Optimize for Healthspan.

We are living longer as a species as the average life expectancy has increased considerably over the years. In 1900, the average life expectancy of a newborn was 32 years. By 2021, this had more than doubled to 71 years. ¹ According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Lifespan is the duration of existence of an individual, the average length of life of a kind of organism or of a material object, especially in a particular environment or under specified circumstances, while Healthspan is the length of time that the person is healthy—not just alive. ² Healthspan is the period of life spent in good health, free from the chronic diseases and disabilities of aging. ³

‘You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.’ – H. L. Mencken

We cannot control the length of our lives, which is somewhat predetermined by our lifespan, but we can do something about our healthspan by making decisions that would make us live a healthy life. As author and motivational speaker Jim Rohn often said, “Life is the struggle to keep death at a respectable distance. Death wants to move in prematurely. Life’s job is to keep pushing back! For most of us, we live our young adulthood striving for wealth while we use our old age using that same wealth to care for our health. By optimizing for one’s health, one has a fighting chance for old age not to be as stressful as usual.

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. – Samuel Ullman

My number one priority in life is to stay healthy, and I try to stay in top shape by optimizing my health by consistently Meditating, Exercising, Eating a balanced diet and getting at least 7-8 hours of sleep daily. It takes a lot of self-discipline to stay consistent with these healthy living practices, but I always remind myself: You can’t fit a wheelchair in a Lamborghini. When all is said and done, we have only one body and one chance to treat it as the temple that it is. According to the World Health Organization ⁴, regular physical activity is proven to help prevent and manage non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and several cancers. It also helps prevent hypertension, maintain a healthy body weight, and improve mental health, quality of life, and well-being.

In the past two years, I have tried to prioritize my health by working on my cardiovascular fitness by swimming, running, basketball, and playing racquet sports such as pickleball, lawn tennis and badminton, among others. I have participated in 15 full marathons – 2022 (6) and 2023 (9) in the past few months. My YMCA card has become one of my most prized possessions as I average at least 2 hours of exercising daily to train for either a marathon or my general fitness.

We cannot choose how many years we will live, but we can choose how much life those years will have. We cannot control the beauty of our face, but we can control the expression on it. We cannot control life’s difficult moments but we can choose to make life less difficult. We cannot control the negative atmosphere of the world, but we can control the atmosphere of our minds. Too often we try to choose and control things we cannot. Too seldom we choose to control what we can … our attitude. – John C. Maxwell

Lifespan deals with death, which is binary: you’re alive, and then you’re dead.

Longevity has two components. The first is how long you live, your chronological lifespan, but the second and equally important part is how well you live—the quality of your years. This is called healthspan. Longevity demands a paradigm-shifting approach to medicine, one that directs our efforts toward preventing chronic diseases and improving our healthspan—and doing it now, rather than waiting until disease has taken hold or until our cognitive and physical function has already declined.

Lifespan deals with death, which is binary: you’re alive, and then you’re dead. It’s final. But before that happens, sometimes long before, most people suffer through a period of decline that, I would argue, is like dying in slow motion. In Medicine 3.0, we have five tactical domains that we can address in order to alter someone’s health. The first is exercise, Next is diet or nutrition (nutritional biochemistry.), The third domain is sleep, The fourth domain encompasses a set of tools and techniques to manage and improve emotional health. Our fifth and final domain consists of the various drugs, supplements, and hormones that doctors learn about in medical school and beyond – exogenous molecules, meaning molecules we ingest that come from outside the body.”

“Exercise. Nutrition. Sleep. Emotional health. Of course, we want to optimize all of these. But the devil (or, to me, the delight) is in the details. In what way(s) should we be exercising? How are we going to improve our diet? How can we sleep longer and better?”

Keep Fit ⁵

Keeping fit is not a tedious job. Treating your body with the ordinary care you give your automobile or your dog is not a nuisance. Giving your body the stimulation of good, wholesome food is more fun than doping it with artificial stimulants. Again I challenge the scoffers who say that living right is not more thrilling than living wrong. You can keep yourself fit and enjoy doing it. Make it a game. Make it the hard thing to do not to eat right, not to take regular exercises, not to get the proper amount of sleep. You can play bridge until midnight, but not every night and feel rested in the morning.

There is no secret to good health other than just plain, good common sense. You wouldn’t let your automobile go along, week after week, month after month, without the proper mixture of oil and gas and overhauling. Why, under heaven, do you expect your body to carry on without at least the same consideration? You wouldn’t keep a dog or a horse cooped up in a stall all day without a chance to stretch its legs. Then why expect to avoid trouble if you treat your own priceless machine in such a manner? Everybody knows these things, but so few do anything about it. I have never been able to understand why people are not willing to pay the small price for good health.

Eight hours’ sleep. Open windows. Regular daily exercise, morning and night. Eat the things that agree with me—but not overeat. Walk my mile a day. Open air every noontime and on vacations. Plenty of sunshine. Practice simple rules of posture which make me feel better; besides, the man who walks straight and sits straight, I believe thinks straight.

Meditation

Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – Renewal
Spring as a way of sneaking into our awareness from a distance as winter gusts its last wind. A few warm days sprinkled in between the cold ones, the days inch a little longer and the shape of the shadow begins to change. In spring, every sight and sound is a sign of rebirth and renewal, the flow of the rivers, the chucks of the birds, the buds and blossoms of the plants, and the warming glow of the sun.
A change of season is a chance to begin again, to say goodbye to anything we need to let go of and to say hello to anything we need to hold closer.

“Music comes from an icicle as it melts, to live again as spring water”~ Henry Williamson.

Daily Jay with Jay Shetty – Empty Your Cup
Many of us want to grow, at least in theory, but in practice, we are neither open-minded nor flexible. Whether intentionally or not, we often approach the world with little or no room in our cup.

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow; learn as if you were to live forever” – Mahatma Gandhi

Daily Trip with Jeff Warren – Hold the Direction
Meditation is like a gentle but steady wind on any one day; the effects may be subtle, but over time, its continuous influence grows, builds and ultimately can reshape the landscape of who we are.

Meditation is like a gentle wind that blows steadily in a single direction over time, its influence grows slow, steady, and patient.

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