The Simple Shift in Beliefs That Adds 7 Years to Your Life | Dr. Kerry Burnight

0:00I'm going to ask you five questions. These are yes or no questions, and you're going to be desperate to say more than yes or no. But I promise you, we will unpack all of them as the conversation unfolds. Number one, do your genes determine your lifespan? No. Number two, can how you feel about aging add or subtract years to your life? Yes. Is how long we live the ultimate measure of aging? No. Can loneliness be as harmful to your health as toxins? Yes. Final question. Can being generous help you live better and longer? Yes. So what if I told you that your beliefs about aging could add or subtract over seven years from your life and that how you feel about getting older matters more than your genes when it comes to living a long, vibrant life?

0:55These are just some of the fascinating discoveries we explore in today's conversation. We'll look at why loneliness can be as harmful as smoking and how giving to others might be the secret ingredient to thriving as we age. My guest today is Dr. Carrie Burnite, a renowned gerontologist who taught geriatric medicine for 18 years at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. In her New York Times bestselling book, Joy Span, The Art and Science of Thriving in Life's Second Half, she presents this revolutionary approach that transforms how we think about the experience of aging. And what makes this conversation really powerful is how it replaces fear with possibility and also a whole lot of practical science-backed advice.

1:33Dr. Burnwright really shows us that our later years can be rich with purpose and connection and yes, genuine joy. Whether you're 35 or 85, the conversation offers just a whole new way to think about what lies ahead, either for yourself or for those you'll be in support of. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.

2:00So those are five unequivocal answers, and I'm excited to unpack them because some of them are very intuitive for you, but maybe not so intuitive for those joining us in this conversation. Let's zoom the lens out a little bit. You have been studying aging for quite some time, going deep into all different aspects of it, what it is, what it isn't, the myths, the facts, and developed a really different take on how we move into the later years of our lives. What in your mind is the biggest problem with how we see and talk about aging today? For the past 30 years, I've had this front row seat to watching people age.

2:39and in doing so what I found is the biggest problem that we're facing is one that we're not aware of and that is our perception of what old is like. So this pervasive belief that it is all downhill, that we are less relevant, less attractive, less nimble in our minds, we believe it. And I don't blame us for believing it because there's a multi-billion dollar anti-aging industry profiting from our fear. So it has completely equipped us in exactly the wrong way for this journey. Unpack that a little bit for me. Okay. So you were three years old. Your mom told you about Hansel and Gretel. And then there was this old woman who was so ugly, and then she would eat the children.

3:38And then your mom said, good night. So we started it young, like young is good. Old is bad. Young is pretty. Old is ugly. Old is scary. Old is gross. Old smells. So because we have bought into it, of course, like at all costs, we are trying to defy it, to deny it. Don't think about it. Somehow pretend that you're a different age than you are. And if it didn't matter, then I'd say, oh, well, but it really matters. Because research out of Yale shows that what you think about older impacts how you experience old age. In fact, people who endorse age beliefs that it's all decline live on average 7.5 years less than people who have more of a growth mindset around longevity.

4:37So, I mean, there's a bunch of things in there. One are the messages that we get from the earliest days about what age is. Age is something to be feared. Age is something to, quote, avoid, which, of course, none of us ever can. And it's something to be denied and resisted at all costs. And then, you know, those messages come from everyone. They come from culture. They come from family. And I would imagine, sure, maybe some of that is some level of industry looking to help sell interventions that can, quote, solve for the pain, at least in the short term. But also, I would imagine a lot of it is it's not malicious.

5:16You know, it's not intended. There's no malintent there. It's just these are the stories and the values that have been passed down to us through generations. So we just keep sharing, well, this is just the way it is. So I'm going to share it with you, too. Yes. So one of my curiosities around this also is when a myth like that sustains for so long, often there's some benefit in sustaining it. Why do you think our view on aging has sustained for so long for so many generations? Well, one of the reasons is there are very hard things about aging, right? It's not easy. It's not, you know, Pollyanna situation, right?

5:55You know, we are all 100 % going to die. And usually before you die, you experience some tough things, chronic conditions, mobility changes, loss of loved ones. So it's not like it's just rooted in nothing. There is some rough stuff about growing older. On top of that, aging has changed quite a bit, right? So not very long ago, I at 56 would be approaching the very end of my life. So we are living in this incredibly revolutionary new demographic revolution where our lives, like many of us can expect to live 100 years. So why I love the study of aging is that it is really complex and multi-leveled and it touches on psychology, economics, public policy, psychology, the physical part of it.

6:57You know, there's so much to it. And yet, so often, it's reduced to just live as long as possible. Like longevity is simply one dimensional. And that's why I'm so delighted today that we can unpack like this incredibly robust thing that is the 100 year life. Yeah. So let's talk about that a little bit. The phrase that we often I think for years, the phrase that was batted around was lifespan, how do we extend lifespan, right? And then the phrase that I've been hearing more and more over probably the last decade or so is healthspan. It's not just about the years that you're alive. It's about how healthy you are during those years, how able you are, how functional you are.

7:40And you've got sort of your own evolution of that, or I would say addition to it, joyspan. Talk to me a little bit about these terms, lifespan, healthspan, and now joyspan. So lifespan, of course, it's really important. And I look at it like a pyramid, like a longevity pyramid. So in order to even be in longevity, you need lifespan. You need to be alive to show up for it. So lifespan matters, right? We would like to have long lives. And then on top of that, okay, like you said, healthspan, let's be as healthy as possible for as long as possible. And there's been significant contributions. For example, Peter Atiyah's work in Outlive.

8:25Like I always thought that book should be called Healthspan because that's exactly what it's about. But also in that book, on the last chapter, he really points to like, huh, a long life, even a long life in good health doesn't mean much at all if you don't like your life. And that's what I've experienced with so many patients over the last few decades, which people would live a long time, they'd be in pretty darn good health, but they were miserable. And another name for that is suffering, right? So I started thinking, okay, we need something else, not just lifespan, not just healthspan, but something that gets at the quality of these long lives.

9:07Another word for it would be our well-being, our satisfaction, our emotional fitness. And when I looked for how can I describe that, the American Psychological Association defines joy as well-being and contentment. And then I thought, okay, what if there was lifespan, healthspan, and joy span? And we don't mean ecstasy and we don't mean like everything's so great every second. It just means well-being. And what does the research and the lived experience of so many people tell us about why some people thrive in longevity and the best version of themselves is this old version. And some people just have the worst experience.

9:57And it's not just genes. And it's not just luck. And that was really promising, the fact that just in the same way that we can fortify our physical selves, we're able to use research to fortify our internal selves so that we can be people whose joy span is as long as our lifespan. So a number of questions here. One, okay, so lifespan, how long are we living? Health span, how long are we sort of physically well during that window of time? Joy span, how much are we actually enjoying our lives? How content and fulfilled and joyful are we during that? These aren't separate things, though, right? Because they all crosstalk with each other.

10:40You know, I would imagine, you know, we know now that your psychology profoundly affects your physiology. So, you know, are we talking about this dynamic dance here where it's like if you are really struggling with your mental health or your physical health, it's going to then affect your lifespan. man, if you're struggling with just all the different aspects, like everything kind of cross-references each other here, right? Yes, what a great point. And happily, they cross-reference in the same direction. So the things that enable you to live longer and to live healthier are also the same things that are promoting your psychological well-being.

11:21And so let's take an example. So exercise, for example, physically moving our bodies impacts how long we'll live. It impacts our health. It impacts our outlook and how we feel about things. And so it isn't as if, I mean, they're all intimately related and they all go in the same direction. And that's been really positive for me because it's not like we're having to choose one over the other. We can go, okay, what's good for this is also good for this. Let's do that. And let's use the science to tell us what are those things. you mentioned genetics also and i feel like that's a topic that's getting a lot of attention also if people kind of feel like okay so i have these genes and they play some sort of pretty substantial role and i think until probably you know like this last generation or so so many of us have been told or just assumed well our genes are kind of our destiny you know and this is one of the questions that we asked in the opening that you know and that goes into risk for different diseases, illnesses, and also sort of like lifespan.

12:28Well, you know, like the parents and then grandparents all sort of like lived until about this thing. I guess that's kind of like my genetic set point-ish. That's being challenged now, and you don't agree with that necessarily. No, the research shows, like there are some studies shows that it's around 25%. Some is as low as 13%, which leaves us that the vast majority of how long we'll live and what conditions we'll live with and what the quality of our life will be like isn't from genetics. And so I see it both ways. People will come up to me and go, my mom lived to be 98. I'm on the gravy train.

13:10I'm sorry, friend. That isn't the case necessarily. Or conversely, you know, we have a lot of people who lose their parents in their 40s or 50s, and then you get to be that age, and it's frightening because you think, is that my destiny as well? But the science simply does not support that our genes are our destiny. And sometimes, like the study of epigenetics is how genes are expressed. And so you can have a certain genetic profile, but how those genes are expressed is very much influenced by both your internal and external habits. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. And we are hearing so much about epigenetics these days.

13:52How do I turn off and on different genes to try and, quote, optimize for well-being, for happiness, for whatever it may be? I'm curious also on your take on genetics, not just in sort of the physiological indicators or contributors to lifespan, but also mindset, psychology. So from the research that I've seen, things like happiness, your affect, your propensity towards depression or anxiety, these things all have a genetic element and an environmental and a behavioral element. And, you know, those things will affect your mental health potentially profoundly. The good news, bad news, again, yes, some of it is genetic, but also a substantial part is malleable.

14:37Like we can affect it. But again, we're sort of like, we're getting into this crosstalk thing here, right? Because if genetics affects your physiology and potentially your psychology, and then your state of mind affects your longevity, it's like, it's all just one giant feedback mechanism, it sounds like. Yes, but something that I have found helpful is differentiating between happiness and joy. So happiness is often tied to circumstantial conditions, and as a result, it's more of an up and down kind of thing. Whereas joy, and I define it as people much more spiritually inclined than I am, for example, the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in their book of joy, talk about joy as something that isn't dependent on circumstances.

15:26It's more of an inside out kind of thing. And because of that, it fits very well with longevity because of the challenges that arise later in life. And so I have worked with so many people who have really difficult circumstances going on in their life, and yet they're still able to maintain a level of joy as defined by well-being. So to your very good question about the impact of genetics on happiness or joy, certainly there's a role. Certainly, any of us parents know that our kids come out a certain way. And some of our kids seem more anxious throughout life and some more prone to different things.

16:13having said that the stakes are too high to just say well that's just how i am and i say that because i've had all these experiences with older people and i've seen such profound suffering that i can't simply throw up my hands and say well that's just how you are you know you're just one of those people who is suffering so much. Instead, what I have found that even people who have had a long life enduring rough tendencies toward depression or anxiety or anger or feelings of self-doubt and self-worth can implement practices that impact the quality of their later years. And that, I think, is hopeful and worth exploring and really, really matters.

17:12Yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. And thank you for teasing out that distinction, really important distinction between happiness and joy. Because I think so often we kind of conflate them into the same thing. But probably any of us could point to moments in our lives where if you said, you know, are you happy? You'd be like, no, like, I'm really actually suffering through something right now. But during that same window of suffering, you could probably experience moments of joy. Yes. And it's something that we can work on. So the analogy that I use, our physical selves, there are different facets of our external fitness.

17:49So that is flexibility, aerobic exercise, strength training, agility training. Those are all, we don't just say like, oh, well, you just happen to be lucky. It's like, no, I also put the work in with those things. And so the same thing internally is that there are steps that we can take even in our darkest times. So I recently have gone through one of my adult children having a brain tumor. Was I happy during it? Am I happy about that now? No, I'm not. Like, I could easily cry about it, but I won't on a podcast. And yet, if I'm looking instead at like, huh, that internal like well-being, are there parts to that that I can affect?

18:38Absolutely. And like life can still be good while we carry a lot of heavy stuff. Yeah. I mean, that really resonates. A dear friend of mine calls, I think, moments like these micro joys. And she went through in the middle of, you know, she's going through the pandemic like all of us did. She ended up being diagnosed with cancer. She lost her mom and her nephew was murdered, all within a short window of time, this absolutely devastating season of her life that brought her to her knees. And yet she was able to find just even in just the profound loss, profound grief, profound suffering, she kept finding ways to dip into these micro moments of joy and it was one of the experiences that kind of helped her through that season help her just feel more human and move through each day even though like the reality was a reality the circumstances weren't different but like you said she was able to slowly find agency to both notice these moments that were presented to her and then create them increasingly as life unfolded and we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors You mentioned something also, which I want to unpack a little bit, this notion that there is research on our belief about aging actually affecting how we age.

19:57Yes. So the sort of default in many cultures and many Western cultures as well is a decline aging mindset. And what's perfect about that is that it's the acronym DAMN. Damn, I am getting worse in every way. This sucks. Like if I had a dollar for every time people go, oh, you're a gerontologist, aging sucks. I mean, just like comes right out. But we know in other parts of life that what you expect influences how you experience the choices that you make. And so it is not benign to have a decline aging mindset. And it's also not supported in the literature. There are many things that get better as we get older that are really not publicized.

20:44For example, as we get older, we don't care as much what people think, and that can be very liberating. We can have a greater appreciation for our connections, appreciation for nature and music and art. We have a greater opportunity to expand ourselves spiritually, greater humility, which is exactly, in my opinion, what the world would benefit from if we could lean into our humility. So a lot of these things that can and often do get better and are like satisfaction with many things get better. But we don't hear about these kinds of things. And I think that's really a shame because I get to watch people who do lean into the strengths and benefits of getting older have substantially different lives than those who believe that it's all just aging sucks.

21:41I mean, it kind of makes sense also because if you have a, you know, if your mindset is more futility than possibility, you're going to be less likely to do any of the things that would actually make your life richer because you just assume it's not going to make a difference, right? It's like what you, you know, Carol Dreck describes, you know, growth versus six mindset and you're kind of contrasting growth versus this damn mindset in the context of aging. That's exactly right. It is. In the book, I think I call it the growth aging mindset. And then I wish there was an E on the end. So it was game versus damn.

22:13But it is, you know, when people, what you think about aging really impacts how you'll age and you prove yourself right. So you keep saying aging sucks. You're going to be right. If you keep saying there are going to be things that future me is going to be, let's, for example, more authentic than past me, you're going to be working toward that. And I use my mom as an example. She's currently 96. She is truly the best version that she has ever been. And she's the first to say she didn't always have a good attitude. She got entangled in a lot of materialism, went through a lot of stuff. But this phase of life is how she'll be remembered and it's her legacy to us.

23:01And she's enjoying this phase. And I'm so grateful. And I hope that I, too, can then do the work to be in that path. Yeah. I want to dive into sort of your, the four pillars of JoySpan and talk about some of the things that we actually can do. But there's one other thing that just keeps, like, it's a little flashing thing in my mind right now that I wanted to ask you about that to me is related to this. And I'd love your, certainly, your lens on how, or if I'm even right. Last year, I had the opportunity to sit down with Ellen Langer, who's researched so much of just the human condition. And one of these legendary studies that she did a couple of decades back came to be known as a counterclockwise study, where she took a number of people.

23:45I can't remember what their age was. I think it was in their 70s and 80s, maybe. And put them into literally a house, a physical environment, where every single physical and visual cue in it would take them back in time. It was playing music from when they were like kids, you know, like every device in the house, everything about it. And they measured their physiological and psychological markers before this and after. And they saw really strong, almost reversals in all these markers, even in their eyesight for what I remember she was telling me. What's your take on what's actually happening with something like that?

24:18I love that study. And I think that it isn't necessarily the case that what we learn from that study requires of us to turn back the clock. I know that emotionally salient stimuli, for example, a very meaningful song or something, is stored in a different part of the brain. And when we tap into that, we see these physiological gains. So it is, you know, she proves that it can be accomplished by this sort of turning back the clock, but it can also be accomplished by making sure that we are stimulating ourselves cognitively in the present day, right? So we have these very sterile living environments.

25:09You have practices of, yes, do the same thing every day in the same way because we're giving up, because we're old. That's the opposite of what she was showing. So, yes, doing these things that stimulate by turning back the clock, love it, but it's not the only way. And that by keeping the stimuli on, we can enjoy these gains even in contemporary life. Yeah. And I love that take. And it's interesting because I agree with you. I think she created this completely artificial condition that nobody else is going to create in their lives. So it's like, what's the lesson for all of us living outside in the real world where things change?

25:54And it's like, okay, so, you know, there are things, to me, the big lesson was not necessarily you have to create a version of your youth and live in it. It was all, a lot of these things that we thought were just a natural progression of decline actually may not be, may be like slowable, reversible, unchangeable in different ways. I see it all the time. So two days ago, I was with a woman who was nonverbal and quite contracted in a skilled nursing facility. And they said to me, you know, she doesn't speak. So I said, okay. So I went in to do my visit and I asked her daughter who was there, like, what was it?

26:36You know, let's talk about something that would be this emotionally salient so that we can be stimulating the brain. And she said, well, for her, she was very, she really cares about hymns and in her church. So on my phone, I was able to find some really old hymns, and we played the music. And she then, her eyes opened up, she sang some of the words, and afterwards, she said the word lovely about 20 times. And I don't believe that it's simply a case of because it was from the past, it was because it was stimulating her brain, and our brains can be stimulated. So in that case, it does sort of support the going back as it was an old song.

27:21But I also think that I could have stimulated her brain in another way to elicit this response as well. So continued intellectual growth and curiosity and pushing yourself really makes a difference. Yeah. And that, in fact, is one of the four sort of key pillars of your model of JoySpan, growth, connection, adaptation, and giving. Let's dive into each one of these a bit more. And since we kind of teed up growth, why don't we start there? Well, my dream was that these four things derived from thousands of variables would create an acronym that was incredibly catchy. So I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to force them.

28:07And then finally, I had to just say, look, these are the words that the literature found. So to remember them, just think it starts with a G, and ends with a G. And in the middle is C-A. And for me, I'm from California, so I can remember that. But so the first is grow. And all of these are verbs. And the reason that they're verbs is because it actually takes action on our part. And so with growth, what you did your whole life in in terms of going into a new grade in school and then getting to high school and being on that team and all of this stuff that pushed you out of your comfort zone needs to continue all lifelong.

28:55And because of this internalized ageism, sometimes we think like, oh, well, I can't do that anymore. That's hard. I'm not going to try that. So really doing hard things, the literature shows, makes a difference on how we age. So if you're uncomfortable about something, for example, technology or, you know, going somewhere that you haven't been before, good. Do that. Because it's critical that we continue to grow and not give ourselves a pass when we're older that we can't do hard things. And that is true for your aging parents and grandparents as well. Sometimes we bubble wrap people and like, oh, let me do that.

29:38I'll do everything for you. And that is doing no service. So let people do what they can do, even when it's hard, especially when it's hard. The second of the joy span matrix is connection. And you're well aware of the overwhelming research on what human connection does. A study showed that feeling lonely, as defined by wanting more social interaction than you currently have, is as detrimental to your health as smoking 14 cigarettes a day. But the question is, as we get older, how do we have a robust social life when it's not on autopilot, like at work or at school? And the sentence there is to be that friend.

30:24And that friend is the one who reaches out to you, who makes the plans, who remembers that you have a chemo appointment coming up and offers to drive you, who remembers that your dad died four years ago and shoots you a card or a text that day. So we've got to be darn proactive in these long lives in order to have the connection necessary. And another element of that is diversifying your social portfolio. So you don't invest all your money in one place. Similarly, you don't invest all your connection in one person. If you live long enough, you're likely to outlive your friends. And I see that all the time.

31:05So trying to consciously make friends with younger people and different people and to get kind of uncomfortable reaching out to people makes all the difference to have enough connection to last you your 100 years. So let's unpack both of those a little bit and then we'll move on to the other two. I want to tease something out on the growth one, then we'll move on to connection. So many of us, I feel like, experience growth as having to exert effort to learn something or to do something. And oftentimes growth has come in the context of work where we've had to work really hard to learn something new, to do something new.

31:45And it's been part of what we had to do for our jobs. And we have this negative association with it. It's work. It's hard work. I've worked hard my whole life. I finally hit a point in my life where I don't have to do it. I'm okay. I just want to kick back. I don't want to have to keep working. We associate growth with something negative, like something that's just like, I've earned the right not to have to do that anymore. Does that come up in conversations in your work? Yes. It came up with my own darling husband. So when I was explaining this to him, what I was finding in the literature, He's like, that's terrible.

32:24And for that very reason, like I've worked my tail off for 40 years. He's like, people are not going to want to hear that. I didn't make it up. I just looked at what the literature tells us and what I see with people who are thriving in longevity. And it is continued growth. So, you know, it's like saying, I don't want to do any cardiovascular fitness or I don't want to lift any heavy weights. God, don't make me do that. I didn't make up the rules, but growth isn't only external. So that is one caveat, which is it could also be our internal growth. So perhaps you think, you know, there's opportunity to be maybe more spiritual or maybe to be less judgmental or maybe to be more involved in politics or standing up for things that we don't think are correct right now that we see going on.

33:18So if you don't want to grow, I would postulate that you're not setting yourself up to thrive and enjoy longevity. So it's kind of, I'm the bad guy. Yeah. I wonder if one way to break that association of growth being negative, just like hard work. And I just, I don't want to keep doing that. I'm like, I'm at a point in my life where I just want to kick back. I wonder if one thing, a way to kind of break that is, and almost turn growth into something you're really excited for, is to associate it with an interest or pursuit, a passion, a hobby, where you're a total newbie. You're not good at it, but there's something about it, no rational basis, where you're like, it'd be really cool to get really good at this.

34:04I'm thinking right now, I'm taking metalsmithing classes. I'm almost 60, and I'm stumbling, fumbling. I'm in class with all these other people and they're just so much farther ahead of me and so much better than me. And I'm melting stuff left and right and having to start over. And it's frustrating. But the third time I solder the exact same thing and learn how to position it. And I'm not studying from a book, but I'm working hard. I'm learning a ton. And this is a growth experience. And there's just something intrinsic to the activity that makes me want to keep coming back and learning more and working hard to figure it out.

34:38So I don't experience it as negative. Does that make sense? Jonathan, that's hitting the nail on the head. That's exactly right. So something I put in the book is a curiosity inventory. And I tried to list out maybe like 50 things, you know, like Bitcoin or fly fishing or, you know, teaching in a Spanish speaking school or I mean, there's infinite, but we do have to take a moment to think what sparks my curiosity? Because so often, we're not even asking the question, what weird thing can I do to continue my growth? And when you find something that you're curious about, it really does make all the difference.

35:23And you can also find other people who are interested in that same thing that you're interested in. So That's a great point of putting in the work to find something that you're curious about. And if you find there is nothing I'm curious about, I'm not curious about anything. I think that is a red flag right there for you to think, huh, maybe I really need to go off and take a weekend and start digging around this awe-inspiring world, this professor that I know who is in his 90s and he's English. And when I ran into him the other day, he just had such a smile on his face. And so I said, Professor, what is it that is sparking your intellectual curiosity right now?

36:10And he said, I find this world fascinating. And I walked away and I thought, now that's it, right? Like the world is fascinating, but it takes a little bit of thinking to figure out what angle to come at that fascination. Yeah, I'm going to ask you a question that's coming to mind around this also, around this notion of somebody reaching a point where they're like, look, I'm literally scouring my brain. I'm trying to make lists. And there's literally nothing that I'm sitting here saying I'm curious about, I'm interested in. I wonder sometimes when I hear that from people, whether there's something else going on there, whether this may be sort of a low-grade sign of, is there some level of depression happening here?

36:56Is there something else that's actually stopping you from either being or acknowledging the fact that you actually are curious about something that may be important to explore? Exactly right. Yes. And there are so many counselors and professionals who could help you kind of untangle that because at different stages of life, I think we all get either a big, big wall of depression or, you know, at least some bit of saying, you know what, I don't really want to get out of bed or I can't stop shaking or I'm pissed all the time, every day. And in those journeys to know that, gosh, I'm not alone in this, this is really normal, and that there is help on the other side, and that it is perfectly okay, and in fact, great to reach out to these different modalities, either in person with a mental health professional, or gosh, there's these wonderful online options that, you know, where you can have some of these appointments.

38:05knowing that all humans benefit at different times by having somebody to untangle this stuff with. Yeah. And I sometimes wonder, I think, you know, in younger generations, I think struggling with mental health has been a lot more normalized. I don't think there's nearly the stigma that there was, but I feel like still Gen X, you know, like boomers, there is still this lingering stigma, and they're maybe less likely to actually acknowledge what's happening and seek help. That's very true. I find that too. In my age cohort, you know, sometimes I'll have a thought to myself, I'll think, oh, well, it's not really a mental health problem.

38:46It's just, and I think you are stigmatizing it to yourselves. If you're feeling like that, if you think, hmm, I don't feel great. I don't want to go to a mental health professional. Maybe one kind of intermediary step is just to talk to another friend about it. Because a lot of times when you verbalize it, either they'll say, oh, wow, me too. Or they'll say, huh, you know, when I was going through that, this is how I sort of worked it out. And I did reach out to a counselor who helped. But I think what doesn't help so much is just keeping it all inside because it gets to be a lot to carry. Yeah, so agree.

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39:55You hit the magic age of 65, which do people actually retire at 65 anymore? But you hit whatever the magic age is. And so much of your social life and your identity was built around the culture of who you're with at work all day. And then all of a sudden, you clock out on the final day. And that's not a part of your daily life anymore. It's like you have to reassemble an entirely new sense of community and relationships and friends around a whole different context. do you have what would be sort of like an a universal first step to starting to do this for somebody at that you know those moments yeah i think getting honest with yourself that loneliness is not a them problem it's an us problem and i love that ucla loneliness scale definition it it just means that you wish you had more social interaction than you currently have because sometimes people in a marriage will be lonely or people with all these people around them will be lonely.

40:58So it's not a numbers kind of thing. But if you kind of think, I do sort of wish I had more groups or more things going on or somebody that I could talk to about this junk that I'm going through right now. If you can honestly in step one go like, yeah, like every human, I'm having a loneliness bout and I need to do something about it. I think the first step is small. And so you're not going to overnight do it, but you could think, okay, I'm going to pick up my darn phone. I'm going to flip through the contacts and you see some names. And then it might be like, I have not talked to a lot of these people in a long time.

41:43I'm just going to do a text. hey Jonathan I was just thinking about you and people are flattered because actually all of us are lonely so when you reach out you're like huh that Carrie was thinking about me and she reached out and it can take kissing a few frogs right like if I'm bold enough to do that to five people maybe one of them texts back and go oh yeah how are you these days Carrie I haven't talked to in 10 years? What have you been up to? To kind of foster it that way. And then the next step would be, I wonder if I could text, hey, do you want to grab a coffee? Or let's say you're the class that you reference that you are taking right now, you could think of who else could I invite to that class?

42:30And what could I do for somebody else? I think that's a great way of, you know, I had somebody recently say to a friend, I heard you are going in for chemo treatments. And I know that that's a weekly thing. Could I drive you to those treatments? Because it would give us some time together. And, you know, I remember when my brother was going through it, his wife wouldn't mind having a break. So I think that step of getting out of yourself and focusing a bit more on other people is a lot of times when that needed social connection happens. I love those examples. And it sounds like one of the underlying things here is also just first acknowledge you're lonely and that's okay.

43:16You're not broken. There's nothing abnormal about it. There's been changes. And now it's like, I'm feeling this and it's low grade suffering and it's okay to acknowledge that and then do something about it. And I love the invitation to start small. The second or the third and fourth elements of your model, adapt and give. Take me into adapt. What are we talking about here? So adapting is an element that I brought in from the research that actually started in Israel. And so some professors there really looked at adaptability and the role of adaptability in navigating these long lives. And one thing that we know for sure, and I always start out my undergraduate classes like this, I show a big red circle behind me and it's all the way filled in.

44:08I said, let's start with the mortality rate. And it's just 100%. There has never been a human that has not died. So we are definitely going to die. And that's not wrong and it's not bad. And often, usually, before we die, we're going to have some changes to our health, regardless of the fact that we had smoothies and tons of protein and wore weighted vests and did all the things. You know, we're still going to have some changes to our physical health and often to our vision and to our hearing. And like you said, very often our closest people will pass away unless we pass away first. And so a lot of times my people I work with will say like, if my husband dies, and I say, when, when your husband dies, because it is going to happen.

45:06And I think it's a good thing for us to recognize you will have diagnoses that will blow your mind. You will lose loved ones that you think you can't live without. You will, you know, lose some of these things that you love. But it's how you respond to those. And so adapting is simply making the conscious decision, often in advance, of how you're going to respond to these curveballs that life gives you. So with adaptability, I think a first step is thinking about it. Like it's not morbid to think about the fact that either I'm going to die first and my husband's going to be on his own or that he's going to die and I'm going to be on my own.

45:51And to think about it. And it's okay to talk about it. And if your adult children think you're weird or morbid, you guide them and say like, no, all of us are definitely, if we're lucky, we're going to get old. And how can we get something and then be okay with it? And it goes back to the oldest thinking of Viktor Frankl, right? You know, here he was in a concentration camp, the worst possible place and the worst possible experience. And yet he said, regardless of all of this, I can maintain my spiritual freedom. And so I always think what life throws at me most likely won't be as difficult as what he endured.

46:34And yet he's an example of adapting by going inside and thinking, I'm going to find another way to protect myself internally. And the fact that it can be done inspires us that we can do it too. So it sounds like it starts out by first acknowledging, yes, if we're fortunate to live long enough, things are going to come our way. Things we don't want, things we didn't expect. quote curveballs using the language that you use. And they're not really curveballs because we should expect them. Right, right. It's sort of like, they're just balls. What if we just, you know, instead of completely avoiding them and just assuming like everything's going to be awesome until the final day and then it's just going to be over.

47:17Saying, okay, so like let's expect something and how might we prepare ourselves now or before that time to have a set of skills or practices or support so that when it does happen, whatever it is, we'll be in a better position to deal with those moments and experiences. That's exactly right. And there's things as a gerontologist that I don't say aging gracefully because I am working with thousands of people. It's not graceful. It's hard and it's messy. And I also don't say age is just a number because like in your 90s, it's more than a number. it's a lot to it and I also I don't know anybody who hasn't had rough stuff in their long life like I don't know anybody like that I don't know anybody who just skipped their way all the way into a long life I everybody I've ever met has had hard stuff and I will too and so will you And it's not wrong, it's right.

48:27And it is life. And it doesn't have to mean that we can't have joy. It means like joy anyway. Joy anyway. I love that. Give the final element of the framework here. Take me into this. That's my favorite. Because with internalized ageism, we think, well, who would want what I have to give? But in fact, what older versions of ourself have to give is exactly what society needs. And so we can, and by give, I'm really thinking of giving of yourself. And so it can be tied to purpose. And there's quite a nice literature on purpose showing that people who say that they have a, who feel that they have a sense of purpose have different epigenetic gene expression than those who don't.

49:27I mean, how powerful is that, that it impacts your inflammation, it impacts your antiviral load. But purpose isn't this great big thing like I'm going to cure cancer or I'm going to do all. And purpose is little. And purpose is how can I use what I am, what I have, what I have fostered in the service of other people? Because those who have sought and found a way to serve, those are the people who most enjoy life. And it benefits the person that you're giving to, but it benefits you every bit as much, if not more. And so an example that I have is there was an older gentleman who was very high ranked officer in the military, like big, big deal job.

50:19And then when he retired, he did have that as we all do, like, what now? Who am I now? What do I do? What? People have been saluting me my whole life. And now I'm just kind of an 80 year old fellow. and what he did was he thought I'm going to find a way to use what I have and in this case he found that it was right after COVID that there was quite a few positions available for bus drivers and so he you know was this really highly paid guy and he was like you know what I he had really good vision he had really good reflexes he was a very accomplished very fit man so he went and he applied, and I think at that time he was 79, but when I met him, he was 80.

51:08He drove the school bus and it was revolutionary for the town because he talked to each student each day. He made it so that the district no longer had to wash the buses because every Saturday he organized the bus watching event where all the kids would come and wash the event and the families came together. I I mean, it was revolutionary all because he thought, what's a need? What do I have? How can I put that together? And so I'm amazed by him. And yet I know that we can find a way. And I have one more example, which is I know a lady who is nonverbal also in a facility, but her whole life she has been really good at listening.

51:57And so the other day when I went to visit with her, the nurse, the certified nursing assistant said to me, everybody always goes in and visits with Marge because she's so she's such an astute listener and her eyes just light up when you're sharing. and I thought, wow, even in the worst condition, the fact that she's a good listener has lasted her all the way her whole life and people recognize it. And that kind of blew me away. Yeah, I love those two examples, you know, because it also shows that you don't have to be this bastion of fitness and wellness and cognitive function to actually have something to give.

52:38And there's a whole spectrum. You can be dealing with your own stuff. You can be compromised in different ways. You can be suffering yourself and yet still have something within you that is of value. It might just be your attention. It might just be your willingness to sit and listen. It might be something that you know or can share. And so often it's been my experience. If I'm suffering, but I find somehow that the energy or the bandwidth to in some way give of myself during that period of time, it takes my mind away from my suffering. It doesn't change my physical circumstances or my external circumstances.

53:12is they're still the same ones that promoted this experience of suffering. But because I've shifted my attention away to being in some way kind or giving to someone else for a moment in time, I'm not paying attention to those circumstances. And I feel like it actually, it really, it takes me out of the suffering for that window of time, or maybe at least it ameliorates it. So I love this because it's like you can be dealing with your own stuff and still have something to give that is not just going to keep emptying your tank but actually refill it at the same time. That's exactly what the research shows.

53:51And if you are asking yourself, what do I have to give? That's a good sign because what it means is that maybe take some time and reflection to just sort of brainstorm and think through, huh, what if I brought lemons from my tree over to my next door neighbor? What if I asked this guy down here who's a single father if he might be interested in me throwing the ball back and forth with this kid? What if I could jump on a webinar and teach something that I know? There is so much, but we have to reject the societal notion that we have less to give as we get older, because the reality is we have more to give as we get older, but it is incumbent upon us to recognize that fact and then do something about it, even when it's hard.

54:45Which really circles us around to something that you write about at the end of the book, Joy Span, also in something you referenced earlier in our conversation, which is this notion of legacy. I've always been largely disconnected from the word legacy. I don't have grand visions about leaving buildings behind or this or that or body of work. I just want to show up and be kind to the people who are closest to me in the world. And that's all. You have an interesting take on legacy in the context of joy and joy span. Yes, I have known so many people who I remember in their old age and how much they hated and lamented and were kind of mean or nasty about it, right?

55:30And, you know, you can't help but kind of remembering people that way. And when they're a loved one, like I have some family members in that category, I do remember them that way. And so my hope would be for myself and for the people that I work with is that we can maybe think our legacy of changing this narrative on aging and being sort of catalysts of what's possible in older age. So that when people think about Jonathan Fields, they remember that 98-year-old who was getting up each morning with a big friendly wave and, you know, inviting the kids over for pumpkin carving or all the kinds of things that you can do.

56:13And it really, that's quite a legacy. That is changing the narrative around aging. That is inspiring people that what could come next. And I think that's going to make a societal difference. by each of us doing it because I don't think 20 year olds are going to somehow have a light bulb moment and say, actually, aging is not so bad. I think it's going to come from us with the lived experience of being older to like lean into it and then show other people of saying, I accept myself. I got a face full of wrinkles and I got a big belly laugh and I got a big belly and I was here And I hope that that might soften the load for you who comes behind me.

57:03And so that's how I think about JoySpan legacy or just the legacy that can occur in longevity. Beautiful. Feels like a good place for us to wrap up as well. So in this container of Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live it. to live it all the way to the end and know that it will not be easy because it wasn't intended to be easy. And yet how beautiful it can be as a result of our decision to be grateful for each day. Thank you. Hey, if you love this episode, you'll also love the conversation we had with Karen Walron about embracing aging with possibility and power.

57:54You can find a link to that episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers, Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young. Christopher Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube too. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did because you're still listening here. Do me a personal favor, a seven-second favor. Share it with just one person.

58:27I mean, if you want to share it with more, that's awesome too, but just one person even. Then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered, to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter. Because that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.