You know that guy at work you thought was 50 and turned out to be 70? Or that woman in yoga class who seemed 40 until she introduced you to her 30-year-old kid? This book is here to help you become like them. To let you in on the health habits of people who age amazingly well—who look great, feel well, and are energetic, happy, sexy, agile, strong. It’s not luck, and it’s not something that’s randomly bestowed on people. It’s a result of specific life choices, and it’s something anyone can have with motivation and commitment.
How you age has everything to do with the choices you make right now—what you eat and how active you are, but also how you spend your free time and how you see the world around you. There’s a lot to it, and yet in some ways it’s simple: What you put into your body and mind affects the whole organism, determining function and resilience.
If you’re not aging well, there are answers: elements you need to add to your daily life (certain practices, foods, supplements) and others you need to subtract (same list, but different specs). Your body is a complex machine, and keeping it humming along beautifully as you age calls for a plan—one that preps your body to handle whatever the world throws at it.
Aging optimally is not just about living long. It’s about being vital and happy and continuing to be able to do the things you love for decades to come. It means tuning in to your own health, becoming your own personal wellness coach, and learning to sense what you need when you need it. It involves responding to changes, preventing injury, building resilience, and being open to new approaches and new behaviors.
In your 40s and 50s, your body begins naturally shifting into a mode where it’s taking care of what’s there—maintaining—because it’s not producing and growing anymore; hormones shift, and cellular function is generally less efficient. But you can still thrive.
If you’re achy, tired, gaining weight, not sleeping well, pay attention: These are warning signs. Signals from your body to get your sh*t together while you still can.
This is not a drill. If you want your body to run well as you age, you can’t be cavalier anymore about how you treat it. Otherwise, what can happen is that your organs and other systems underperform; this is what makes you feel physically terrible from day to day and weakens your immunity over time. The right choices can radically alter, and even reverse, some of the symptoms our culture has come to accept as normal signs of aging.
You have power in this situation. Some folks worry that they’re destined to age a certain way because of the way their relatives did. Nope. The idea of “bad genes” creating your destiny is grossly exaggerated. You can look at your family and gather useful information. You can get genome testing and learn a lot. But this info is only the beginning of the story, because lifestyle choices have a tremendous impact on whether certain genes turn on or off. Studies on identical twins prove this: How you age, in many ways, is up to you.
It’s never too late to start
Don’t despair or get stuck on changes you wish you’d made sooner. Many studies show that it’s never too late to launch new habits and see results. Improvements make a difference at any age, and at any point in your health journey. Today is a great day to start. You’ll notice positive effects pretty quickly.
Building a strong immune system
All the advice in this book—from when and how you eat to how much you sleep to what type of exercise you get—is designed to build immune resilience. Many of your immune cells turn over every month. How well they function is a direct response to the way you take care of yourself. Sure, there’s some loss of function as we age, but it’s a myth that weak immunity is a given after a certain point. We’re going to show you the everyday practices and larger life philosophy that keep immunity hardy.
One of the most important things that happens when you’re taking good care of yourself is that the immune system’s self-cleaning mechanism, known as autophagy, kicks in on a daily basis. The definition of autophagy (accent on the second syllable—au-TAHF-a-gee) is digestion of cellular waste by enzymes of the same cell. In other words, it’s your cells cleaning up their own debris. When your autophagy is bright and awake and working well, your body recovers faster and better. Everything in this book helps boost autophagy and keep the immune system operating optimally.
Nurturing your longevity genes
There are 20 or so genes that researchers have recently identified as “longevity genes”—those with the potential to help us live longer, healthier lives. Some you may have heard of are the sirtuins AMPK and mTOR.
The pathways of many of these longevity genes respond to lifestyle habits: what, when, and how much you eat; how you move your body; how much restful sleep you get; and how much stress you endure, among other things. Regulating these gene pathways up or down through healthy habits can extend your life span and expand your “health span”—the vitality level throughout your life—and that’s what this book is all about.
Small “stresses” make you stronger
An overarching theme of nurturing your longevity genes and aging well is the concept of hormesis. Hormesis is your body’s response to small healthy stresses—say, fasting for a short time, or biking up a brief, steep hill. These little stresses, or short periods of adversity, stimulate the body’s defenses against aging without doing harm. You’ll hear a lot about hormesis as we continue. It’s an easy umbrella under which a lot of our advice lives, and it can help you think about self- maintenance in a new way. Small stresses regarding food, exercise, and temperature are challenges you’re going to seek out from now on. It’s a playful, proactive way to approach wellness, and a great way to reframe necessities like stepping outside on an ice-cold morning to walk the dog (skip the coat).
Cues from nature
Your body is smart. It has the ability and the inclination to link with larger natural cycles: day and night, the change of seasons. All your organs have rhythms. When you work with your body clock—eating, sleeping, and exercising when your body is most primed to do so—your systems can work efficiently. When you don’t, your body is forced to compensate, which takes energy away from important processes. It’s the difference between swimming with the current and fighting your way upstream. Throughout this book, we encourage you to take advantage of that current, to use what’s already there, the natural built-in rhythms of healthy living. This makes it so much easier to age well.
Mitochondria and telomeres
Mitochondrial function and telomere length are aging mechanisms that come up throughout this book. Mitochondria, as you may know, are the energy powerhouses of the cells. Autophagy—the body’s self-cleaning system, mentioned above—helps mitochondria stay strong, which in turn makes you feel and look better. Research is uncovering more every day about the significance of mitochondria to healthy aging.
Telomeres are the caps on the ends of DNA strands—like aglets on the tips of a shoelace. A recent Harvard study brought to light the importance of telomeres in our understanding and possible manipulation of the effects of aging. Long, strong telomeres indicate youth and health. Bad habits shorten telomeres. The lifestyle we teach in this book is designed to keep telomeres as long and strong as possible.
The science is important, but what it looks like in real life is simple everyday choices; that’s what builds immune resilience and helps certain people age spectacularly. This book is here to teach the right habits and help you implement them. Once in place, these practices keep autophagy kicking in daily, make your mitochondria efficient, maintain the length and strength of telomeres, minimize inflammation, build immune resilience, and much more. When these systems are thriving, everything else works well too.
It’s not always easy to make changes. But there’s momentum to good habits. Locking in one makes the next one easier to add, and the one after that even more of a breeze. Pretty soon you don’t even need to think about them. You’re reflexively making great choices. You’re supporting your body. You’re optimizing function. All systems are go. You’re aging well.
Stay with us. We’re going to help you get to that place. You won’t believe how great you’re going to feel.