Healthspan and lifespan are 2 very different things. Current medical techology can keep you alive a lot longer than it can keep you healthy and active. But the inputs to keep you healthy are much more within your control than a medical professionals.

Want to improve your healthspan? Want to live better for longer? Try the following things to make a big difference to your health.

1. Eat foods your great grandparents would have recognised. The closer the food is to the raw harvested state, the more nutrients tend to remain in it. Bread should contain 3 or 4 ingredients – flour, water, yeast, salt. Perhaps a touch of honey or sugar for sweetness depending on culture and type. Modern mass produced bread has an ingredient list as long as your arm. Some (the vitamin supplementation) are useful, the rest are to enhance its shelf life and improve its stability between the factory and your plate. Drink more clean water and less of almost everything else.
2. Move. Do resistance work, take your body through a full range of motion on every joint every day, walk if you can, find another way to get your blood flowing and heart working if you can’t.
3. Don’t smoke. Limit alcohol consumption to almost nothing. Dont’ take narcotics and avoid unneccessary drugs. Work to get yourself off as many as possible.
4. Sleep. It’s sometimes hard to achieve when you are burdened with obligations but try to get 8-10 hours in the bedroom, in darkness.
5. Do less. Manage chronic stress as much as possible. Limit your energy burn to the important things. The body evolved to deal with acute stress, but the systems that support chronic stress burn through a different set of resources to keep going, much less efficiently, which leads to systemic damage within the whole body.