Live long and prosper, like the clam

Doing next to nothing isn’t easy – just stare at your wall for a few hours and find out. So it’s nice to see a little credit go to those who enjoy life in the slow lane, even if they are molluscs.

Scientists have now determined after studying five million years worth of creatures on the Atlantic seafloor that ‘‘survival of the fittest’’ should probably be ‘‘survival of the laziest’’.

The researchers had been looking at how a family of lifeforms that includes sea snails, slugs and shellfish had fared over the long term, choosing these species due to the abundance of data available.

The results, announced in the latest edition of the snappily titled journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, were conclusive: the slower the metabolism – the less energy and effort expended – the longer a species lasted.

Scientists didn’t shy away from extrapolating this economics-of-extinction theory to higher species.

‘‘The lower the metabolic rate, the more likely the species you belong to will survive,’’ said Professor Bruce Lieberman, an ecologist who co-led the University of Kansas research team.

‘‘Maybe in the long term, the best evolutionary strategy for animals is to be lassitudinous and sluggish.’’

It is a timely reminder of the wider benefits of taking one’s time, especially in a modern world that thrums along on caffeine, consumption and working harder and faster than ever before.

For starters, going slow is a great way to develop patience. That’s a gift all of its own, especially during times when things are out of our control.

Stopping to smell the roses and observe helps people learn acceptance and, with it, gratitude. There might be troubles in the world and indeed your life, but are they carried on that fresh ocean breeze or in that soft lime green trees turn in spring?

Meditators – those masters of slowing down whose attention is honed to capture the moments that flicker by like frames of a fast-playing video – don’t gain inner peace without effort though, and just the challenge of slowing down builds willpower.

Resilience is gained through endurance, and enduring through quiet times can be a feat indeed. When you declutter activities from the day, reduce the ceaseless mental stimulation of music, TV and banal thoughts, you remove a means of escape. Busyness can be a sedative for reality, without which the minutes at first tick slowly by.

However, with the slow approach also comes the benefit of small mistakes, rather than the big ones created when rushing in.

Molluscs that prevailed longest before going the way of the dinosaurs took the matter of not rushing to the extreme.

The oldest animal ever known, a clam from the Icelandic seabed called Ming, achieved a remarkable 507 years largely due to a metabolism so chilled out it did nothing much at all.

Unfortunately, it is not known how long Ming could have lived.

In 2006, the clam’s long life came to an abrupt end when British scientists opened its shell, impatient for a closer look.

A life well spent? The longest living animal was a 507-yearold clam, which scientists say achieved the feat largely through a slow metabolism. Doing very little has also been found to help species avoid extinction, and it has its benefits in daily life, too.