I Want to Age Well. I Just Don’t Want to Make It My Full-Time Job.

I’m very interested in ageing well. I’m also very interested in dinner. These two things should be allowed to coexist.

I spend a lot of time thinking about health, skin, metabolic health, longevity, strength, energy, prevention, all the usual things that now seem to fall under the enormous umbrella of optimising yourself. And I genuinely find a lot of it fascinating.

But somewhere along the way, looking after yourself became an administrative

position.

Track your sleep. Track your glucose. Track your protein. Track your steps. Track your HRV. Get your bloods done. Do the sauna. Do the cold plunge. Take the supplement. Avoid the other supplement. Eat earlier. Eat later. Fast. Don’t fast. Lift heavy. Walk after dinner. Get morning sunlight. Apparently never

experience stress again.

Girl.

At some point I also have a job. And friends. And would quite like to go to a restaurant without wondering whether my biological age is being personally offended by the bread basket. I’m joking, obviously.

Mostly.

The thing I find interesting about longevity is not the promise that we might somehow outsmart ageing. I don’t think ageing is a problem to solve.

What interests me is whether we can stay well for longer.

Can I keep my strength? Can I move well? Can I think clearly? Can I recover?

Can I travel? Can I work because I want to, not because I physically can’t stop?

Can I have good skin, good energy, a body that still does what I ask of it + enough health to actually enjoy the life I have spent decades building?

That, to me, is the much more interesting conversation.

Not immortality. Capacity.

And that distinction matters because a lot of modern wellness seems to be very good at making healthy people feel vaguely unwell.

There is always another number you could improve. Another marker you could test. Another intervention you could add. Another expert telling you the thing you are not currently doing is apparently the missing piece between you + your optimal self.

I think there is value in data. I think diagnostics can be useful. I think there are

genuinely exciting things happening in longevity medicine. I also think more information is not automatically better care.

Sometimes it is just more information. And now you are anxious about six things

you didn’t know existed last Tuesday. That is not really the outcome I’m interested in.

One of the things I keep coming back to clinically is context. A test means something in context. A treatment makes sense in context. A health trend is useful in context. The fact that something has a mechanism does not automatically mean everybody needs to be doing it. The fact that something is new does not automatically make it better. And the fact that a very attractive person on the internet has a cupboard full of supplements does not mean you need one too.

I think good healthcare should sometimes make your life simpler. Not give you seventeen additional jobs. The same is true in aesthetics.

I am not particularly interested in making somebody look 25 forever. Mostly because they are not 25. And there is nothing clinically clever about pretending otherwise.

I am much more interested in helping somebody look well. Rested. Healthy. Like

themselves. Maybe fresher. Maybe stronger. Maybe more confident. Maybe their skin is behaving better. Maybe they have finally dealt with something that has been annoying them for three years.

That is different from trying to erase every visible sign that a person has lived and I think the same philosophy applies to health.

Age well. Do the things that matter. Pay attention to the boring stuff because unfortunately the boring stuff remains annoyingly effective. Build muscle.

Move. Sleep. Eat reasonably well. Know what is happening with your health.

Have the conversations you have been putting off. Be curious about new science without assuming every new thing belongs in your routine. And then go live your life.

Have dinner. Travel. Wear the nice thing. Drink the good coffee. See your friends. Listen to music that makes you feel sixteen again. Be a little boujee if that brings you joy. Because I do not think the point of spending years trying to extend your healthspan is to eventually discover you forgot to have a life while doing it. That feels like a fairly terrible return on investment.The version of longevity I am interested in is not about perfect biomarkers. It is about having enough health left to enjoy being here. And yes, I will probably continue reading the studies, trying things, changing my mind + getting overly interested in some new piece of research.

That is just who I am.

But if keeping myself “optimised” ever means I become unbearable at dinner,

please stage an intervention. Some things are not worth extending.