By John Valentik MS, NASM-PES, FMS

Most people seem to be familiar with the term, ‘lifespan.’ We want to live as long as possible, right? But, what about healthspan? While it’s not as well-known of a topic, I would strongly suggest that you continue reading to see how this is relevant to you.

Healthspan refers to the number of years you will live disease free, or in full health. According to the World Health Organization, the average person born in the U.S. can expect to live to 77.5 years of age, which equals their predicted lifespan. Their healthspan, however, only reaches 66.1 years of age, meaning the remainder of their time on this earth is predicted to be full of various health challenges, like cancer, diabetes and its complications, dementia, and heart disease.

While this post is not meant to scare you, I hope it is starting to resonate. Living to 100 sounds great, until you consider that your last 20-30 years may be in poor health. There are many things outside of our control, which in health and wellness, we call non-modifiable risk factors. Your age, race, gender, and family history fall into this category. You cannot change these things, but it’s important to be aware of them. It is considered a risk factor for cardiovascular disease if you are a man and over the age of 45 (55 for a woman). Another risk factor is having a father who suffered from a heart attack before the age of 55 (65 for a mother with heart attack). You cannot change these things, and statistically they have implications for you.

Knowing certain risks in areas that you can’t control is important, so that you are more aware of the things that are within your control, which can help extend our healthspan. These modifiable risk factors include tobacco use, cholesterol levels, increasing physical activity and exercise, maintaining a healthy body weight, controlling blood sugar and blood pressure, as well as managing your stress.

Each of these topics listed above could be their own blog post. However, many people know what they need to do, but for whatever reason they struggle with the rubber hitting the road. This may be because of perceived lack of time or priorities, not being aware of the detrimental impacts of their current actions or expecting that things will go a certain way because that’s how they’ve gone so far.

I hope you will think about how your current actions are impacting not only your lifespan, but more importantly, your healthspan. I’ll finish with a powerful quote from the Dalai Lama when asked what surprised him most about humanity.

“Man! Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”