Stressors seem to kick-start natural repair mechanisms, including heat-shock proteins and DNA-repair enzymes, to fix the damage they have caused. If this damage is not too severe, the repair systems may overcompensate, building up enough oomph to repair unrelated damage as well. And if you accept the idea that damage equals ageing, this is nothing less than rejuvenation.

There is already some indirect evidence that hormesis has positive effects on human longevity. Between 1980 and 1988, researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, tracked 28,000 nuclear shipyard workers to study the effects of low doses of radiation. To their surprise, they found that the mortality rate of these workers was 24 per cent lower than in a control group of 32,500 shipyard workers of similar ages who were not exposed to radiation.

2 Don’t be a loner

Being sociable looks like one of the best ways to add years to your life. Relationships with family, friends, neighbours, even pets, will all do the trick, but the biggest longevity boost seems to come from marriage or an equivalent significant-other relationship. The effect was first noted in 1858 by William Farr, the British founding father of demography, when he penned (with quill) that widows and widowers were at a much higher risk of dying than their married peers. Large statistical studies carried out since then suggest that marriage could add as much as seven years to a man’s life and two years to a woman’s. The effect holds for all causes of death, whether through illness, accident or self-harm.

Even if the odds are stacked against you, marriage can more than compensate. Linda Waite of the University of Chicago has found that a married older man with heart disease can expect to live nearly four years longer than an unmarried man with a healthy heart. Likewise, a married man who smokes more than a pack a day is likely to live as long as a divorced man who does not smoke. There is a flip side, however, as partners are more likely to become ill or die in the couple of years following their spouse’s death or hospitalisation, and caring for a spouse with dementia can leave you with some of the same severe cognitive problems, largely because of disturbed sleep patterns. Even so, the odds favour marriage. What’s more, in a 30-year study of more than 10,000 people, Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School describes how all kinds of social networks have similar effects.

3 Consider relocation

The world is dotted with longevity hotspots where the number of centenarians exceeds 10 in 100,000. But why? Perhaps the locals are genetically primed for longevity. It could be something in the water. Or it may simply be that these are statistical flukes - places were oldies outnumber youngsters, so increasing the proportion likely to pass the 100 mark. Whatever the reason, the very existence of hotspots raises the question of what sort of environment is most conducive to a long life.

While small doses of radiation and toxins can be beneficial, a neighbourhood humming with either is an obvious no-no. There are also some more subtle environmental influences you should avoid if you want to live long and prosper. A recent study of elderly residents from a poor area of St Louis, Missouri, found that factors such as low air quality and dirty streets tripled the likelihood of their suffering from disabilities in later life. Likewise, a survey by Scottish newspaper The Scotsman in January found that people living in the poorest suburbs of Glasgow had a life expectancy of just 54 - three decades shorter than people in wealthier areas.

4 Make a virtue out of a vice

One of the most informative studies of healthy ageing to date has been conducted at the convent of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Mankato, Minnesota. The nuns there, around 1 in 10 of whom have reached their hundredth birthday, teach us that a healthy old age is often a virtuous one - which means no drinking or smoking, eating healthily and in moderation, and living quietly, harmoniously and spiritually. But clean living is not to everyone’s taste. Besides, what is the point of living to 100 if you can’t enjoy a few wicked indulgences? Assuming you will have some vices, the trick is to choose them wisely.

The idea that one glass of wine a day is actually good for you is now ingrained in the popular consciousness. Some say that wine is what underlies the “French paradox”, the unexpectedly low rate of heart disease in the Mediterranean population. Wine does contain fruit antioxidants, but many of these chemicals are also found in the raw fruit. Beer too has its health lobby. The research literature is rather at a loss to explain these effects, or even to agree that they exist. While the issue is still in doubt, however, is it worth the risk of not drinking?

Another vice that you probably shouldn’t fight too hard is sleep. If you love your duvet, sleep easier knowing the findings of Till Roenneberg of the University of Munich in Germany. He showed that unless you can reset your body clock with lots of bright light and good discipline, fighting your natural lark or owl tendencies can be bad for your health.

5 Exercise the little grey cells

Your best shot at living out a century with an active enough mind to know about it is probably to become a nun. Not only are there many centenarians among the Minnesota nuns studied by David Snowdon of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, but some of them also seem very resilient to the effects of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

Not prepared to take holy orders for the sake of your continuing mental health? Then you had better be smart in the first place. By our mid-twenties, our mental faculties have already reached their peak in terms of reasoning, spatial awareness and memory. After that, things start to decline. The best way to get around this is to start with some excess capacity. Study after study has shown that intelligence, good education, literacy and high-status jobs all seem to protect people from the mental ravages of old age and provide some resistance to the symptoms, if not the brain shrinkage, of dementia. Brain researchers and doctors are starting to refer to it as brain or cognitive reserve.

Some think the effect is simply about having a long way to fall. Others suspect it is more about greater mental efficiency or having alternative options and back-up plans for solving any given problem. Either way, cognitive reserve is a hot research area right now. It seems that boosting your mental capacity might have as potent an effect as the drugs that are already available for dementia. Better yet, it is never too late to begin your cognitive workout. Mental gymnastics are definitely on the agenda - everything from reading to learning new things to interacting with people rather than being a couch potato. But don’t stop with mental exercises. At least one study has shown that older mice produced new brain cells faster and learned quicker than sedentary creatures when they were put on an exercise programme.

6 Smile!

Centenarians have surprisingly little in common, but one thing most do share is their love of a laugh. “These people are gregarious and fun to be with,” says Tom Perls from the New England Centenarian Study. He reckons the key is how they respond to stress. Although a little stress may be good for you, sustained and severe stress can cut your life expectancy. Perls suspects that people born with a sunny disposition cope better with stress, which increases their chances of reaching a ripe old age.

7 Nurture your inner hypochondriac

One obvious piece of advice for anyone wishing to become a healthy centenarian is this: if you’re sick, go see a doctor. But what if you are ill and don’t know it? Lots of life-threatening diseases have innocuous beginnings, and some remain symptom-free until it is too late. Clearly, it can pay to anticipate the worst. So, what are the most effective preventive measures to take, and when should you take them?

Those searching for an early warning system will find a bewildering range of options. A few hundred dollars buys you a full-body CT scan, capable of spotting silent tumours or early signs of heart disease. Numerous cancers and diseases such as diabetes can be picked up early with other simple tests. Meanwhile, genetic screens can tell you whether you have an elevated risk of developing, say, breast cancer, so that you can be extra vigilant.

8 Watch what you eat

There’s good news and bad news for anyone who wants to eat their way to 100. The good news is that you may be able to do it. The bad news is that there won’t be much eating involved. The only proven strategy to extend lifespan is caloric restriction - deliberately eating just enough to get by. This extends the lives of mice by about 30 per cent, and if humans enjoyed the same boost that would be enough to nudge life expectancy past the century mark.

9 Get a life

So, you’re well on your way to reaching the big one-zero-zero. How are you going to make the most of those extra years? What you need is a bit of excitement along the way. Take some risks. Not only will new experiences bring you pleasure, you may also find they have added benefits.

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