But according to a huge 2023 study, which looked at 270 trials from 1990-2023, “isometric” exercises might be the most effective at the job, with “wall sits” the best performer among these.
Researchers found that isometric exercise was more likely, on average, to lower blood pressure than aerobic exercise training, dynamic resistance training, combined training, and high-intensity interval training, though all forms were still immensely helpful.
What is isometric exercise?
It involves keeping your body still while you tense specific muscles for a set period of time. You don’t move your joints during the movement.
It is the opposite of “dynamic,” or “isotonic” exercise, which involves little load and consistent pressure on various muscles. For example, running and swimming.
Most forms of exercise involve a combination of isometric and isotonic exercise, though some are 100% one or the other.
What are some examples of isometric exercises?
These include:
Wall sits
Planks
Glute bridges
Side planks
V-holds
Calf raises
Hollow holds
Copenhagen planks.
In the 2023 study we mentioned earlier, published in the BMJ, wall sits (placing your back against a wall with your thighs parallel to the ground) were the most effective of the isometric exercises for lowering blood pressure.
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Does that mean I should only do isometric exercises?
The best approach to exercise seems to be a mixture of weight training and aerobic training. This has been linked to increased longevity compared to sticking to one or the other.
Speaking to the British Heart Foundation, senior cardiac nurse, Joanne Whitmore, said: “Exercise is good for your heart health and health in general. It can reduce the risk of heart and circulatory diseases by up to a third.
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“Aerobic exercise in particular can help the heart and circulatory system work better through lowering blood pressure. Current guidelines also encourage muscle-strengthening exercises, like yoga or Pilates.
“It’s encouraging to see other forms of exercise explored in this research as we know that those who take on exercise they enjoy, tend to carry on for longer, which is key in maintaining lower blood pressure.
“However, there are other lifestyle choices that can benefit your blood pressure. These include keeping to a healthy weight, eating a balanced diet, cutting down on salt, not drinking too much alcohol and taking any prescribed medication”.
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Speak to your doctor if you have a heart condition and want to take up new exercise, she added.
If you peek outside, it’s pretty likely you’ll see several people running errands with a pair of headphones on. In our digital-first world, many of us use headphones all day long at work, on our commute and even at home when we’re cleaning or exercising.
Headphones are a convenient (and polite) way to listen to music, videos or calls in public. But does the direct sound exposure impact your ears and hearing any differently than other sound sources? Are headphones more damaging to your ear health?
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Below, experts share what you should know about safe headphone use.
Listening to music or calls through headphones is no different than listening via a speaker.
Our ears don’t know where sound is coming from, said Catherine V. Palmer, an audiologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Sound can be damaging whether it’s coming from car speakers, living room speakers or headphones, she added.
“One is not more dangerous than another,” Palmer said.
There’s noise around you all the time, said Dr. Kenny Lin, an otolaryngologist at Houston Methodist, and headphones don’t pose a specific danger.
“It’s just the volume at which and the duration over which you are listening to music or phone calls or whatever the case might be,” Lin said. “As long as you’re using your headphones at a reasonable volume, it is no different than listening to music from the speaker or listening to the TV.”
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Headphones can be more dangerous to your ears in specific situations, though.
“The one area where a headphone can be potentially riskier is that you place the sound source right up to the ear,” Lin noted.
If you mistakenly left the volume up very high on Spotify, for example, and then plug in your headphones, “the impact of that on your ear could be potentially higher just because of where it’s placed, closer to the ear in its first place,” Lin said.
According to Anna Bixler, an audiologist and the amplification and tinnitus program manager at Jefferson Balance and Hearing Center in Philadelphia, people can also run into problems if there is a lot of sound going on around them.
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“That’s really where I see people get themselves into hot water with their streaming level, because when we’re in quiet, we tend to keep it to a pretty minimal volume … when we get on a train or when we’re running outside, and there’s a lot of noise around … that’s when we have a tendency to kick up the volume to compete with external signal,” Bixler said.
There is one simple way to combat this, though: Bixler recommends that folks turn on noise cancellation if it’s available on their headphones.
“That really, really helps a lot of people to keep their streaming volume to a much more minimal level,” Bixler added.
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If you aren’t competing with external noise, you won’t be tempted to increase your volume, she said.
Tatiana Maksimova via Getty Images
Listening to music or calls through headphones is no more damaging than listening through a computer speaker, according to experts.
That said, sound-induced hearing loss is the most common type of hearing loss.
“The most common cause of hearing loss in adults is [sound-induced] hearing loss,” Palmer said.
But not all sounds are created equal. “‘Dose’ predicts whether sound will damage an individual’s hearing,” Palmer said. “Dose is the combination of how loud a sound is and how long you are exposed to it.”
“The louder the sound is and the longer the exposure, the more likely that there will be damage,” Palmer continued, noting that this hearing loss is permanent.
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Prolonged loud sound exposure can also cause tinnitus or ringing in the ears, in addition to hearing loss, according to Lin.
So, what noise level is best?
According to the National Institutes of Health, you’re likely safe from hearing damage if you’re around sounds that are 70 decibels or less; 70 decibels is roughly equivalent to a conversation or the sound of a washing machine.
How can you tell what decibel level your music and calls come in at? Many phones and smartwatches tell you when your volume is at an unsafe level. There are also apps and websites that help measure noise levels.
But the most reliable way to understand the volume of your music is by visiting an audiologist, Bixler noted.
“We can’t always just trust our ear to know what’s a safe level [of sound],” Bixler said.
An audiologist can help measure the level of sound that’s being played out of your headphones.
“We can measure the level of the sound in the ear canal,” Bixler said. “I’ve had a number of patients in more recent years actually come in to see me and have this procedure done so we know where to set safe [limits].”
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Most devices you’re streaming sound from have parental locks you can set for yourself so your sound doesn’t go above a certain level, Bixler added. “I think the best thing that most people can do is take a look at any streaming device they’re using and set a nice limit for themselves.”
You won’t notice hearing loss right away, but ringing in the ears and a feeling of fullness in the ears are signs that you should see a doctor.
It’s not like listening to too-loud music will cause you immediate and noticeable hearing loss. Instead, “sound-induced hearing loss is gradual,” Palmer said.
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There are signs of hearing loss you should know about, including a feeling of fullness in the ears, ringing in the ears, and, of course, diminished hearing. “These are all signs of noise-induced hearing loss, and you should manage your exposure as well as seek a baseline hearing test from an audiologist,” Palmer said.
An audiologist can help you reduce your noise exposure and also take steps to protect your hearing throughout your life.
“You want to be preemptive in thinking about your dose of sound over time,” Palmer said.
While listening to music or taking calls on headphones isn’t any more damaging than doing so through a computer or kitchen speaker, any sound exposure that’s too loud or too long can be harmful.
As we age, our bodies lose some resilience, which can lead to less movement throughout the day and an increased risk of facing multiple chronic diseases at once (multimorbidity).
This happens partly because senescent cells, sometimes called “zombie” cells, stop dividing and build up. They secrete “proinflammatory molecules that contribute to chronic inflammation and ageing-related diseases”.
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A process called senolysis usually clears these away, but as we get older, that cleaning system becomes less efficient.
How did the researchers stop “zombie cells” from building up?
Though we knew that “zombie cells” seemed to create inflammation that affected nearby cells, scientists weren’t sure about how this went on to affect someone’s body.
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These researchers looked closer at the senescent cells themselves and found they heavily relied on glycolysis (using sugar for energy), a process which is also involved in the spreading of cancer cells.
Using bioluminescence to help see what was going on in the cell better, scientists found that two enzymes were crucial to glycolysis in “zombie cells”. Their binding was increased in sensecent cells.
So, when they were able to interrupt that key interaction, researchers could selectively “delete” zombie cells.
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In mice, the change was linked to reduced lung fibrosis.
They also found that when this activity was diminished, a protein that triggers cell death was suppressed too.
What might this mean?
The study authors hope this might help to maintain resilience in older age.
That way, it’s hoped, the risk of multimorbidity might go down.
This study’s corresponding author, Hiroshi Kondoh, said: “Our findings in glycolytic regulation suggest that impaired metabolic resilience in ageing is one of the targets for senotherapy, to aid in preservation of resilience in ageing.”
And there’s some evidence to suggest that rooibos tea, a South African variety made from the fermented leaves of the Aspalathus linearis shrub, can help with everything from reducing inflammation to controlling blood sugar and boosting our gut health.
Green rooibos is made from the same leaves, but they’re unfermented.
Here are some of the potential health benefits of the caffeine-free tea:
1) It’s brimming with antioxidants
Green rooibos tea is the only source of aspalathin (which helps to maintain cell health), and it’s high in other antioxidants, like quercetin (potentially anti-inflammatory, anti-histamine, and immune-boosting), too.
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Antioxidants help to protect our DNA from harmful free radicals. They may also assist in protecting against chronic illness, heart disease, and cancer.
A 2023 review found that drinking rooibos tea seemed to be linked to higher antioxidant levels in our bodies.
It could also help the integrity of a single-cell gut layer, which helps us to absorb nutrients and keeps toxins and disease out.
3) It could help to manage inflammation
Inflammation isn’t always a bad thing. We need it to build muscle and recover from some illnesses.
But when inflammation becomes chronic and happens when the body doesn’t need it, it can lead to “inflammaging”. That can “contribute to conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia, and frailty,” GP Dr Suzanne Wylie previously told HuffPost UK.
Remember the rooibos tea-specific aspalathin we mentioned earlier? A 2023 paper suggested that it could help to explain why rooibos tea seemed to help control blood sugar levels in both healthy and at-risk individuals.
Still, more research is needed to work out how, why, and to what extent that’s true.
Still, not everyone sticks to it. In one paper, 11% of people who said they wanted to run a marathon quit the sport entirely before they got close to the start line.
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But you don’t need to break records to see the health benefits of running. Here, we thought we’d share some of the (many) advantages of the sport – just in case you needed a little extra motivation.
1) It may be beneficial for your joints
You might have grown up hearing that running wrecks your knees (I did). But a systematic review of 17 studies found that “In the short term, running is not associated with worsening [patient-reported outcomes] or radiological signs of knee [osteoarthritis] and may be protective against generalised knee pain.”
2) It can boost your mood
A review of over 100 studies concluded that running appeared to have “important positive implications for mental health, particularly depression and anxiety disorders”.
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And another paper found that a single 10-minute run can help to boost participants’ mood and even executive function.
3) It could help you live longer
More proof that small efforts are far better than nothing in a 2015 paper, researchers noted that five to 10 minutes of running a day and/or running slower than 9.6km/hour was linked to a lower risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality.
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4) It’s really, really good for your heart
Running is a cardio workout, so perhaps it’s no wonder it’s so good for our hearts. It’s linked to lower cholesterol, better blood pressure, and a decreased risk of adverse cardiovascular events, like heart attacks or strokes.
5) It can strengthen your bones
Scientists found that marathon runners’ bones may be denser than those of their non-running counterparts.
6) It’s a great way to get a good night’s sleep
Exercise, especially exercise with outdoor light exposure (e.g. running in your local park) is linked to better sleep quality and improved sleep habits.
Running trains the heart and lungs, meaning you’ll be able to exercise harder, for longer, once you get into the habit.
What about the downsides?
While running is good for us, there are some downsides.
A 2020 paper found that injury rates were about 20% among runners, especially those with weaker hips. The risk is higher for new runners.
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Strength training, including that which targets the hamstrings, knee-stabilising methods, hips, and glutes, can reduce your likelihood of getting injured.
Like HIIT, overdoing running can lead to insomnia. About a third of all runners are believed to suffer some form of overtraining syndrome.
If you notice mood changes, fatigue, poor sleep, and getting sick more often, get more rest and let your running shoes breathe for a while.
If you’re like most people, you’ve probably drifted off to sleep as soon as you put on a movie or show at night.
It’s a common occurrence – you sit down with your partner to finally watch the season finale of the show everyone is talking about, only to fall asleep, jolt awake, pretend you didn’t fall asleep and keep on watching until you fall asleep again.
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Sleep experts told HuffPost there are many reasons this happens, and some are more concerning than others. Here’s what to know:
When you’re watching TV or movies at night, you’re often in a good sleep environment.
“There’s a couple of environmental factors to the fact of watching TV, watching a movie that promotes sleepiness,” said Dr. Neal Walia, a sleep specialist at UCLA Health in California. “When you wake up in the morning, you develop something called a sleep drive, which is how much your body wants to sleep.”
As you go about your day, your sleep drive goes up before peaking at bedtime, he explained. “And that drive is what gets you into sleep and carries you to sleep,” Walia noted.
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“Usually, people are watching movies and TV in the evening after a long workday. This is when their sleep drive is at the highest,” he said. So your body naturally wants to sleep at this time.
“And then sometimes it’s just a lack of stimulation,” said Dr. Molly Atwood, the director of clinical training in the behavioural sleep medicine program at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore.
If you find yourself feeling tired throughout the day, you may notice that your fatigue disappears when you interact with something, whether that’s scrolling on your phone or getting up to make dinner.
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Why? “Your body has a system of overcoming whatever sleepiness you have with stimuli,” according to Walia. And watching TV and or a movie is, generally, a low-stimuli activity, he noted. TikTok or even a task like folding laundry are more high-stimuli.
“If you’re lying down, it is dark – so your body’s kind of getting that signal that it’s nighttime and if the movie is not very stimulating or boring, it might be a lot easier, too, for any sleepiness that is there to take over,” Atwood added.
“Another big thing is that, especially patients with insomnia, a lot of times what they’ll say to me is ‘I just can’t turn my brain off.’ And most of our day, our attention is preoccupied by something – probably a screen, most likely – but something is taking our attention away,” Walia said.
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We don’t often just sit with our thoughts. That is, until we drift off to sleep at the end of the day. And if you’re stressed about work or anxious about money, sitting with your thoughts can make it difficult to fall asleep.
“But if you’re watching something like a show, you’re not really in your own head for the most part,” Walia said. Your attention is drawn to the show or movie you’re watching, not the taxes you still need to do. This encourages your body to drift off to sleep.
Morning people are more likely to fall asleep while watching TV at night.
Your body’s natural circadian rhythm can play a role in whether you’re prone to falling asleep on the couch or not.
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“In some circumstances, if you’re more of a morning person, your body naturally makes you alert early in the morning and it shuts down alertness early at night,” Atwood said.
Folks in this group are just naturally more tired at night. For morning people, their body is giving them signals that it’s time for bed, which makes it more likely that they’ll drift off while watching TV.
It’s also more common if you re-watch shows.
Many people turn on their comfort shows after a long day. And according to Atwood, it’s more likely that you’ll fall asleep during a show you’ve seen several times.
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“Our nervous systems are super calm and comforted, versus like an action movie or a horror movie,” Atwood said.
You also don’t have to pay much attention to the show to know what’s going on, which allows your body to drift off easily, too.
Olga Rolenko via Getty Images
If you regularly fall asleep during a movie or TV show and are getting enough sleep at night, it’s worth talking to a doctor.
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Most people are also sleep-deprived, which makes it easy to fall asleep while watching TV.
“A lot of our population is sleep deprived,” said Walia, who explained that most people aren’t getting the seven to nine hours of sleep they need each night.
Everyone has different individual sleep needs. But no matter how much sleep your body requires, most folks aren’t getting it.
Because of busy days, family demands and high-stress jobs, you may not even notice you’re sleepy until you’re interacting with something that’s low-stimuli, like a movie. This is when your sleep deprivation can catch up with you and cause you to fall asleep.
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Even people who sleep the recommended seven to nine hours a night may not be getting good quality sleep, which can also result in sleepiness on the couch.
“There’s many people out there with untreated or under-treated sleep disorders that disrupt the quality of sleep,” Walia said, adding that sleep apnea is one example of this.
If you fall asleep during a movie once in a while, there isn’t much cause for concern ― but if this is a regular habit, it’s worth evaluating your sleep.
It’s understandable if you fall asleep on the couch after a busy day of travel or after a late night out, but if you’re falling asleep in front of the TV frequently, you should take notice.
“If you’re sitting upright, the lights are on, it’s an engaging movie … and you still can’t keep yourself awake, that might be more of like, ‘OK, I should reevaluate how much sleep I’m getting overall,’” Atwood said.
If you think you’re getting enough sleep but still falling asleep during engaging shows and movies, it’s worth talking to a sleep specialist, she added. A professional can help test you for underlying conditions that could disrupt your sleep.
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Being able to stay awake during movies and TV shows at night could be a sign of good sleep health.
If you can usually stay awake while watching TV or movies at night, it’s “probably a good indication that [you’re] not sleep deprived or they’re not having disruptions in their sleep,” Walia said.
This nighttime energy reflects relatively good sleep health, he added.
Some sleep disorders can keep people from napping or falling asleep during shows and movies, but, overall, if you are getting enough high-quality sleep, you likely have good sleep health, he said.
Probiotic and fibre-rich foods are great for our guts (which, it turns out, influence a lot of our overall health).
But the British Heart Foundation (BHF) have warned that not all of these are as kind to our hearts, even though happier guts usually mean better cardiovascular health.
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BHF nutrition lead Tracy Parker said that though, “We encourage everyone to choose foods that can keep their gut microbiome healthy… A lot of these products can contain high levels of salt or sugar.”
But, the BHF said, “traditional kimchi is often made with a lot of salt, so it can raise blood pressure if eaten frequently or in large quantities. High blood pressure is known to increase your risk of having a heart attack or stroke”.
They advise trying smaller portions or lower-salt versions.
2) Kombucha
The jury’s still out on whether kombucha, a fermented tea, definitely benefits your gut health, though the BHF says it “can be a healthier alternative to sugary or fizzy drinks and has become a popular choice for people looking to introduce fermented products into their daily routine”.
But, they add, “many commercial kombucha products contain added sugars. Eating too much sugar can lead to weight gain, which in turn can increase the risk of a heart attack or stroke or other cardiovascular disease.”
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Stick to kinds with “no added sugar” written on the label if you can.
But flavoured, sweetened, and “fruit” yoghurts often “contain added sugars and may have fewer live cultures than plain versions,” the BHF cautioned.
They reccomend choosing plain yoghurt with “live and active cultures” on the label to “ensure you are buying a low sugar option that is good for your gut”.
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If you like, you can add fresh fruit at home.
4) Smoothies
“Smoothies made with whole fruits provide prebiotic fibre that feeds the beneficial gut bacteria and supports digestive health,” the BHF said.
But a mere 150ml counts as one of your five a day, and many of us are drinking more than that.
Additionally, “blending breaks down the structure of fruit, releasing ‘free sugars’ that behave like added sugars in the body and cause faster rises in blood sugar levels,” they shared.
“Regularly consuming too much sugar can lead to weight gain, which can increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart and kidney disease.”
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Stick to recommended portion sizes and consider adding nuts, which provide protein and fibre that may help to control the impact of the sugars.
5) Sauerkraut
Like kimchi, this fermented cabbage dish can also be high in probiotics.
But it also often runs a little salty, the BHF said, “which may be a concern for anyone watching their blood pressure. Some shop-bought versions are also pasteurised, which removes most of the live bacteria”.
Try “checking the label and eating small portions,” as well as looking for “raw” sauerkraut or those described as containing “live cutlures”.
It turns out that tiny changes – minutes more exercise, a few grams more veggies – can make a surprisingly large difference to your longevity and heart attack risk.
And Dr Dominic Greenyer, a private GP at The Health Suite, said that those lifestyle changes become medically obvious in time.
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“If you followed two twins over time, you would often see clear differences in their skin, body composition, energy levels and overall health depending on how they live,” Dr Greenyer said.
“Ageing is not just about time passing. It’s about how well the body is maintained.”
Here, he shared the five factors he feels make all the difference:
1) Building and maintaining muscle
As we age, our muscles begin to wane – a process called sarcopenia. If we do nothing to maintain or build it, some research says we’re expected to lose half our muscle mass by 80.
“One of the biggest predictors of healthy ageing is muscle mass,” Dr Greenyer said.
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2) Prioritising sleep and recovery
“Chronic poor sleep can accelerate ageing at a cellular level,” Dr Greenyer said.
“It affects hormones, recovery, inflammation and even visible signs like skin quality.”
Experts think that following a “7-1” sleeping rule (getting at least seven hours of sleep a night, with no more than an hour’s variance between bedtimes and wake-up times) could add years to your life.
3) Reducing inflammation through lifestyle choices
In and of itself, inflammation isn’t a problem – it can help our bodies to heal and may be an important part of muscle growth.
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But “inflammaging” can occur when inflammation is chronic, and might contribute to conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia, and frailty.
It “is influenced by diet, stress, alcohol intake and overall lifestyle,” Dr Greenyer said.
Those who eat whole foods, stay active, and manage stress well may have less unwanted inflammation, he added.
4) Enjoy life, in moderation
There’s lots of research to support the idea that enjoying ourselves – be it through socialising or even eating some candy – might help us to live longer.
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“There is good evidence that polyphenol-rich foods such as dark chocolate can support cardiovascular health when consumed in moderation,” Dr Greenyer added. “Just as important is maintaining strong social connections, which are consistently associated with longer lifespan and better mental wellbeing.”
He ended, “The difference comes from small choices repeated over years – but they should still allow you to enjoy life.”
Processed food is often treated as an unhealthy monolith, though a doctor previously told HuffPost UK that yeast extracts, tinned beans, ready-to-eat oats, and fortified plant-based milks have their role in a healthy diet.
For instance, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) writes that, “You might think canned tomatoes are less healthy than fresh ones.
“But your body can absorb more of a heart-healthy nutrient called lycopene from tinned varieties than it can from fresh, uncooked tomatoes.”
What is lycopene?
Lycopene is an antioxidant (meaning it helps to stop free radicals from damaging DNA and some cells). It helps to give fruits like tomatoes and pink grapefruits their colour.
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Some experts think it could help to lower inflammation, control cholesterol, reduce the risk of blood clots, and improve the immune system.
It has also been linked to lower blood pressure and may even reduce some cancer risks.
If tomatoes contain lycopene in all their forms (which they do), why tinned tomatoes over fresh ones?
Well, that 2022 review said, “Several factors influence the lycopene content of fruits and vegetables, such as environmental conditions (temperature, irrigation, light, climate, location of plantation), fruit variety, degree of ripeness, processing and storage conditions”.
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That’s partly because processing tomatoes breaks down their cell walls, making their lycopene more available to us.
Tomato paste, for instance, has 1827% more lycopene than fresh tomatoes (though you likely eat less of it than canned kinds).
Crushed and canned tomatoes have 5106µg per 100g, vs cooked fresh tomatoes’ 3041µg per 100g.
Eating tinned tomatoes with olive oil might increase how much lycopene your body absorbs from them, too.
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As Michael Mosley told the BBC, “That means tomato sauce from fresh or tinned tomatoes, and even ketchup can actually provide more lycopene than fresh tomatoes”.
Of course, there are other things to consider with e.g. ketchup or premade tomato sauces: added sugars and salt may make any lycopene benefits redundant.
But if you turn to unsalted, sugar-free tinned tomatoes far more often than you stew fresh ones yourself, you might be doing your heart (as well as your taste buds) a favour.
When Héctor Garcia, who co-wrote Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life, went to the “village of longevity,” Ogimi Village, he noticed that the “healthy and active seniors” there often said they had an “ikigai”.
The term refers to something that brings value, meaning, and purpose to life. Here, we asked GP Dr Suzanne Wylie to share her thoughts on the topic.
What is “ikigai”?
It’s a compound of two Japanese words, “life” (iki) and “value, benefit” (-gai).
The Japanese government’s site describes it as “that which brings value and joy to life: from people, such as one’s children or friends, to activities including work and hobbies.”
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Japanese psychologist Katsuya Inoue said it has two elements. These are “sources or objects that bring value or meaning to life,” and “a feeling that one’s life has value or meaning because of the existence of its source or object”.
It is a “broad term”, which can include everything from gardening to art to butterflies.
Ikigai is a practice as much as it is a passion. “Everyone knows what the source of their zest for life is, and is busily engaged in it every day,” Garcia wrote.
What are the benefits of “ikigai”?
Dr Wylie told us she approaches the concept of Ikigai with “a mix of curiosity and cautious optimism.
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“There is certainly a growing body of observational evidence suggesting that having a sense of purpose in life is associated with better health outcomes, including reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, lower rates of depression, and even increased longevity,” she added.
So, though we can’t be as sure it’ll benefit us as much as, e.g., controlling blood pressure or quitting smoking, “it is plausible that [ikigai] contributes [to longevity] indirectly by encouraging engagement in meaningful activities, fostering social connections, and reducing stress, all factors known to influence physical and cognitive health as people age”.
For instance, Dr Wylie shared, people who garden, engage in creative hobbies, or even spend time with loved ones, “tend to have better emotional regulation, lower inflammatory markers, and are more likely to maintain an active lifestyle.
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“These factors can contribute to what we would call healthy ageing, meaning a later onset of frailty, preserved cognitive function, and a greater quality of life, even if the absolute extension of lifespan is modest.”
How can I find an “ikigai”?
Dr Wylie told us there’s no set prescription.
Instead, it’s “more about encouraging people to reflect on what genuinely matters to them and finding ways to integrate that into daily life.
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“This might mean advising someone to take up a hobby they have always enjoyed, join social or community groups, or even structure their day around small, purposeful tasks that bring them satisfaction”.
But simply learning what you like isn’t enough, the GP added.
“The key is consistency and meaningful engagement rather than intensity; it is the regular, ongoing sense of purpose that appears to be protective,” she explained.
“For older adults, in particular, maintaining social connections and pursuing interests can mitigate loneliness and cognitive decline, which in itself may confer measurable health benefits.”
