Unlocking Longevity: Habits, Hacks, and Hope for a Longer, Healthier Life

Issue No. 11 : Plus tips on books, courses, and podcasts to learn more

Swimming is part of my longevity plan. It’s a physical, mental, and social activity that I can engage in every day. Photo: Per Håkansson.

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When I got back into practicing swimming regularly last July, something I hadn’t done since high school, I also began to study sports physiology. I wanted to know how to optimize my training sessions for maximal performance and recovery.

Sports physiology is the scientific study of how physical activity and athletic training impact the body's function, performance, and recovery, aiming to optimize training, enhance performance, and prevent injuries.

One thing lead to another and I fairly quickly ended up in the rabbit hole of longevity. Longevity means a long life and is the combination of healthspan (the healthy years you live) and lifespan (the total years you live).

In a perfect world you’d want healthspan and lifespan to match to avoid long periods of physical and mental disease, immobility, and misery. Also, if you stay disease free, your lifespan will most likely also expand towards your maximum.

Until then I had taken for granted that as I aged in chronological years my body would gradually break down and potentially be exposed to the four age-related chronic diseases cancer, diabetes, dementia, and heart disease.

This was never something I lent a thought to in my younger years but something that has been on my mind since I turned fifty. Also, practicing with top aquatic college athletes I became aware of the difference in strength the hard way.

But then I started to read up on longevity, everything from the science of aging (gerontology) to bioengineering and nanotechnology and learned that we actually know a lot about how to compress the gap between healthspan and lifespan.

Gerontology is the multidisciplinary scientific study of the aging process and the problems of aged persons, encompassing biological, psychological, and social aspects.

But first let us take a step back in history. For most of human history, average life expectancy at birth was around 24 years across the world. Today it’s over 70 years on a global scale. So what happened? A few things:

• Advances in Medicine: the invention of vaccines and antibiotics, new medical technologies, and expanded access to public healthcare.

• Public Health Measures: improvements in sanitation and hygiene, public health campaigns, and improved food security and nutrition.

• Socioeconomic Factors: economic growth and poverty reductions, education, and increased living standards.

• Lifestyle Factors: healthier diets, regular exercise, avoidance of harmful substances (like smoking), and stress management.

Since the 1840s, from when we have data, life expectancy has increased consistently by three months for every year, starting out at 45 years and reaching over 90 years today. But it gets even better.

By measuring highest average life expectancy there is a 50 percent chance that a child born in 2017 will live to 104-109 years in the Western world. If you belong to Generation X it’s 92-98 years and Millenials 98-102 years.