How to Get Younger and Not Die Before You Die

How old are you. No, really?

You might be older (or younger) than you think.

Did you know that we actually have 2 ages? A chronological age and a biological age.

Our chronological age is based on the year we were born.

I was born in 1988 - my chronological age is 36.

I know… Duh.

But have you heard of your biological age?

Your biological age reflects the amount of damage to cells and tissues in the body over time. It’s believed to be a more accurate indicator of your health and functional capacity than chronological age.

To further complicate things, we also have 2 scales for measuring the quality and length of the human experience - lifespan (the number of years you live) and healthspan (the number of years you live while healthy and functional).

A poor healthspan could be thought of as the last 12-15 years of your life being rather miserable - tons of medications, chronic health problems, issues with mobility or mental decline, etc.

The goal for a long and healthy life = reduced biological age and increased healthspan.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s just assume that the lower the biological age, the greater the expected healthspan.

Cool, so how is biological age determined? There are a number of ways, many of which are free or are becoming increasingly accessible, while others are still out of reach for most.

Here are a few that most people can get started with:

• Physical Health

  • Cardiovascular health

  • Vision and hearing

  • Joint mobility

  • Blood pressure

  • Strength

• Blood biomarkers

  • Cholesterol (HDL, LDL; particle size is increasingly valuable to know)

  • Specific proteins in the bloodstream

  • Inflammatory markers

• Mental health

  • General cognitive performance

  • Resilience

  • Stress

  • Sleep

These are just a few and there are a lot of ways to test each of them, but it’s a starting point.

See if you can rate yourself on each of these. There are vast amounts of scales and systems to do this, if you’re so inclined. I would recommend simply using a 1-10 scale and follow your gut.

Once you understand where you are today, time to identify your goals and gaps and get to work.

Of course, you already know what that looks like:

• Diet

• Exercise

• Rest/sleep

• Mental health

Here’s a general rule of thumb I’m striving for to continue to improve my biological age and healthspan.

Diet:

• 80% whole foods, lean meats, etc. / 20% junk

• Manage night-time snacking

• Reduce/eliminate alcohol

Exercise:

• Strength training 3x/week

• Mobility 5x/week

• High intensity cardio 1x/week

• Zone 2 cardio 3-5x/week

Rest/Sleep:

• Oof, this is a tough one…

• Striving for 8 hours a night

• No TV 1 hour before bed

• Read for 10-30 minutes

• Light stretching

• Striving for healthy rest periods during the day

• **This has historically been a challenge for me… Managing my energy state is quite the daunting task.

• ** Having a little man waking up throughout the night certainly increases the difficulty here, too.

Mental Health:

• Meditation 3-5x/week (goal is daily)

• Learning to see adversity as growth

• Learning to dissociate with unhealthy thought patterns

• Intertwined with quality/frequency of good rest and sleep

• Focusing on gratitude, love, community, purpose, and “zooming out”

It’s always a work in progress and we keep moving forward. That’s what makes it fun.

It’s also hard AF.

The environment we live with in America has been designed to promote a sedentary lifestyle and overall sense of “business” while also increasing the amount of processed junk we eat.

The average Amercian today consumes around 24% more calories each day than we did in 1970 (~2,400kcals/day in 2010 vs. ~2,000kcal/day in 1970), spends more than 70% of their waking hours sitting, and around 30% of us are physically inactive.

Just to illustrate the point, the American lifespan was on a rapid climb for the last few decades, hitting 79 years in 2019. Nice.

Notice that word - lifespan. Not healthspan, which tells a different story…

However, in 2021, lifespan dropped to 76. How much of this was from Covid? We may never know for certain, but that doesn’t really matter. Only you know which track you’re on.

We were seeing an increase in lifespan and a decrease in healthspan. Now, both are falling. Is it the “loneliness epidemic”, our diet, sedentary lifestyle, stress, all of the above?

Regardless, we have more power than we sometimes believe.

So the question is, how old are you, really???

Take a step back to look at your lifestyle.

Work. Play. Rest. Exercise. Diet. Stress. Community. Emotional health.

Can you put a score from 1-10 on each?

Where are you falling short? Where is the easiest area to start turning things around? How could you design OUT elements that are detrimental to your healthspan and overall quality of life TODAY?

P.S. If you’re curious… Based on my recent comprehensive blood panel, it turns out I’m only 27.

Keep going.

Geoff