Vitality & Longevity
Do we really want to live a long life if it is not a quality life?
This is something I’ve been recently pondering as my parents are getting older. Being raised in a first generation Chinese immigrant family, something that was constantly talked about at family dinners was “living a long time". Chinese New Years was always about “Health, happiness and fortune”.
As a kid, I never thought too much about these mantras. Eat noodles on your birthday so you have a longer life. Eat all the grains of rice in your bowl or your wife will have pimples. One would postulate that these cultural beliefs were more like fictional fables than scientific findings grounded in truth.
As I got older, the question that began to beg was…
“What is the point?”
What if we live a long, but miserable life. What is clear is that we will all age. But what if we could focus not only on lifespan, but also vitality - what we can call our "health-span."
A long health-span allows for enjoyment and participation in the community, friends and relationships, access to physical activity opportunities and access to healthy food.
A truly healthier, happier life has to have a focus on health-span. Longevity does not mean much without vitality, does it? Without the ability to enjoy and participate in life? To continue to achieve your purpose?
Imagine a world where no one needed a wheelchair to experience the fullness of a day at Disneyland. Or a long evening stroll at the park with your spouse without having to worry about the repercussions of knee pain the next day.
The only way to increase our health-span is to focus on the increasing of it.
Here are four easy ways to increase your health-span.
Resistance Train
Twice a week, incorporate external loading on your joints and muscles.
Water
Drink more water. Most of us do not consume enough water. Try getting in sixty percent of your body weight in ounces to start and then adjust from there.
Sleep
Sleep seven plus hours a night. This is really simple. If that is difficult because of work/life balance at the time, then focus on increasing your sleep in general. You will definitely feel better immediately.
Community and Support
Don’t journey in life alone. Find other people who are running in the same direction as you. We were created to be in community with one another. One of my mentors shared with me in 2020 that the powerful thing about having community is that it allows you to ride harder and further than you could ever alone. Cyclists do this by riding in formation, together. People take turns riding domestique so that a team wins, not the individual.
Live long. Live well. Live a happy, healthy life.