Shelly's Shares: Longevity Series #1: Healthspan Over Lifespan

Longevity gets thrown around like it’s a secret club, but it’s not. It’s not reserved for elite athletes, scientists, or people with expensive supplements and gadgets. Longevity comes down to something far more practical and motivating: waking up with energy, doing the things you love, and staying independent for as many years as possible.

Shelly is kicking off a longevity series by defining what longevity really means in everyday life, then separating lifespan from health-span. Lifespan is simply how long you live. Health-span is how long you live well, with strength, mobility, and the ability to enjoy your days. Shelly walks through why two people can have the same lifespan yet experience completely different lives, and why our real goal is to stay healthier longer even as modern chronic disease rates rise.

We also tackle the misconceptions that keep people stuck: that longevity is only about living longer, that genetics is the whole story, that it’s too late to start, that it’s expensive, or that it only matters when you’re older. Shelly shares the simple, proven building blocks that support healthy aging and healthspan, including walking, strength training with bodyweight moves like squats and planks, prioritizing sleep, eating enough protein, managing stress, spending time with people you love, and finding purpose. And because life is never perfect, Shelly explains why consistency and an 80% mindset beat all-or-nothing every time.

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In Health, 

Shelly

Transcript

Why Wellness Is Never Perfect

SPEAKER_00 0:00

As I lay all that out, it's never perfect, right? We're not going to always have a great night's sleep. We're not going to always consume the healthiest meal. That's the way it is. It's life. It's never perfect. Do you get confused by all of the information that bombards us every day on ways to improve our overall health and our overall wellness? Do you often feel stuck, unmotivated, or struggle to reach your wellness goals? Do you have questions as to what exercises you should be doing? What foods you should or shouldn't be eating? How to improve your overall emotional and mental well-being?

Welcome To Words Of Wellness

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Hello everyone. I am so excited to welcome you to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelly Jeffries, and I will be your host. My goal is to answer these questions and so much more. To share tips, education, and inspiration around all of the components of wellness through solo and guest episodes. With 35 plus years as a health and wellness professional, a retired college professor, a speaker, and a multi-passionate entrepreneur, I certainly have lots to share. However, my biggest goal and inspiration in doing this podcast is to share the wellness stories of others with you, to bring in guests who can share their journey so that we can all learn together while making an impact on the health, the wellness, and lives of all of you, our listeners. The ultimate hope is that you leave today with even just one nugget that can enhance the quality of your life, and that you will, we all will, now and into the future, live our best quality of lives full of energy, happiness, and joy. Now let's dive into our message for today.

Why Longevity Matters Right Now

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Hello, my friends. Welcome back to Words of Wellness. This is our Shelly Shares episode. And I have been talking about longevity quite frequently over the last few months. And I know that our last episode or the last episode that I shared with you all, I was talking about longevity. And so I am going to dive in and share with you and start a series about longevity and break it down a little bit further for all of you. And for this first episode in this series, I'm going to talk today about just longevity. What does it really mean? And I kind of talked about that a little bit in our last episode, quite frankly, right? I talked about the four really important components of longevity and also the ability to do our everyday activities successfully without challenges, without being out of breath, and just being healthy for many years to come. So sometimes, you know, what do we think about when we hear the word longevity? What comes to mind? Do we think about living to 100? I sometimes think that. I hope to be able to do that. Do we think about taking supplements? Do we think about using expensive biohacking tools or gadgets? I mean, for a lot of people, longevity feels like it's something really more for scientists and maybe elite athletes or people with a lot of time, extra time, extra money. But that's really not what longevity is, right?

Energy And Independence As The Goal

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Longevity is being able to wake up every day with energy, being able to enjoy your life, being able to have the strength, the energy to do things that you love and to have that health to be to remain independent. So you can be independent for as many years as possible. And I think that is really one key word. Independence is huge. When I hear about somebody who is in their 80s, 90s, even 100s, and they are independent, they are able to live daily on their own independently. I am just so impressed. And I think that that can be something that is a goal for all of us. You know, I mentioned last episode, it's it's not just about adding life to your years, but it's it's being, it's about adding life to your years, not just adding years, but having good years full of energy and vitality. And I talk about that all of the time. So I want to share a couple things to kind of clarify what really is the true definition of longevity in real simple sense.

Lifespan Versus Healthspan Explained

SPEAKER_00 4:53

And for a long time we heard the term lifespan. You know, we take care of our health and our wellness to live many years, and that would be considered our life span. What's the current lifespan recommendation or the average, I should say not recommendation, but the average lifespan of a male, I think, is 75 years, right? I think that's the average right now. Um, it does change, but when we talk about lifespan, we're looking at the number of years that you live. Now, what I want to bring up, we hear more frequently now, is health span. So health span is how you spend those years, how many of those years you live, but you live healthy, active, independent, and able to enjoy your life. And that is where our focus is now. Again, not so much the number, but it's our health and how we're living those number of years. So if you think about two people who might be 90 years old, and one is is battling a chronic disease and relying on other people to be able to take care of daily tasks, and they're unable to participate in activities they love it versus another person who is still active and travels and exercises and plays with grandchildren and hikes and works in the garden and enjoys life. I mean, if you think about that, of course, it's easy to pick which one we would want to be. They both have the same lifespan, but only one has a long health span. And that is truly the difference. So, again, as I always say, our goal isn't to necessarily live longer, but to stay healthier longer. And again, this is so important. We're we're living longer than previous generations, however, we also are experiencing more chronic disease than we ever had. And the alarming fact is that statistically, if things don't get turned around with our health and our wellness, our children and younger generations, their lifespan is decreasing, and that's that is alarming. We want the opposite to happen. So, can we change that? Absolutely. Absolutely we can.

Daily Habits That Pay Off Later

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Every meal that we consume, every walk that we take outdoors, every strength workout, every good night's sleep, every way that we can manage stress, these are all investments in our future self. Now, as I lay all that out, it's never perfect, right? We're not going to always have a great night's sleep. We're not going to always consume the healthiest meal. That's the way it is. It's life, it's never perfect. But if we can strive for I always say 80% of the time to make healthy decisions in our day-to-day lives, it again pays off not just now, but into the future.

Longevity Myths That Hold Us Back

SPEAKER_00 9:05

So I want to share just a couple misconceptions about our longevity before I wrap this up. Just a couple of misconceptions. Longevity is only about living longer. No, we already know that. I've I've mentioned that numerous times. Another misconception: it's all about genetics. Nope. Genetics matter, but it is not the entire story. And I've shared that as well. Genetics just plays a very small role when it comes to our overall health and longevity. Our everyday choices, our everyday habits, our lifestyle, that is what makes the impact on our health now and into the future. Another misconception. It's too late to start. Nope. And I always share that. It's never too late, my friends. Never too late to start. Your body is incredible. Our bodies are miracles, and our bodies respond so quickly to anything that we do that's a benefit for it as far as exercise and what we're eating and just our day-to-day activities. So it just is never too late. Another misconception longevity is expensive. Nope. We don't need any fancy gadgets. Again, we can just throw on some tennis shoes and go outside for a walk. We can do some body weighted exercises. If you don't have weights or you don't have access to a gym, you can strength train using your body weight. And do you know that some of those exercises are some of the best ones you can do? Push-ups, squats, planks. So so good. We can eat enough protein, we can prioritize sleep, we can manage our stress, spend time with people we love, get outside, find purpose in our day-to-day lives. All of it, all of these areas are so, so powerful when it comes to our longevity. And then the last one I want to share longevity starts when you're older. Nope. It starts now. Every habit you are taking, healthy habit you are taking part in now helps to build the future that you want later. Again, never too young to invest in your future. Never too young. I have seen quotes about our ages and like what you do in your 30s pays off in your 50s, what we do in our 40s pays off in our 60s. So it's, and if we're in our 60s, our 70s, our 80s, whatever it is, it's never too late to start. It's never too late.

Start Now And Stay Consistent

SPEAKER_00 12:05

It's the consistency, it's not the perfection. So I hope that this helps you with some clarity when it comes to your over longevity, overall longevity. And again, this is going to be one of a few in a series of episodes that I'm going to be sharing with you all about longevity. We're going to be breaking it down each week and just in a way to help us all again live healthier, more vibrant, energetic lives full of longevity. So, with that being said, my friends, take time for yourself and your wellness on this day and have a beautiful, blessed rest of your week. We'll see you next time on Words of Wellness.

Share, Review, And Send Questions

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. I hope you gained value and enjoyed our time together as much as I did. And if you know someone who could benefit from today's episode, I would love and appreciate it if you could share with a friend or rate and review Words of Wellness so that more can hear this message. I love and appreciate you all. Thank you for listening. And if you have any questions or topics you would like me to share in future episodes, please don't hesitate to reach out to me through my contact information that is shared in the show notes below. Again, thank you for tuning in to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelley Jeffries, and I encourage you to do something for you, for your wellness on this day. Until next time, I hope you all have a healthy, happy, and blessed week.