Everyone’s talking about longevity, but they’re focused on the wrong thing

Let’s start with a hypothetical question: Do you want to live to be 100 years old? For some people, the answer might be an easy yes. But others might have some follow-up questions, like at 100 can you walk? Live on your own? Remember where you put your keys? Because for some, it’s not about how long you live, it’s about how long you live a healthy life where you feel good and can do the things you love. And this, in a nutshell, is the concept of a healthspan.

Unlike how long you live, full stop (a.k.a. your lifespan), healthspan is how long you live without a debilitating disease or medical condition. There’s some obvious nuance and subjectivity there; after all, your idea of “good health” might look different from someone else’s. But for the most part, it means having optimal physical, cognitive, and emotional health even when you can’t fit all the candles on your birthday cake. Here’s what habits you can adopt now to help extend your healthspan.

Healthspan is how long you live well — versus how long you live. That’s (understandably) kind of tough to quantify; in fact, researchers themselves have discussed the lack of clarity or clear metrics when it comes to healthspan. But for the majority of people, “healthspan is really the portion of your life spent in good health where you are physically capable, you're mentally sharp, and you are free from significant diseases or disability,” says Zahi Fayad, Ph.D., a professor of radiology and medicine at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine and a pioneer in the field of healthspans.

And while it’s hard to quantify, people are trying. There’s even a tool, called the healthspan-lifespan gap, that measures how long people live with disease before they pass away. The larger the number is, the more of a gap between healthspan and lifespan. And on a global scale, the gap is getting bigger, with one study finding that people spend nearly 10 years in poor health before they die. And of the 183 countries assessed, the U.S. had the biggest gap of 12.4 years. So while a new report from the CDC shows the average life expectancy in the U.S. to be a new high of 79 years, the average healthspan is much less. This healthspan-lifespan gap may be due to the rise of chronic diseases. According to data from the CDC, more than 90% of people over 65 in the United States report having a chronic condition like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, and arthritis.

Let’s start with a big question: What even is “good health”? There’s very little overarching guidance on this — and while the idea of being 100% free of disease is nice, it’s not exactly realistic for people who’ve been living with an autoimmune disease their whole lives or managing high cholesterol for years. 

But in general, when talking about your healthspan, good health gets divvied up into four buckets:

• Metabolic or cardiovascular health: Ideally, the goal is to have a “good metabolic profile, which means that you have stable blood sugar, healthy levels of cardiovascular risk factors like lipids, and appropriate body composition [or a healthy ratio of fat to muscle],” says Fayad.

• Cognitive health: It’s inevitable that over time, “people have a decline in memory processing speed and executive function,” says Fayad. But minimizing that decline is a critical piece of your overall health.

• Mobility: This means moving without pain, and as a result, being able to remain physically active and keep up with your daily activities.

• Recovery: In other words, “how able are you to recover after, let's say, illness or exercise?” says Fayad. That can influence how you bounce back from getting sick or injured as you get older.

Genetics do play a role. A study in Science found that genes contribute to more than 50% of how long you live. But the other big piece of the puzzle is your lifestyle and environmental factors. For the majority of people, extending your health is a matter of “how you choose to live — whether you're exercising, you're eating well, you're sleeping,” says Dr. Eric Verdin, M.D., the president of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and professor at the University of California San Francisco.

Everyone wants to be healthy for a longer period of time, but where to start? There are a few key areas you can focus on, and — spoiler alert — they won’t be especially shocking. But what does make a difference is stacking them, according to our experts. “None of these lifestyle interventions by itself is the magical pill,” says Buck. “You need to put them all together.” And bonus: A lot of these things help your mental health as well as your physical health. With that, here’s what counts the most.

Get moving

Getting off the couch is one of the best things you can do for your healthspan. “The number one thing that everybody can do right now to slow down their aging clock and extend their healthspan is to exercise,” says Joel Rothman, Ph.D., a professor and founder of the Center for Aging and Longevity Studies at UC Santa Barbara. There’s no single mechanism for why this is, but there seem to be “metabolic changes that are associated with exercise that slow down the rate of aging,” he adds.

Aim for a mix of aerobic exercise, strength training (like weight-lifting), and flexibility (like yoga). “The more varied, the better,” says Buck. The ideal exercise routine is “something that incorporates a little bit of everything, but just moving is already the key thing,” he says. This can have a big impact even if you start later in life: One study in JAMA found that people over 70 who followed a “structured, moderate-intensity” exercise routine remained able to walk on their own for a longer time than those who didn’t.

Eat well

There are lots of ways to eat a well-rounded diet, but more and more research points to the much-lauded Mediterranean diet as being especially good for healthspan. “What all of the evidence points to is that there's one diet that seems to be more healthy than others — it’s what people refer to as the Mediterranean diet, which is a diet rich in fruits and meat, lean meat, vegetables,” says Verdin. Eating this way — which the Weight Watchers Program supports — can make a difference with chronic diseases. For example, one study in JAMA Network Open found that women who more closely followed the Mediterranean diet reduced their risk of mortality, which may be explained by cardiometabolic risk factors.

Sleep soundly

Sleep is one of the most overlooked areas of health. After all, “a lot of people actually take pride in the fact that they ‘don't need any sleep,’” says Verdin. But while you could technically survive on consistently poor sleep, it won’t do your healthspan any favors: A large study found that people who had "healthy" sleep — meaning they slept seven to eight hours a day, didn't experience insomnia, never felt sleepy during the day, and didn't report snoring — was linked to a decreased risk of shorter healthspan. This is likely because sleep regulates pathways across the body, like your metabolic health, your cardiovascular system, and your immune response. And it’s not just total hours asleep that matters. You “need to have a regular schedule where you go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time, including on the weekends,” says Verdin. That consistency has actually been found to protect mental, cardiovascular, and metabolic health.

Get out and socialize

Strong social connections are a strong predictors of healthy aging — which is a big deal considering we’re in a yearslong loneliness epidemic. With that in mind, take stock of the loving, supportive relationships you have. “The more you have, the better you fare,” says Verdin. “And this can be anybody — your spouse, your children, a friend. It just has to be people that you feel that you can open up to and feel supported with.” If you’re a Weight Watchers member, Workshops are the perfect place to make new friends and connect with them weekly.

Find your purpose

Verdin also recommends having a sense of purpose, or, as he puts it, “to have an idea that you are serving something that's bigger than yourself.” Optimism is a big piece of that. In fact, research has found that among older men, optimism seems to help preserve emotional well-being, partly due to helping regulate emotions. A good place to start? Volunteering. Research has found that people over 50 who volunteered more than 100 hours a year had better physical functioning as they aged — and felt more optimistic, too.

Eat healthy, work out, get eight hours of sleep — check, check, check. But if you’ve ever set out on a wellness journey only to find yourself slipping back into old habits after a few weeks (New Year’s resolutions, anyone?) then you already know how tough it can be to stick to big changes. Here’s what experts recommend:

• Start today: Both Fayad and Verdin stress the importance of investing in your healthspan as soon as possible (whether you’re in your 20s or 50s or older). “All these habits — exercise, diet, sleep, and stress or mental health — need to be managed, and you need to work on them throughout your life,” says Fayad. Don’t beat yourself up for not having started earlier. There’s no time like the present.
  

• Find a community: Accountability is important, whether that’s in the form of a walking group, an online community like Weight Watchers Connect, or friends at the gym. “So [being healthy] becomes part of your identity,” says Fayad. 

• Adjust your environment: Avoid keeping ice cream in the fridge, lay out your workout gear next to your bed, stop charging your phone next to your bed — changing your environment to accommodate your goals can go a long way. “People think they have to change themselves, and that's very hard,” says Verdin. “When you change your environment, it just becomes automatic.”

• Give yourself a break: If you twist your ankle and can’t make it out for a morning jog, it can feel discouraging — but it doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch. Things happen, and “you cannot engineer a perfect life,” says Verdin. It’s more important that you try within your abilities and not throw in the towel after a setback.

Joining Weight Watchers can also help your new habits stay put. As a member, you’ll be able to track your food, activity, sleep, and more; get access to the new AI-powered body scanner to monitor changes in fat and muscle mass over time (not available in all locations); be supported by experienced Coaches and registered dietitians; and get lifted up by a community of people striving to extend their healthspan, too.

Unlike your lifespan — which is how long you live — your healthspan is a measure of how long you live well. That can look different for everyone, but in general, it means having good heart health, cardiovascular function, cognitive functioning, and mobility. While genetics does play a role in your healthspan, lifestyle is more important. Your diet, physical activity, sleep, social circle, and sense of purpose in life can all extend your healthspan. Start today — your 80 year old self will thank you!