Healthspan 101: Why Feeling Young Longer Matters More Than Living Longer

At what point did we start accepting feeling “off” as normal?

Because somewhere along the way, women were told this is just part of getting older.
 The fatigue.
 The weight changes.
 The sleep issues.
 The feeling like something isn’t quite right.

And most of the time… no one really explains why.

In this first episode of Healthspan on Her Terms, we’re talking about what’s actually happening and what those changes mean for your health long-term.

We break down what healthspan really is, why so many women feel older than they should, and the five key areas that quietly shape how you’ll feel in the decades ahead.

If you’ve ever thought, “I don’t want to end up like this in ten or twenty years,” this is where we start.

Don't Miss These Moments...

• 00:00 Why Living Longer Isn’t Enough
• 00:53 Meet Dr. Sheri Erwin
• 02:04 A Patient Story Behind Normal Labs
• 04:18 What Healthspan Really Means
• 06:37 The Too Young To Feel Old Signs
• 10:12 Pillar One Strength And Muscle
• 11:34 Pillar Two Metabolic Health Clues
• 16:37 The Five Pillars And Starting Point
• 17:32 Tiny Steps You Can Do Now
• 18:47 Free Quiz And Program Options
• 20:04 Final Takeaway And Thanks

Start Here:

Take the Next Decades Quiz to understand what your body may be signaling right now:
 👉 https://rootremedyic.involve.me/next-decades-healthspan-quiz

This is a quick, three-minute check-in on your energy, brain fog, mood, sleep, joints, weight, habits, and long-term health.
 At the end, you’ll see where to focus now and receive a one-page guide with the five key levers we discuss on this podcast.

Work With Me:

If you’re looking for more personalized support, I work with women in select states through my telehealth clinical practice, Root & Remedy Integrative Care:
 👉 https://rootremedyic.com

Explore More:

You can find additional resources, links, and ways to connect here:
 👉 https://linktr.ee/rootremedyic

Stay Connected:

If this episode was helpful, make sure to rate, review, and follow the podcast so you don’t miss new episodes.

Transcript

Why Living Longer Isn’t Enough

Speaker 0:01

We've gotten pretty good at adding years to our life. We haven't done nearly as good as making those feel good. If you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s, or beyond, and you keep thinking, Am I too young to feel this old? This first episode is for you. Today we're going to talk about what healthspan actually is and why it matters so much for women and the five big areas that quietly shape how you feel in your next decades. I'm Dr. Sheri Erwin. I'm a doctor of nursing practice, an integrative clinician, and the founder of Root and Remedy Integrative Care. I am also the creator of Her Next Decades Blueprint, a three-month women's health span program where I help women bring together their story, their symptoms, and their labs so we can see what is really going on and build a plan that can actually help their life and live with it well. I started this podcast because I hear the same things from women all the time. My labs are fine, but I don't feel fine. Am I too young to feel this old? I'm worried about ending up like my mom or my dad, but I have no idea what to do about it now. This show is for women who want to understand what actually matters for their health now, so they can feel strong, clear, and in control in the decades ahead. Let me tell you a quick story about why I care so much about health span. A few years ago, I was working with a woman in her late 40s. On paper, you know, everything looked great. Her labs were technically normal, her blood pressure wasn't terrible, and she wasn't in crisis. But when she sat in front of me, what she actually described was very different. She was having daily brain fog, felt like she was faking it at work. She crashed hard in the afternoons. Her sleep was broken, her weight had shifted around her midsection and was not responding to what used to work. No matter how much exercise she did or what she ate or what she didn't eat. In addition, her joints were bothering her. She was avoiding doing certain activities because it was uncomfortable, especially things she used to love. And on top of that, her mom had developed diabetes and heart disease in her 50s, and her dad had memory loss. So she was sitting there with this split reality. The system was saying, you're fine. Her body was saying, I'm not fine, and I'm scared of where this is heading. The conversation and make it light changed everything for her. I started to discuss with her her health. It made it very clear that we were not doing a good job talking about health span and how patterns in your 30s, 40s, and 50s actually shape the future into your 70s and 80s and how we could change that. We so focused in our primary care capacity on the here and now and not always on the future. That is the one reason I created her next decade blueprint. It is why I'm having these conversations with you today. Let us start with a simple idea and put some clear language around it. Most of us were taught to focus on lifespan, which is just how long you live. Health span is very different. Health span is how long you live well. How many of those years you spend feeling like yourself, able to do what you want to do, not just technically being alive. Imagine two women both live to be 85 years old. One of them is fairly active, she's independent into her 70s, she's traveling, she's walking around the block, she's doing activities with her friends, she's able to carry her own groceries, and she can think clearly and manage her life. She's still living independent. The other 85-year-old woman spends her last 10 or more years in major mobility issues, multiple medications, frequent hospital visits, and needing a lot of help, even with basic tasks. Same lifespan, right? They both live to be 85, very different health spans. Hopefully that picture kind of brings it together between lifespan and health span. And here is the other important part to realize. Most of the women I work with care deeply about not just how long they live, but how they live in those later years. And here's an important part: the gap between lifespan and health span is often built in the years you are living right now: your 30s, your 40s, your 50s, and your 60s. So when I talk about health span, I'm not talking about chasing perfection or hacking your way to being 120 years old. I'm talking about stacking the odds in favor of more years where you feel strong, clear, functional, and fewer years where you feel like your life just shrunk or was pulled out from under you. Let us talk about why so many women tell me this. They tell me I feel too young to feel this old. These things can happen at any age. You might be noticing brain fog where you're rereading emails or losing words and conversations. Your energy is crashing in the mid-afternoon where you lean on things like coffee or a sugary snack to keep you going. Or maybe your mood is shifting, you're becoming more irritable, or anxiety that feels louder than it used to. Sleep that is lighter, more broken, or just not restorative at all. Joint pains or stiffness in your body that makes you hesitate before doing activities that you once used to love. Maybe it was a simple walk or hike that you used to like or bike riding. Weight, especially around the midsection. This like can happen in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, like I said, anytime in your lifespan. This is not about responding to what is going on, but your body is not responding like it used to. So that weight isn't changing like it used to with the same things you used to do. And on top of that, you might have a family history, maybe a family history of diabetes, heart disease, dementia, or autoimmune disease. And along with those symptoms that you might be feeling, there are the quiet thoughts that often come with them. Things like, if my labs are fine, then why do I feel like this? What if this is my next or my new normal? I'm holding everything together now, but what happens in 10 years? I love my mom, I love my dad, but I do not want their health story. So most women do not say those things out loud in the exam room, but they carry them around with them. If you have had any of those thoughts, you're not being dramatic. You're you are really paying attention. From a health span point of view, none of these symptoms and concerns are actually random. They are information about how your body is handling the stage of life you are in now. They are not a characteristic or character flaw. They are not proof that you're lazy or broken. They are signals about where your body might need some more support. And the earlier you start to listen to the changes in your body, the more room you have to change the story for your next decades. So, what actually shapes health span in practice? In my work with women, I see five big pillars show up again and again. Think of these as levers. You can gently start to adjust. You do not have to change them all at once. Let me walk you through these levers, these pillars. So, pillar one is strength and muscle. Muscle is one of the most important health span tissues we have, especially for women. It helps us regulate our blood sugar, metabolism, weight regulation, joint support in our posture, balance, fall prevention, being able to carry things, getting off the floor, traveling, being independent. Starting in our 30s and our 40s, we're not intentionally maintaining and building muscle. We tend to actually lose it if we don't intentionally try to save it. At the same time, life often gets more sedentary just at the time our hormones are shifting. In real life, this might look something like groceries feel heavier than they used to, thinking twice about getting down on the floor with a child or a pet, avoiding certain activities because you're not sure you can do them safely or without pain anymore. When I talk about strength, I'm not talking about being a bodybuilder or an Olympic power lifter. I'm talking about having enough muscle to support the way you want to live now and later. The second pillar, metabolic health. This includes things like your blood sugar, your cholesterol, blood pressure, and where your body tends to store the weight. Day-to-day metabolic stress can look something like this: feeling shaky or very irritable if you go too long without eating, crashing hard in the afternoon, strong sugar or carb cravings, especially when you're tired or stressed, weight shifts to your midsection, even if your habits haven't really changed. But that weight seems to just gravitate to that middle part of your body. Over the years, those patterns matter for your risk of diabetes, heart disease, and brain changes. But they are also clues we can work with now to improve how you feel later. And now. Strength and muscle, metabolic health, hormones and lifestyle life stage, stress and nervous system, brain, mood, and connection. Ask yourself this question which of these feels the most out of balance for me right now? Take a moment and kind of think about that. How would that affect my life as you're thinking about it? You do not have to fix it today, just noticing it as a powerful set of information. That area that I popped into your mind is usually a good place for you to start. I want to give you a few very simple examples of what starting can look like. If strength and muscle stood out to you the most, your one step this week might be do 10 squats and then 10 wall push-ups three times this week. That's it. 10 squats, 10 wall push-ups, three times this week. If you resonated with metabolic health and that stood out to you, your one step might be make your first meal of the day include a meaningful source of protein. Maybe it's an egg, Greek yogurt, beans, or leftovers with meat or fish every day this week. If stress or nervous system stood out to you, you might want to try spending five minutes in the evening with your phone in another room, just breathing, stretching, or sitting even quietly. You do not need to be in a perfect state. You do not have to have a perfect routine. You just need one small way of telling your future self, I'm paying attention right now. If today's conversation brought up the feeling of, yes, this is me, and I'm too young to feel this old, I want to invite you into the next step. First, on your own, pick one of those five pillars and choose one small step for the week. Second, if you want a simple way to see where you stand right now, you can take my free next decades quiz. It is a three-minute check-in that looks at your symptoms and habits and gives you a green, yellow, orange snapshot for your health span. You can access the link for that free next decade quiz in the information below this podcast. Want to thank you for listening to this first episode of Healthspan on Her Terms. If this resonated with you, it would mean a lot for me if you would subscribe, if you would provide a review, or you would share it with another woman who you think could benefit, especially if they feel too young to feel this old. I'm Dr. Sheri Erwin. Take good care of your future self this week, even if it's just one small step.