Top 8 Habits Of The Top 1% Healthiest Over-50s

Will Harlow, over-50s specialist physio, compiled some stats from over a thousand over-50s clients:

Checklist

The findings:

1. Consistency: the healthiest individuals practised some kind(s) of health habit daily. Consistency was emphasized as more important than perfection.
2. Resistance training: 75% of the sample engaged in resistance training for better mobility, strength, and mental health. Not all used gyms; some used household objects like bags of books or resistance bands.
3. Walking: everyone walked at least 6,000 steps per day, often briskly. Walking speed, not just step count, made a significant difference
4. Purpose: most participants (bearing in mind that 80% of the total sample were retired) engaged in purposeful activities like volunteering, joining groups, or writing. Having a sense of purpose correlated with longer and healthier lives.
5. Flexible dieting: participants paid attention to their eating without strictly following specific diets. Portion size discipline and consistency (eating well 90% of the time) were key.
6. Mobility: they worked on joint stiffness with regular mobility and stretching routines. And, importantly, they do not accept stiffness as inevitable.
7. Social engagement: they maintained at-least-weekly social contact (e.g. clubs, family meetups, outings). Social isolation, in contrast, was linked to severe health risks like dementia and early death.
8. Positivity: participants maintained a positive attitude despite hardships, focussing on the things they could control. Broader scientific consensus supports the premise that a positive outlook improves health and longevity.

10almonds note: we’re curious as to how causality was established in some of these, since (for example) it could easily be that someone who is in better health will more readily walk more quickly, meaning that a higher walking speed was not necessarily such a causative factor in good health, but rather a result thereof. Of course, there may also be a degree of two-way causality, but still, we like good science and there seem to be some leaps of logic here that have otherwise gone unacknowledged.

This does not take away from the fact that those eight things are most certainly good things to be doing for one’s health, all the same.

For more on each of these, enjoy:

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Take care!