What’s a Healthspan & How Can You Increase Yours?

As far as "-span" words go, "lifespan" is one you're probably familiar with: the average length of time someone lives. "Healthspan," however, may not be a term you've come across. But the concept is one that will likely sound intuitive: it refers to the portion of someone's life during which they are in generally good health. As reference, researchers have determined that average American healthspans are in the high 60s. As medical and technological advances allow us to live longer and longer, it's increasingly important to think about extending healthspans in conjunction with those long lifespans. After all, who wants to live to 110 if you can't really function the way you want to for the last 30 years?

The actions you can take to increase your healthspan have a lot of overlap with lifespan-increasing actions, but there's a subtle mindset shift that happens when you start thinking about your healthspan instead of just your lifespan. Rather than trying to avoid an early death by treating illness as it comes, you have a vision of what you want to accomplish in your later years that guides you toward behaviors that support those goals. It's shifting from a reactive to a proactive approach to wellness: from intervention to prevention. Let's look at a couple examples of each approach:

Lifespan-Extending Reactive Approach

You visit your doctor because you're experiencing increased fatigue and have noticed a decline in your ability to navigate the physical and/or mental demands of your daily life. The doc runs some tests and determines that your blood pressure is higher than it should be. They hand you a pamphlet with some diet and exercise tips for reducing your blood pressure through lifestyle changes and send you on your not-so-merry way. In most cases in our current healthcare system, your doctor won't know if you're following those tips until you come in for your next appointment and they take blood pressure readings again. The cycle continues, perhaps with the addition of a prescription if lifestyle changes aren't working, until your blood pressure is low enough to be considered out of the woods, or a further health complication necessitates more substantial medical intervention. Your motivation to change your health behaviors is based on avoiding a range of negative potentialities caused by uncontrolled high blood pressure, which can be rather stressful—not exactly conducive to lowering blood pressure.

Healthspan-Extending Proactive Approach

You're approaching retirement and you've got goals: you finally have the time to pursue your dream of cruising the great rivers of Europe and exploring all the cultural offerings of each port along the way. That means walking tours, cycling opportunities, and more. Did you know that on a visit to the Louvre, you could rack up five to eight miles of walking? And that's just hitting the highlights. Or perhaps your retirement goals are closer to home: you want to work on your golf or tennis game and spend time with family, including rambunctious grandchildren. Remember how heavy toddlers are, and how much they want to be picked up? With these goals on the horizon, you realize you will need to increase or maintain your current fitness levels in order to be able to enjoy your retirement the way you've imagined for as long as possible. You look for ways to incorporate more physical activity into your routine and prioritize making healthier decisions now in order to extend your future healthspan. Your motivation to change your health behaviors is based on a positive, concrete goal or goals that will require a level of physical fitness you can track progress toward.

Okay, so now that you know that extending your healthspan is just as important as extending your lifespan (if not more so), the question is: How? The good news is that even just small increases in physical activity can have tremendous effects on your healthspan, reducing the risk of many chronic diseases and other adverse health outcomes, and the greatest effects are seen in inactive folks who get out of that inactive category. You don't have to go out and run a marathon to benefit your health: if you're currently inactive, you just want to avoid total inactivity. And according to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd Edition, any amount of physical activity counts, even if it's for less than ten minutes at a time. Learn more about how the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans defines levels of activity and how that can inform your fitness goals here.

In both the lifespan-extending and healthspan-extending scenarios we discussed previously, you're more or less on your own when it comes to making a change to your health habits. In the former, you may have some accountability provided by the next doctor's appointment on your calendar, but besides a pamphlet of tips, not much else. In the latter, you have the entirety of the internet at your fingertips, with countless research studies, a multitude of exercise apps, calorie counters, and more, which might sound like an embarrassment of riches, but can actually be extremely overwhelming. Plus, you are an individual! You have a unique personal history, with your own set of predispositions, strengths and limitations, goals, and other considerations that can make trying one-size-fits-all fitness tools discouraging to say the least.

Enter Restart! at Reclaim Lifestyles, we are passionate about helping aging adults reclaim their lives and improve their healthspans by making a physical fitness routine more accessible and personalized than ever. It is a cause near and dear to our entire team, who have been working tirelessly to bring the Restart! app to life for the last two and a half years. Each of us has either experienced or loves someone who has experienced a setback in their wellness, whether from age-related decline and disease or injury. We know what it feels like to start over or begin a journey toward improved wellness. That's why our app is designed to meet you exactly where you are: you don't have to step up in order to use Restart!,  you just have to step in. Learn more about the science-based principles behind the Restart! app here.

If you're looking ahead at your retirement days and thinking, "Gosh, I'm waking up with pain every day and I don't see myself making it on a five-mile walk through the Louvre in five years," or, "How am I going to keep up with my grandkids? I just had hip replacement surgery," then take heart: you've already taken the first step toward giving yourself the gift of a longer healthspan. You're here reading this! It's clearly important to you if you've made it this far. To take the next step, sign up to be the first to know when the Restart! app launches here.

We can't wait to see what you'll do with your healthy golden years. And we'll be with you every step of the way. Ready to Restart?