6 Strategies To Improve Healthspan For Each Decade

February 23, 2023 Brian Comly

“Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”

-Better Friedan

Yes, you’re going to die. But aside from a chance accident killing you, you have a lot of control over your lifespan and your healthspan. Unfortunately, the latest trendy supplement or the recent diet fad isn’t going to have much impact. What will, is the unsexy stuff that you do consistently. These generally fall into the six dimensions of health: stress management, movement, nutrition, socialization, mindset, and sleep.

The best thing to do to avoid chronic illnesses and get a good ROI for your overall health is to optimize each one of these areas now and then do it consistently for the rest of your life. The issue is that we’re human and humans can’t successfully begin multiple habits at once and continue to carry them out for long periods. At best, we can start one habit at a time but even those take a ton of effort with high failure rates (hence an 80% failure rate for new years resolutions by February).

So what if you had a full decade to focus on each of them? This is a bit tongue in cheek but each decade of your life is marked by sociological distinctions and putting a magnifying glass up to those differences will help to support each of these areas of health. Let’s break down the most appropriate pillar as it relates to the biggest stress point of each decade in order to live longer and better.

Note: everyone is different but I’m going to make plenty of generalizations based on ages. Don’t take it all personally (😉).

How To Improve Healthspan

Your 20’s: Movement & Exercise

Age 20-30 consists of some of the most transformative years of your life. If you’re like me you made plenty of bad decisions, had too much fun (read: alcohol), and your body did plenty of forgiving for that fun. The brain is still not fully developed meaning that executive functioning skills are still in the implementation phase. This, along with plenty of energy and a new career means that many 20-somethings don’t have their sleep, nutrition, and stress management dialed in yet although they are crushing the socialization game. The best thing to prioritize in this decade, then, is movement.

Establishing good movement habits here sets you up for the rest of your life. There aren’t many 40+-year-olds who are hitting the gym or signing up for a race if they didn’t do it in their 20’s. When work life, family life, and other time clamps incrementally come along it will be more difficult to create a habit. Start here and set yourself up for life.

Do this:

Find a way to get 8,000-12,000 steps per day, lift 2-3 days a week, have a high-intensity workout every 1-2 weeks (sprints and HIIT count), and balance this all with 3 hours of Zone 2 training (a minimum of 45 minutes per bout) a week, endurance and a rest day here and there. These are the minimums.

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Your 30’s: Nutrition

Everyone looked around 10 years old when they were 10 and 20 when they were 20 but this decade is where that line graph begins to split with the high school reunions being the litmus test. The main factor is because of nutrition. Every cell in our body is made up of what we ate. If they’re fast food cells then your body is likely on the road to diabetes, hypertension, low testosterone, weight gain, and limited energy. If they’re cells made of whole foods you’re on the right track.

You’re less likely to be living with friends or going out to eat on a whim and more likely to have the opportunity to do plenty of home cooking. Set yourself up for success by stocking your pantry with healthy staples, get a decent pot, pan, and knife, and start experimenting with recipes to drop into your weekly rotation.

Do this:

Get your nutrition dialed in with some self-experimentation. Find out what you operate best with: high carb/low-fat diet or low carb/high-fat diet, identify any allergies you might have, and throw in some intermittent fasting here and there. From there, limit or avoid processed foods as well as the big 3: grains, seed oils, and sugar. With this template go wild on finding the best recipes for delicious food.

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Your 40’s: Stress Management

Once you’re over the hill you’re in coasting mode. If you have kids, they're in a solid routine and relatively self-sufficient. You're likely in a stable career and are well beyond the learning curve. And your next life milestones are probably not until your kid’s graduation or your retirement. Stability has arrived.

Stress management should be the primary focus of this period. Since your days are so stable (compared to the wildness that is life before now) you are less likely to handle stressful situations well. It sounds counter-intuitive but undulations in stress are actually a great form of hormesis for the brain and body (for most). In a best-case situation, you have a stressful experience and you’re forced to utilize your sympathetic (fight, flight freeze) response to successfully manage the situation and then eventually activate the parasympathetic nervous system (rest, digest, repair) while coming out a more resilient person and adapting to better handle similar situations in the future. In a worst-case scenario, you’re in a constant sympathetic state (chronic stress) and develop maladaptive behaviors associated with all forms of stress from microstressors to trauma. You never achieve a sense of resilience, growth mindset, or the skill to buffer stress, further perpetuating this cycle.

Regardless of which of these scenarios you associate yourself with more, being more adept at handling stressful situations requires practice outside of the situation itself. After all, you can’t teach someone to swim when they’re drowning.

Do this:

Find active stress management techniques and practice them regularly. Challenge your mind and body with hormesis as a tool for resilience by incorporating sauna, cryotherapy, fasting, and exercise into your routines. Other stress management techniques include breathwork, biofeedback (with HRV), mindfulness, talking to a psychologist, and meditation (through apps such as Headspace, Insight Timer, or Waking up).

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Your 50’s: Sleep

The corporate ladder is climbed with nowhere else to go, the innocent kids are no longer innocent, and those underlying health issues require more frequent doctor visits. These might be some reasons why your 50’s is the most emotionally difficult..

In a 2013 survey of 23,161 Germans between 17 and 85 years old, researchers found that there was a U-shaped curve in life satisfaction. The bottom of that U is right in the middle of this decade. The authors theorize that this might be due to “unmet expectations that are felt painfully in midlife.”

One of the best ways to mitigate the difficulties through this tough decade is with better sleep. Good quality sleep is arguably the most important thing you can do for your health. It improves your mood, your stress tolerance, and your relationships. Low quality sleep leads to weight gain, low testosterone, hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, anxiety, and depression.

It’s in your 50’s that sleep architecture begins to decline due to hormonal changes in cortisol, melatonin, ghrelin, and leptin. More frequent waking, more difficulty falling asleep, and less deep sleep are some of the common signs although snoring, sleep apnea, and REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) doesn’t help either. These issues, in addition to common diseases like diabetes, impact your quality and quantity of sleep, and dozing off for anything outside of the recommended 7-9 hour period shortens life.

Do this:

Start by changing your mindset on sleep and making it sacred and a high priority. Modify your sleep hygiene by incorporating black-out shades, taping your mouth shut for better nasal breathing, and avoiding food and blue light for 3 hours before bed. Track your sleep with wearables such as Fitbit or Garmin watches. If your sleep is still not dialed in, seek a sleep medicine practice. (Don’t worry, many sleep tests can now be done at home.)

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Your 60's: Socialization

Yes, you’re plumped into the geriatric category this decade but you’re also approaching the best year of your life. According to that same life satisfaction survey mentioned above, 69 years old is up there with 23 years old as the best years of your life.

In this decade you're probably not going to be convinced to overhaul your diet, hit the trails for a hike a few days a week, or finally start that meditation practice. You’re stuck in your ways and that's okay as long as your ways are healthy. The final pillar of health, socialization, is the most likely modification you’ll make here with the strongest impact.

The average age of retirement in the US is 62 and the average lifespan is 79. That’s 6209.25 days to live it up with people you love.

Do this:

Schedule trips with friends, monthly dinners with family, weekly bike rides with your friends, or backyard happy hours with the neighbors. Whatever activity you put around it, just make sure you’re in the physical proximity of friends and family more often.

Your 70’s: Mindset

Mindset is everything. It shapes the way we see ourselves, our place in the world, and the world around us. It can be broken down into many different areas but generally, people can be sorted into two categories: having a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. Most people aren’t one or the other, but rather a mix of the two (although 40% of people have a fixed mindset according to a lead researcher). These mindset differences are the difference between tough and weak, successful and unsuccessful, and even life and death.

Sure, mindset affects our day-to-day actions and perceptions but how does it impact our health? One study measured tested people’s mindsets and subdivided them as either optimistic or pessimistic and then followed them for years. They showed that the optimistic men and women live 11% and 15% longer respectively than their pessimistic peers.

And then there was this interesting New York Times article that discusses the 1981 Counterclockwise study. Eight men in their 70’s spent five days at a chateau that replicated 1959–22 years earlier. They were treated younger (and told to carry their luggage upstairs on their own), old shows like Jimmy Stewart played, and “current events” like the first satellite were on display without any evidence of the modern world. The men were measured prior to the transportation and afterward and the results were impressive: “They were suppler, showed greater manual dexterity and sat taller” and even their eyesight improved.

Do this:

Changing your mindset is no small feat, especially in the later stages of life, but it is possible. Mindset change starts with changes in your beliefs. As Hendry Ford said, “whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.” Look at challenges as opportunities, not obstacles. Practice gratitude. Focus on the process, not the achievement. Look at every situation as a way to get better. Jocko states this perfectly in one of my favorite videos of all time.

Takeaway

Becoming more well-rounded from a health perspective takes time, interest, and knowledge. The best time to start this healthy aging process was yesterday and the second best time is now. So, regardless of your age, find your weakest link impacting your healthspan and address it now for an impact on your quantity and quality of life.

If you’re interested in learning more about these pillars of health, subscribe to the MindBodyDad newsletter for a free PDF.

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