At HumanGood, our mission is to inspire your best life, and we believe that living your best life starts with your health.
Research shows that healthy aging means more than just living a long life — it's about being healthier during the years that we have. While lifespan focuses on the quantity of years, healthspan is all about quality. The goal of improving one's healthspan is to live better for longer times in your life — to have more years where you are able to live healthier and continue to do the things you love as you age.
To help inspire the best lives for our residents and team members, HumanGood has introduced our healthspan initiative — made up of new programs, measures, research and awareness campaigns for our residents and team members.
At this year's The Big Connect, President and CEO John Cochrane shared the need to close the gap between healthspan and lifespan and how HumanGood is contributing to a better quality of life for everyone.
"[The goal of our healthspan initiative] is to translate the idea of healthspan from the most brilliant minds in the world ... into something you can eat, sleep on, wear and ultimately get customized recommendations from. Why does that matter? Because breakthroughs may be discovered in the lab, but that is not where they are brought to life. Only we can do that," he said.
What steps can you take to boost your healthspan and add more life to your years?
"[One paper found] that 93% of human longevity is nongenetic — around choice and exposure. This is [just] one paper, but it shows at a high level how much our choice and what we do now, or even later in life, actually affects our ability to live longer." —Remy Gross, executive vice president, The Buck Institute for Research on Aging.
As individuals, we all have the ability to improve our healthspans through practical action and healthier choices. Healthspan is holistic. It encompasses a lifetime of good health and the ability to continue doing the things you enjoy.
How can you start to improve your healthspan?
Get enough sleep: Sleep has a massive impact on your happiness, immune system, heart health, weight management, quality of life and mental health.
Stay social: Step outside of your comfort zone to talk to others you may not know well, seize opportunities for interaction and live in a supportive community full of friendly people.
Prioritize good nutrition and stay hydrated: Focus on a balanced and varied diet that includes plenty of water and whole foods to support your body and prevent any nutritional deficiencies.
Adopt a physical fitness routine: Even low-impact exercises, such as water aerobics, Pilates, yoga, walking, cycling and weight training, can have a large impact on improving your health.
See your doctor regularly: Checking for conditions before they become a problem and managing them mindfully allows for timely treatment and prevention of further complications. Plus, it enables you to make any necessary changes to reduce the likelihood of chronic conditions.
You can learn more about these tips from our blog post, A Longer, Healthier Life: Simple Tips to Boost Your Healthspan.
Healthy living can be easy — and fun! Living well is all about discovering what makes you feel great by making healthy choices and prioritizing your mental, physical and social health.
Instead of just adding years to your life, the HumanGood healthspan initiative aims to add more life to your years by offering resources to increase your healthspan and boost your quality of life.
We will be sharing more information about ways you can improve your healthspan in the months to come.