Longevity vs Healthspan:

I don’t want to just a live long life, I want to live one where I am still strong, capable, curious and fully engaged in the world around me until I am very old. And I know that the foundation for that future is being built right now.

I’m in my late forties, and like many women, I have spent the past year or two diving deep into the world of perimenopause to try to understand more about what my body is going through. I have read the books, listened to the podcasts, interviewed experts, spoken to clients and friends and, perhaps most importantly, become my own experiment.

Because during perimenopause and menopause, our brains, hearts, bones, muscles and hormones are all going through profound change.

The choices we make during this chapter have consequences that stretch far beyond our current symptoms. They can shape the quality of our health for decades to come.

This is not another perimenopause scare story. In fact, this article began with something much more mundane: a blood test.

Despite the fact that I’m doing many of the things we are told to do such as exercising regularly, prioritising sleep, eating well and taking care of myself, my latest results raised a few questions. My vitamin D levels were lower than expected. My zinc levels needed attention. My DHEA levels had dropped significantly.

Suddenly, I found myself having a very different conversation. Not about losing weight.

Not about getting through menopause, but about the long term, about the next twenty, thirty or even forty years.

I found myself considering questions around hormone replacement therapy, supplementation, muscle mass, brain health and how I want to age. Those are all conversations for future articles, but they led me to a concept I had never come across before.

Peakspan.

I had heard plenty about longevity. We all have. Every week there seems to be a new supplement, protocol or biohacking trend promising to help us live longer.

But Peakspan stopped me in my tracks because it asks a different question. Not how long will you live? But how long can you stay at your best?

Researchers define Peakspan as the period of life during which we maintain at least 90 per cent of our peak physical or cognitive performance. In other words, how long can we remain strong, capable, resilient and independent?

That feels like a far more interesting goal because while women already tend to live longer than men, many of us spend a significant portion of those extra years managing chronic disease, declining mobility or reduced quality of life.

Longevity matters but healthspan matters more and perhaps Peakspan is the metric we should be paying attention to most of all.

The good news is that many of the factors that influence Peakspan are within our control. Strength training. Nutrition. Sleep. Recovery. Stress management. Connection. Purpose. The very things that sit at the heart of my Midlife Movement Method.

Perhaps the goal is not to fight ageing, perhaps the goal is to stay in our Peakspan for as long as possible. To remain strong enough to do the things we love.

Strong enough to travel. Strong enough to hike. Strong enough to play with grandchildren. Strong enough to remain independent. Strong enough for 85! And that feels like a goal worth pursuing.

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