Almost all ‘live longer’ content focuses on 13 core concepts. Many of them are inter-related to each other so natually some content covers multiple topics. This list of 13 is my own list, distilled from all the different resources and research I’ve come across.
Many of the 13 core healthspan tenets are physiological. If the body or mind is breaking down, mindset will not save you. A few are psychological. If you don’t have a lot to live for, a physically fit body won’t be enough. There’s no wrong way to work through these foundational elements and the goal isn’t to be perfect!
I am absolutely 100% certain that a long healthspan is only possible for most of us with a solid combination of both physiological and psychological self-work. I recommend you read through each one. The order doesn’t matter. If one is daunting, feel free to start with a different one. They all matter. But this learning journey won’t work if it is painful. So start with the one you are most motivated by. Or the one you feel you are already best at. Or if you are here to be challenged, start with the hardest one. There’s no wrong way.
Each tenet has a dedicated page with best practices, hacks, tools, and content. However, an important aspect of longevity and living a long healthspan is that every one of these topics is important. You may be more interested in one or another. But ignore the rest at your own risk. A long healthy life involves a solid approach to each of these areas. As such, most longevity content focuses on one or a combination of these foundation elements:
Physiological Core Tenets (body & brain):
Psychological Core Tenets:
As I learned more about both the importance of these 13 factors and especially how interconnected many of them are, I wanted to understand what the potential ROI of improvement in each area was. I was particularly interested in where I could gain ROI with very limited effort, time, and inconvenience.
Before I could do that, I needed to understand what constituted success in each area, while also recognizing that these areas (for the most part) are not binary. By figuring that out, I would be able to better understand where my current health, lifetyle, and habits fell on the spectrum, and where I could gain the most improvement. I like measuring things on a 1-10 scale like the one below. It’s not perfect but perfect systems are a bit of a myth anyway. This jumping off point became a helpful framework for me though. I have included a defnition of the spectrum in each of the 13 pages to follow.
