Lifespan vs. Healthspan: Why Living Better Matters More Than Living Longer

What is Healthspan? Simple Habits to Live Longer, Healthier, and Better

In this episode of the Healthspan Digest Podcast, Aaron Shaw breaks down the concept of healthspan and why it’s the key to living a longer, healthier, and more vibrant life. More than just the number of years you live (lifespan), healthspan is about how many of those years you spend in good health, free from chronic disease and significant disability.

Aaron explores:

✅ The difference between lifespan and healthspan

✅ Why extending your healthspan is simple, but not always easy

✅ The 5 pillars of healthspan: exercise, nutrition, sleep, emotional well-being, and preventative care

✅ Common mistakes people make when trying to improve their health

✅ Why relying on quick fixes or the medical system isn’t the solution

✅ Actionable tips to start improving your healthspan today

💡 This episode is packed with practical advice and powerful insights. Whether you’re middle-aged, feeling the effects of past injuries, or simply motivated to maximize your health and well-being, Aaron’s science-backed, real-world strategies will help you take control of your healthspan.

🎙️ Take the first step today by assessing your current habits and making small, consistent changes. You’re worth it!

#healthspan #longevity #healthtips #healthyliving #exercise #nutrition #sleeptips #emotionalwellbeing #preventativecare #healthyhabits #wellnessjourney #lifestylechanges #fitnessmotivation #healthspanpodcast #aaronshaw

➡️ Listen now and discover how to live better, longer!

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Transcript

Today we're going to answer what is healthspan? What does it really mean? And really, how can you change it? Can you actually extend your healthspan? Can you extend your lifespan? The answer is yes. And I'm going to make it clear that extending your healthspan is actually very simple. It's not necessarily easy, but it is very simple and we can all do it. This episode, along with all other episodes of this podcast, I'm going to leave you with one specific action item you can do today.

starting today to extend your healthspan. But I want us to start off by thinking what it would be like to know if you just knew that you were going to live till you were 90 years old. What if you knew in the last 20 years of your lifespan, you were in and out of the hospital, always ill, really not able to function very well. You're still alive, but you really didn't have health and you suffered through those last two decades of your life. Would you call that a good life? Kind of, it's a deep,

thought exercise perhaps, but I would say no, I think those last two decades would really be terrible. It'd be really tough thing to be alive and not be able to truly engage with life, do the things I want to be able to do, be with, you know, really engage in a meaningful way with the people I love. If I'm in and out of the hospital and I have all these medical conditions, that is the essence of lifespan versus healthspan. So healthspan isn't just about living longer, it's about living better, being healthy, active and vibrant while you are alive.

today, we're going to do a deep dive into what healthspan is, explore why extending healthspan is again, simple, not always easy, but it is simple. We're going to discuss how really relying on the medical system to extend our health is a terrible idea and how you can take control of your healthspan with some easy steps. And I will leave you with one specific step you can do today to extend your healthspan. My name is Aaron Shaw. I am from healthspan physiocoaching for nearly three decades. I've been in the

rehab and fitness industries. And I am a nerd of all things, health related and activity related and performance related. And I am a middle-aged guy with the typical changes in my physiology and my body that happens with middle age. so I am, this podcast, this, business that I have doing coaching is self-serving because it's interesting to me as I have to navigate the same things that I

talk to my coaching clients about and with my podcast. too am dealing with these same changes in life and life stressors. So it is very personal to me. A typical client for me is in middle age or late middle age and are feeling the effects of, aches and pains and some previous injuries, maybe some current injuries. I have clients who have, you know, fought with weight.

dealt with rotator cuff repairs and knee replacements. They've been very active at certain periods of their life. Maybe more recently, they've had challenges with balancing their nutrition. as life happens, we often gain a little bit more weight than we want. have some metabolic concerns. Maybe your primary care doctor gives you that little side eye, like you better change some things in your life. Well, all of these things encompass healthspan. So let's talk about healthspan.

Healthspan compared to lifespan. So lifespan again is a total number of years that you are alive, total number of years you live. Healthspan again is the number of years that you are in good health, that you are free from chronic diseases or significant disability. And I think of it as being healthy, active and vibrant. having the, really having the capacity, the wherewithal, the habits to make the decisions to

Go out and engage in life, not just be a passive participant, not just being alive, but truly living. And I know that sounds so cliche, but once you're in it, you get it you understand it. I think there are five main pillars to healthspan. These are exercise, nutrition, sleep, emotional wellbeing, and preventative care. I've done episodes on, I've done episodes to all of these and there's each one of these pillars, you know, they interact with each other and they all.

when done well will help extend your healthspan.

As an example, I am, again, I'm an occupational therapist and for anybody that knows me, I'm also an avid cyclist. And throughout my career, I have seen people in nursing homes, severely disabled in their early seventies. Typically these people are smokers. They've never really exercised and they've really eaten particularly well. They've never really engaged in really proactive self-care and

If think about it, probably know somebody, you've probably seen somebody in your life that is clearly not really taking care of themselves from a health perspective. And it's tough to see. And especially it's tough to see when you know there are some things that maybe they could do better to actually just feel better and live longer and extend their healthspan. So I've seen that. what I've also seen on the road or out on the mountain bike trail, I've also seen people in their seventies who are still out there riding their bikes that are out there hiking, that are

being active, you maybe they're the health nuts, if you will. so how does that happen? So I think if you get two people that are of the same age, yet they're almost like two different species in a way. They're just so incredibly different in their physical capacity, in their health status. And I'll grant anybody and everybody that we all have some genetic differences and some people perhaps win the genetic lottery and others don't, but

The evidence is clear that the vast majority of our health is under our control, no matter what cards you're dealt with your genetic opportunities or lack thereof. So there's a difference. And what we need to understand is how we can take action to extend our healthspan.

So let's talk about why extending your healthspan is actually simple, but not easy. And let's start by talking about where most people go wrong. And these are people that have the best of intentions. They sincerely want to be healthier. And I think, I don't know who wouldn't want to be healthier. So let's just assume that we all want to be healthier. But where a lot of people go wrong is that they are looking for a quick fix. They're scrolling online for some fad and they'll click, you know, jump onto all the click bait stuff that

has the pills that do this, or the supplements that does that, or the protein powder that does this. And it's really people who, again, with the best of intentions, are pursuing shortcuts. And so for those of you that are interested in extending your healthspan, automatic A plus. If to date you have not been successful in making changes in your health, you don't feel healthier, you don't feel more vibrant,

If it is because you are perhaps attending more to these are pursuing more of a quick fix that may be where you're going wrong. Because while one person is scrolling social media and going down a rabbit hole of the next gadget that claims to build muscle or extend your life, whatever it is, somebody else is doing the tedious activity of eating a nutritious meal after coming home.

from the gym doing a challenging workout.

That's the difference. And so the difference is looking for the quick fix versus putting in the challenging work that I will be the first to say is not always easy to do, but it is simple. It's not complicated. Too many people, too many of us will commit to, this is a typical New Year's resolution, commit to change, but only briefly. But instead, if we would think of value our life, value our

quality of our life and think of it as an investment in our lifestyle, as opposed to a gadget or a tincture or an ancient herb or something like that, then you're going to be far, far better off. When you adjust your lifestyle and become that person that is living the healthspan lifestyle, if you will.

then you are living like that and you will always be pursuing this health, this vibrancy that you will achieve through consistent action, consistent decision making.

And with that said, will be the first to acknowledge that there are supplements that are excellent. There are medications that are excellent. are maybe some natural herbs that will do positive things for your health. These things are absolutely out there. But to truly extend your healthspan to be healthier, 95 % of it is fundamental work, which I'm gonna tell you exactly what that is here in a minute. It's the 5 %

or less of the type of protein powder that you want to use or the supplement that you want to use or the gadget that you see online that you want to do some sort of magnetic impulses through your body or infrared rays or whatever these things may be. Again, not that they don't work, but you're talking about things that have a tiny, at best, a tiny impact on your health versus the other 95 % of the things

of the decisions of a lifestyle that you can live that will truly help you live longer and better.

Here are the simple evidence-based habits that will help extend your healthspan.

None of these should be a shocker to you, but here we go. Regular exercise, balanced high quality nutrition, quality sleep, an investment in your emotional wellbeing and preventative care. For example, for each of these, regular exercise would be resistance training three days a week, maybe 30 or 45 minutes each session. Balanced nutrition would be no processed foods, no fried foods.

Eating only whole foods, basically digging into your fruits and veggies. Quality sleep. That would be something like not looking at a screen, no phones, no computer screen, no TV screen for two hours before you go to bed. Having blackout shades. So your room is super dark. Having your temperature set at 60 to 67 degrees. These things have been proven to help you sleep better. Emotional wellbeing. Practicing stress management. Setting boundaries.

Preventative care would be a regular appointment with your primary care doctor, with your dentist. Even preventative care is taking care of your skin. If you're going to be outside in the sun, bright sun all day long, maybe a little bit of sunscreen would be good. Preventing some skin cancer, maybe that's good. These five pillars of healthspan are worth an investment, worth making sure that they are who you are, making sure that they are habits, that the decisions you make

are investments into each one of these five pillars of healthspan. They're not complex.

but they do require consistency and habits and discipline. And I want to talk about discipline just for a second here. I saw this quote, I think it's super powerful. Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most. So, you know, this is tough. So right now as I'm recording this, what does my stomach want? Well, my stomach wants to go downstairs and get some trail mix, which happens to be about half chocolate.

and shove it in my face. Like my palate wants it, it sounds great right now. That is what I want now. But to have the discipline to say, even though I want that now, what I actually want is something more important later. So that means, you know, my goal, have health goals and fitness goals and so on that if I were to succumb to this choice of what I want right this minute, I'm sabotaging my future self.

And then when my future self, when that the future self turns around and says like, Whoa, why, why did I do that? Now I feel terrible for making a decision that is against what I want most.

And this is the challenge and this is why it's not easy. Our modern world is so full of barriers. mean, there's our culture and speaking here of like the American culture has made it increasingly more difficult to be healthy. have sedentary jobs. have way over processed foods. There's a ton of stress. There's a culture of instant gratification and all of these things are overpower us. It's so easy to be overpowered by these.

cultural norms and behaviors and just the way our society is set up, that it is really difficult to have the discipline, not just today, not just right now, but throughout the day and tomorrow and the day after. It's really difficult to have the discipline to focus on the future self or if you just focus on what you want later.

So most of my clients, and it's maybe the same for you, most people know very well what they could do to extend their health, to improve your health. So the struggle isn't really with how to do it. The challenge is doing it.

I'm going to give example with one of my clients, how he had to work through this delayed gratification, if you will. And this client Sue, who's really had a challenge managing her stress. And one of her coping tools was drinking some wine when she gets home from her stressful job. And when she would succumb to this, I want this now, I want this, you know, a couple of glasses of wine now.

because that's the craving that I have right now. Well, that coping strategy maybe satisfied her in the moment, but then the strategy actually led to poor sleep, additional calories, because she was also trying to manage her weight, fuzzy head in the morning, and that fuzzy head actually led to low motivation to exercise, which she also wanted to do. She wanted to be fitter and stronger. So what we really had to do is embrace small change.

And so one of the things that Sue had found beneficial in years, decades ago was meditation. So we have set up a plan that for months, like literally for a quarter, with the way we're focusing on this is like for one entire quarter. So for three months, we are focusing on building the habit of meditation and investing the time and taking our time and being humble that it takes time and repetition.

And you have some wins and you have some failures along the way, but still pushing through and realizing like, the goal is after the three months, three months of a focus on managing stress, specifically through a meditation practice, will she be able to help manage her stress better? And the learning and sort of, you know, flexing the muscle of discipline in these certain situations means not only is she not

drinking wine as a coping mechanism, but she gets the quadruple win of all of those negative consequences from drinking wine are now off the table. it's like addressing stress in this particular example has so many wins beyond that, but it's being realistic enough and again, patient enough and humble enough to realize that some of these changes take time.

you are worth the time to invest it. But I think it's too often, it's easy to say the wine is a quick fix. The processed food is a quick fix. The drive-through is a quick fix. The scrolling social media, getting that quick buzz from social media is a quick fix. And all of these quick fixes are one of the main reasons that we're self-sabotaging our health. And then oftentimes when we are unhealthy, we think, gosh, I hope there's a medication for this.

Maybe the medical system will save me. Maybe my doctor can give me something for my high blood pressure or my blood sugar or my weight. Well, yes, this is, and I'm going to try not to get on my soapbox too much here, but I might anyhow. The medical system, and this is for something, I I've worked in the medical system for decades, in addition to, you know, being a participant in the medical system when I've been injured or whatnot. But I think that there's a.

a focus on trying to find solutions to our own problems, problems that we've made ourselves. So, you know, do we want to care for heart disease? Well, yeah, of course we all do. But how about we prevent heart disease from even happening? maybe we invest in lowering the likelihood of developing in the first place. investing in our healthspan, investing in these pillars of your healthspan as a focus will

maybe for you take heart disease off the table altogether. And I think that the, the, the good and the bad of the, scientific advancements with medications, for example, are excellent, but the bad part of it is sometimes there's a little bit less incentive or maybe a little bit less urgency for us to take care of ourselves because it's probably a pill or we hope there's a pill that will take care of that. What ends up happening to go back to what I mentioned at the beginning is that people are living longer.

thanks to some of these medications, but they're not living better. so lifespan is extended, healthspan, not necessarily.

So it's a sad statistic to know that really 90 % of the healthcare costs in the US are really from chronic diseases and of these chronic conditions, chronic diseases, so much of it is completely preventable. again, heart disease, diabetes, just to name a couple. And yes, we should be focusing on that obviously to take care of people that have those conditions, but we should also take pause, look in the mirror, maybe if you could rewind your life and decisions a little bit and say, wait a minute,

maybe I need to make better decisions for my health to extend my healthspan. But let's talk about how you can take control of your healthspan. I'm gonna give you five tips here on how to take control of your healthspan. Number one, engage in decision-making. Start with being aware. Start with really reflecting on what your current habits are and how they align with the pillars of healthspan. So again, exercise, nutrition, sleep.

emotional wellbeing, preventative care. These pillars, are you making decisions that are thoughtful for your future self where you'll look back and kind of say, Hey, I'm glad I really decided to do that. So you can start simple. And I've got a bunch of episodes on specific exercises and workouts and whatnot through this podcast. So this is just, I'm just touching on this now, but I go deeper in some other episodes, but for an example,

If you are sedentary right now, just start with walking 10 minutes a day. That's it. Do 10 minutes a day. Do it every day. Don't start from jumping off the couch and planning to run a marathon. Just start. So it's decision-making. The second one is focusing on forming habits. Use small, tiny incremental changes to start to build momentum. And I have to reference the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. If you haven't read it.

Please read it. you've read it and you forgot about it, read it again. is being again, humble enough to realize that change takes time and to start off small. I'll go back to my client Sue who are working on her stress management and for her specifically, we were taking a three month block and focusing on the nitty gritty tiny changes for her to create this habit that will lower her stress level overall.

and lower, really kind of eliminate some coping mechanisms that we're not serving her well. But it's taking, we're doing it slowly, gradually over months with tiny changes. So habit formation is a huge investment into your healthspan. Third thing, practice discipline. Just keep thinking to yourself that you're really choosing between what you want now and what you want most. What do you want now versus what you want most? And for that, you could simply start with

exchanging or replacing a sugary snack with the whole fruit. That's it. Just start that. Just start with that. I think I've mentioned this earlier for me right now. Do I want a snack? Yeah, sure. And just with my go-to snack, probably higher in sugar than it really needs to be in higher in calories. Yes. Do I want that right now? Absolutely. Do I want it most? Well, no, because actually true confession, I have a mountain biking event coming up.

and six months time. And I am starting the very slow gradual process of losing a few pounds so I can be in race shape and race weight. so what do I want most? I want to mostly perform well in this event. What do I want now? Well, I want to snack on some stuff, but I don't really need it that much. it's deciding making this discipline, practicing with this discipline. And I think this is where, you know, delaying gratification definitely has better outcomes. And if you have

a challenge with discipline, then I think that's really worth exploring a little bit more because once you have healthy habits and good discipline, you are literally unstoppable. Tip four, avoid fads. And sometimes these fads are kind of hard to see until you're already in it because if something new pops up and is shiny, we all say like, wow, maybe this is the latest and greatest thing. But quick fix diets, supplements, any sort of fitness trends that kind of come and go.

They are just that they're fads know, the fundamentals of being healthy are simple. They're unchanged. 95 % of us not change. And you really want to make sure, do a little bit of homework to make sure that whatever you're going to invest in to extend your healthspan is science-backed. This has to be science-backed strategies. And tip number five is get a coach. So professional athletes have coaches. So why would you and I be any different? so I was an

elite amateur cyclist for a while and I had a coach and I knew how to pedal a bike and I knew how to train, but to have somebody with like a different point of view was so helpful for me to really help me achieve my potential on a bike. it was, it was absolutely in no small part to having a coach help guide me through that process. I've had multiple business coaches and again,

I've had business coaches after I've had practices, you know, after I've had businesses and been plugging along and doing pretty well, but investing in a coach or a trainer or somebody that can really help you with developing discipline, developing some accountability, having an accountability buddy is awesome.

And a big part of coaching for me, think I've learned all of my clients are very intelligent people. And I definitely give them some information, some new knowledge, but it's a little bit less about the knowledge and more about providing structure and accountability and some support and some brainstorming and problem solving with their life, if you will, so they can integrate some of the habits.

and decisions that they know they should be doing to extend their healthspan. So investing your time and money in a coach or a trainer or just an accountability buddy to help you kind of navigate the daily grind of trying to be healthy and certainly trying to like develop good habits is absolutely worth it. And if it's truly that you just, you're focused on improving your healthspan, you're focused on improving your health and you're motivated and you're, just like don't know where to start.

On my website, I have free resources. If you know exactly where you're going and you just need a little bit of a structure to get you started, go to my website, the links and the show notes, go to the website, free resource, plug along, rock and roll. You're good to go.

What we need to remember is that a plan that sounds very fundamental, exercising regularly, eating whole foods and not fried foods, investing in sleep hygiene, sleep practices, these things sound boring and they really are boring and tedious. And that's why it's really tough being a coach sometimes because you're trying to sell stuff that people kind of know. We all know we should be doing these things, but that is what works. That is

hands down, strength training is one of the best things in the world you can do. Eating processed foods, fast foods, garbage food, one of the worst things you can do. mean, these, these things are not, it's not mysterious here. We're not like, you know, sharing anything that's you don't already know. The key is being able to empower yourself to make these changes or get some assistance to help make these changes. So healthspan is about

maximizing your quality of life through intentional habits, some proactive choices, and really for some people it's really changing their identity and it's okay to change your identity when you do it consciously. So if you want to become that person, that healthy person, then you can do it and you can do it on through following the pillars of healthspan by making some really conscious choices. If you don't know

kind of, if you want to dig in deeper with the nuances of what these choices are, you can listen to some other episodes that I have as they go into each one of these pillars. But the main thing, the one thing you can do today to extend your healthspan is to assess your current habits. Take an inventory of where you're starting from today, right now, and be honest with yourself and think about which one of these pillars of healthspan needs the most attention.

Just start there. Just start with this awareness that there are things that you could be doing, not wholesale life changes, but just like simple changes that you can make to get you started or to get you further down the path of improving your healthspan. And it's a never ending journey. I I talk about this all the time. I coach about it all the time. I read about it all the time. I listen to podcasts on it all the time. And yet every single day I am just faced with a hundred different decisions I can make.

on my own healthspan, my own health. And so it's never ending. But I can tell you that, not to make that sound daunting, but it only gets easier. Once you integrate some habits, it gets so much easier to consistently make good decisions. You're not really tempted by, you know, treats or you really, you can develop habits that from the outside, other people may think it's crazy the way you live your life, the way you eat, the way you sleep, you do whatever, why you have so much energy.

But once you create these into who you are and your habits and your routine, it's actually not difficult. And it's definitely simple. So with that, please take an inventory of your health, take an inventory of your healthspan, the pillars of your healthspan and invest in yourself because that is the best investment you have going for you. There is nothing more important than your health because if you don't have health, you don't have squat. You are worth it. You're worth it.

taking the time to even make changes and even it may be challenging to make some changes depending on your household and your social network. If you start suddenly acting weird or eating different things or not eating different things or not going out drinking or whatever these things are, but it's okay. You are worth it. If you have any specific topics you want me to dig into related to healthspan, please let me know. If you have any questions about the pillars of healthspan, you can leave me a comment. I respond to comments and questions.

And as always, would appreciate it if you would subscribe to this podcast or follow and thank you for listening.

And please share this episode with somebody else who may need to hear it.