Why ‘Healthspan’ Is More Important than Lifespan—and 13 Ways to Maximize Yours

With human longevity, it’s very easy to get obsessed with age—namely, that the bigger the number, the better. But how to stay healthy into those later years is arguably much more important.

“Simply living to 100 is not going to mean anything if the last 20 years of your life are spent bedbound and in a care home,” says Leslie Kenny, a co-founder of Oxford University’s Longevity Project and the founder of the startup Oxford Healthspan.

Instead, Kenny and other longevity experts prefer to focus on “healthspan”: the number of years someone lives a healthy, functional life. It’s a concept that’s more relevant than ever. For the last century or so, the average human life expectancy has gradually ticked upwards, thanks to improvements in things like medicine, diet, and working conditions. Now those gains are levelling off—or even decreasing. A new, headline-grabbing study in the journal Nature Aging has found that, without huge scientific breakthroughs, “survival to age 100 years is unlikely to exceed 15% for females and 5% for males.” On average, life expectancy will settle around 84 years for men and 90 years for women.

This is basically because we’ve made all the big gains already. As King’s College London professor Norman Lazarus puts it, “we’ve removed those things that used to kill us.” But abandoning a goal to live to 100 and beyond doesn’t mean giving up on staying healthy. There are basic, effective habits we can adopt that will drastically increase the quality of our later years. Here’s what some of the world’s experts on aging and longevity recommend for how to stay healthy for longer.

Leslie Kenny, founder of Oxford Healthspan and co-founder of the Oxford Longevity Project

In her 30s, Kenny was diagnosed with autoimmune conditions, including lupus, and told she had five years to live. A combination of hospital treatment and lifestyle changes helped her put those conditions into remission, and she’s now reached 59. She stresses that fancy longevity science is only helpful if we get the basics right: “We can put seatbelts in cars,” she says, “but if you’re going to drive 120 miles per hour up the wrong side of the street, those seatbelts aren’t going to save you.” There are five things she recommends focusing on:

Get to bed by 10 p.m.

“Deep sleep, which we tend to experience at the beginning of our sleep cycle, generally only happens between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.,” says Kenny. “If we’re not asleep between those hours, we don’t get the benefits from it.”

Stay social

“We know men are worse at maintaining vibrant social connections throughout their lifetime,” she adds. They get married and tend to neglect their friends, who are “absolutely vital” for mental health. One idea to fight back? Find an interesting, engaging hobby that has a social aspect—ideally with people from different generations.

Eat well

This means lots of vegetables, “sensible amounts” of fruit, and, especially as we get older, protein from healthy sources, like sardines, anchovies, and mackerel. Other great options are mushrooms, which include vitamin D (associated with stronger immune systems) and walnuts, which are high in omega-3 fatty acids, and so Kenny says are “very good for brain health and lowering inflammation in the body.”

Take a hike

“We know trees release chemicals called terpenes, which are anti-inflammatory,” she adds. “Walking in the woods—what the Japanese call shinrin-yoku – actually reduces cortisol, a stress hormone, and that helps with your sleep.” And natural light is general is very important for setting our circadian clocks.

Stay strong

Maintaining muscle use is really important as we age: “Muscles make an anti-inflammatory chemical called myokines, and inflammation is a real problem—it will make us live shorter lives that are lower quality,” Kenny says. Strength training could mean going to the gym, or just carrying your groceries or moving bags of soil while gardening. “My personal favourite is to use these blood-flow restriction bands from Japan called Kaatsu,” she adds. They cause the pituitary gland to release more growth hormone, to help build muscle even among older people. Maintaining your leg muscles is crucial. As Kenny’s colleague at the Oxford Longevity Project, Sir Muir Gray, once said to her, “if you can’t sit down and get up from the toilet, that is your one-way ticket to a care home.”

Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California

Eat within 12 hours each day

“There’s a lot of people talking about fasting for 16 hours a day, but we know that if you skip breakfast, that’s not good for you for many different reasons,” says Longo. Eating between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. is “a very simple rule”, he says—he’s “never seen a single negative publication” say it’s harmful.

Three or four times a year, do a “fasting-mimicking diet”

This is a five-day vegan diet that mimics the effect of fasting on the human body. After about 32 clinical trials, it seems to be “very consistently effective” in causing stem cell activation and something called autophagy, when cells recycle their damaged components. There are clinically tested FMD products which Longo says are “very easy to find in most countries around the world.”

Joanna Bensz, CEO of Longevity Centre Europe

Meditate

Research shows that regular meditation reduces cortisol levels, which in turn supports heart health and the immune function. “Just 10 minutes a day can improve our stress resilience and positively affect blood pressure,” Bensz says. “This can be a part of a morning routine or a short break during the day.”

Exercise regularly, and in moderation

“People who engage in regular moderate physical activity, like walking or yoga, have a lower risk of death from heart disease and cancer. Interestingly, excessive exercise can increase free radical levels, which may counteract some benefits. The key is daily, moderate activity.”

Eat healthy fats

“The Mediterranean diet, rich in vegetables, nuts, olive oil, and fatty fish like salmon, can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by up to 30%. Omega-3s in fatty fish help combat inflammation, which is a major driver of ageing processes.”

Philip Borg, radiologist and founder of the Longevity Clinic in Malta

Screen for diseases early

Current healthcare very reactive to problems when they appear, but “by the time a chronic disease is diagnosed, you’ve already missed the boat,” Borg says. If you don’t smoke and you’re above the age of 50, you’ve got an 80% likelihood of dying of cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, or metabolic diseases like diabetes. All these things “take about 30 years to develop,” and the earlier you catch them, the more you can do about them.

Norman Lazarus, professor at King’s College London and author of The Lazarus Strategy: How to Age Well and Wisely

Don’t overeat

You shouldn’t worry about eating special foods—just eat a normal, balanced, heathy diet. “People like to add baubles and beads and bells,” Lazarus says, but the key thing is to not overeat. “Even if the diet is fantastic, if you eat too much, you’re in trouble.”

Find a kind of exercise that you love – and do it religiously

“Most people underestimate just how important exercise is,” he adds. “It’s not something we add. We’ve got lungs, a heart; we breath, we run. We’ve got all of that already built in, and we must use it.” Only about 30 percent of the population are exercising properly, but it helps reduce your risk from “all the common diseases which we’re now dying of,” like Alzheimer’s and heart attacks. You don’t need to do an “Olympic amount”—three hours a week will give you the “maximal” benefit.

“I was quite overweight by the time I was 50,” he adds, “and I decided one day, ‘I’m going to change my lifestyle’. I took up cycling, and my life changed.” Lazarus also does some exercise at home, because cycling doesn’t work on all of your muscles: 15 minutes on his upper body muscles, and a few push-ups, four times a week. “You must choose a physical activity that you enjoy, because it’s a lifelong commitment.” He’s now 88, and cycles “not because I want to exercise, but because I enjoy going out.”

This story originally appeared on British GQ.