‘The healthiest people I see in their 80s and 90s as a geriatrician – a doctor who cares for older people – all avoided one thing over and over and over throughout their entire lifetime. And that’s comfort,’ revealed Dr Stephanie Rogers in a recent Instagram post.
The reason a little discomfort may be beneficial for longevity, she explains, comes down to a concept known as ‘hormesis’ – ‘your body’s adaptive response to moderate stress, meaning you want to challenge your body enough to push it to adapt but not so strongly that it causes some harm’.
In other words, putting your body and mind under just the right amount of stress – Goldilocks-style – can help build your capacity to adapt and become more resilient, notes Dr Rogers.
And she encourages us to think about this in two areas: the physical and the cognitive.
How to challenge your body as you age
‘If you want to age well in your body, you always want to try new movements, new exercises, new ways of moving and challenging your body. If you’ve always been a runner, maybe you want to try yoga. If you’ve always lifted weights, maybe you want to add on some balance exercises.’
Indeed, a recent landmark study of more than 110,000 participants found that exercise variety was associated with living longer.
Compared with those who did the least varied exercise, participants with the greatest variety of physical activity had a 19% lower risk of death from any cause and a 13–41% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease and other causes.
Don’t forget to challenge your brain
Avoiding comfort in the cognitive realm, notes Dr Rogers, might mean learning a new skill or taking up a new craft. Or, she says, ‘you can even hang around new people and have new conversations about ideas you’ve never talked about before’ – all of that counts.
A study published in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B found that adults aged 58–86 who spent three months learning at least three new skills, such as Spanish, drawing and photography, showed substantial cognitive improvements.
That’s not to say you immediately need to start learning a new language while also becoming the next Picasso. But Dr Rogers’s message still stands:
‘If you really want to age well, avoid getting comfortable and always try new things.’
Hannah Bradfield is a Senior Health and Fitness Writer for Women’s Health UK. An NCTJ-accredited journalist, Hannah graduated from Loughborough University with a BA in English and Sport Science and an MA in Media and Cultural Analysis. She has been covering sports, health and fitness for the last five years and has created content for outlets including BBC Sport, BBC Sounds, Runner’s World and Stylist. She especially enjoys interviewing those working within the community to improve access to sport, exercise and wellness. Hannah is a 2024 John Schofield Trust Fellow and was also named a 2022 Rising Star in Journalism by The Printing Charity. A keen runner, Hannah was firmly a sprinter growing up (also dabbling in long jump) but has since transitioned to longer-distance running. While 10K is her favoured race distance, she loves running or volunteering at parkrun every Saturday, followed, of course, by pastries. She’s always looking for fun new runs and races to do and brunch spots to try.