Longevity Medicine and the Practices of the Healthcare Athlete
Longevity medicine is a rapidly expanding area which seeks to increase length and quality of life. The Practices of the Healthcare Athlete provide an important foundation to this pursuit.
Dr. Darin Davidson partners with Learner+, a CME/CE reflective learning platform for healthcare providers. For the opportunity to reflect on this article and earn CE/CME credits, Launch here. Check out all past articles which are also eligible for reflections and CE/CME credits.
A rapidly expanding and increasingly popular area of practice within healthcare relates to so-called longevity medicine. Typically this focuses on increasing the length of life through promotion of health. This often incorporates optimizing sleep, nutrition, and physical activity, as well as monitoring of physiological parameters and use of supplements. In addition to the emphasis on length of life, Peter Attia, M.D. has discussed the importance of what he terms healthspan. He utilizes this term to describe not only increasing the duration of life, but also improving the quality of life.
The typical application of the principles of longevity medicine, including both lifespan and healthspan, do not necessarily directly incorporate the biologically based principles upon which the Practices of the Healthcare Athlete is developed. While longevity medicine practitioners may not focus on training strategies and tactics to optimize nervous system flexibility, vagal tone, or vagal break it is nonetheless the case that the mind-based and body-based skills within the Practices of the Healthcare Athlete are in fact an essential foundation to both lifespan and healthspan.
While there is much overlap in the integration of practices related to sleep, physical activity, and optimization of nutrition and hydration between longevity medicine and the Practices of the Healthcare Athlete, from my perspective the strategies and tactics within this framework are essential, not only to leverage our biology in the pursuit of sustainable high performance, but also to improve health and wellbeing, which is at the core of both lifespan and healthspan. For this reason, understanding how the Practices of the Healthcare Athleteprovide the foundation for longevity medicine becomes an informative and essential consideration.
In order to more fully contemplate how the mind-based and body-based skills provide an essential building block for both lifespan and healthspan, it is important to consider longevity medicine from the perspective of the Practices of the Healthcare Athlete.
When we consider the primary element within longevity medicine, specifically lifespan, the emphasis is placed on increasing quantity of life. This, of course, relates to increasing the number of years lived. As noted above the typical longevity medicine approach to this pursuit emphasizes the use of nutritional supplements, advanced monitoring of physiological parameters, and integration of sleep, physical activity, and stress reduction. These are all important elements to improving our lifespan.
It is also essential to consider that in order to increase the number of years that we live, ultimately, we need to improve our degree of recovery and restoration from our daily activities. This requires a return to homeostasis. As discussed in past articles within this series related to the issues of recovery and restoration, the ability to accomplish this important element rests within our capacity to shift our biological states towards anchored and grounded states. It is only within these states that we are able to truly return to homeostasis, allowing for recovery and restoration at a physiological, as well as psychological level.
In addition, it is important to consider that if we become locked within activated, overwhelmed, or shutdown states, we are unable to directly return to a homeostatic state. If this becomes the case, then we are not able to recover and restore our physiology and psychology. Given the nature of modern day society, it is often the case that we are more frequently within activated, overwhelmed, and shutdown states thereby reducing our level of recovery and restoration. This negatively impacts our health and is readily seen in the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases across society.
The above discussion informs that if we are to truly pursue increasing our lifespan, it is essential that we increase the degree of recovery and restoration following our regular activities. This is particularly true following high demand activities, which place an even greater burden on our resources. If we are to accomplish this recovery and restoration, it is essential that we are able to shift our biological state to grounded and anchored states. This, of course, is not facilitated or directly achieved through the typical recommendations within longevity medicine. The Practices of the Healthcare Athlete, however, provide actionable strategies and tactics to allow us to shift our biological state to support recovery and restoration, thereby directly leading to increased longevity.
The discussion of pursuing the benefits of longevity medicine is also important to consider from the perspective of healthspan. From this perspective, the emphasis is on improving our quality of life. This, of course, can mean different things to different people and has no single definition. Irrespective of what we may consider an improved quality of life, this can only be achieved if we are able to manage our biology such that we reduce experiences of distress and overwhelm and improve our ability to return to a grounded and anchored state following inevitable instances of distress and overwhelm.
From the framework of the Practices of the Healthcare Athlete, the pursuit of healthspan can be understood to directly relate to our ability to leverage our biology towards biological states most conducive and appropriate for our given situation. While we will inevitably shift into activated, overwhelmed, and shutdown states, it is our ability to subsequently shift back towards anchored and grounded states that directly contributes to our quality of life. The reason for this is that our capacity to return to more grounded and anchored states allows us the ability to experience the broad range of situations within our lives while still being able to shift back to the state which is most conducive to connection with our self and others, as well as promoting health, wellbeing, and sustainable high performance.
The typical recommendations within longevity medicine do not provide direct strategies and tactics to improve quality of life through the ability to leverage our biology and return to anchored and grounded states. This serves as another example of how the Practices of the Healthcare Athlete provide a foundation and directly contribute towards the pursuit of longevity through optimizing healthspan.
As can be appreciated from the above discussion, whether we are considering longevity from the perspective of lifespan or healthspan, the typical recommendations rest upon a foundation of an ability to leverage our biology such that we are able to shift our biological states to that which is needed. The typical practice recommendations emerging from longevity medicine provide strategies which are supportive of the ability to leverage biology, but do not directly influence our ability to accomplish these biological state shifts. The mind-based and body-based skills developed within the Practices of the Healthcare Athlete, provide the capacity to leverage biology, thereby developing the necessary foundation to optimally pursue both lifespan and healthspan. As such, from my perspective, the framework provided by the Practices of the Healthcare Athleteis a necessary and vital component in the pursuit of longevity.
To learn more, including about polyvagal informed coaching for healthcare professionals and others in high demand domains, please visit www.darindavidson.com.
Dr. Darin Davidson partners with Learner+, a CME/CE reflective learning platform for healthcare providers. For the opportunity to reflect on this article and earn CE/CME credits, Launch here. Check out all past articles which are also eligible for reflections and CE/CME credits.
REFERENCE
Attia P, Gifford B. Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity. New York, NY: Harmony Books, 2023.