While biohackers are “optimizing” and Bryan Johnson is turning his life into one giant longevity experiment, regular people are left wondering how rigid their routines really need to be for better health and well-being.
And in all the health “maxxing,” supplement stacks and high-tech devices, something crucial may be being forgotten.
Ultimately, one of the most proven drivers of longevity is free, backed by science — and something you likely want to do.
Dr. Eric Verdin, president and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, worries there’s too much focus on supplements, cold plunges, red-light panels and continuous monitoring.
But there is no need to spend your hard-earned cash making life feel less enjoyable.
Instead, he stresses, people should be focusing on sleep, movement, nutrition, stress reduction — and human connection.
That’s because the simplest key to health may just be fun, friends and simply enjoying yourself.
“You can’t buy it, track it on a wearable, or optimize it into a protocol — so the longevity-as-engineering crowd tends to skip past it, but the biology is real,” he told The Post. “Loneliness and isolation drive chronic stress, and chronic stress drives inflammation, which is one of the core mechanisms of aging.”
The data is legit — and the cost of not engaging socially is sobering.
Those who feel they belong to a community are 2.6 times more likely to report good or excellent health than those without.
Loneliness literally increases the risk of premature death by over a quarter, with a 2015 analysis of more than 3.4 million people finding that people who reported being lonely had a 26% higher likelihood of mortality. Another study from BYU found that social relationships improve your odds of survival by 50%.
A lack of social connection may be as harmful to longevity as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day — and is more harmful than obesity.
There are a few things at play. For one, people with a social network may be more likely to take care of themselves.
“When someone is connected to a group and feels responsibility for other people, that sense of purpose and meaning translates to taking better care of themselves and taking fewer risks,” BYU professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad explained. “That constant interaction is not only beneficial psychologically but directly to our physical health.”
Though her study lumped all social connections together — both negative and positive — Verdin argues that bad social connections can age you too.
“Frequency and consistency matter more than intensity — regular, in-person contact with people you actually care about beats occasional grand gestures.”
Dr. Eric Verdin
“Adverse social conditions keep the stress response chronically switched on. That elevates inflammatory signaling and chronic inflammation (what some of us call ‘inflammaging’), accelerating essentially every age-related disease, from cardiovascular disease to neurodegeneration,” he said.
Having good connections, meanwhile, buffers stress and dampens that inflammation.
So why aren’t we all just… hanging out with our loved ones?
A large part of the problem is that modern life doesn’t help. Strong human connections and avoiding loneliness have become a matter of national importance, with the CDC researching loneliness across the country.
Social isolation has increased in the aftermath of COVID, and in America, young men are reported to be lonelier than those in other wealthy countries. One poll suggests a quarter of men aged 15 to 34 had been experiencing loneliness. Another found that in 2021, 12% of Americans reported having no close friends; that’s up 3% since 1990.
It’s not just company we need — there’s also joy. Gerontologist Dr. Kerry Burnight’s bestselling book, Joyspan, brought a new word to aging science. The term gives a name to the years you can enjoy a good quality of life, well-being and satisfaction.
“Joy isn’t luck or temperament,” Dr. Burnight explained. “It’s a learnable skill built on four research-based practices: grow, connect, adapt and give.
“You can perfect every protocol and still miss the point… Social connection rivals or beats most of what we track on a lab report. So by all means, measure your glucose and your VO2 max, but then also ask yourself: Who did I laugh with today? Who did I reach out to? Connection isn’t the soft stuff around the edges of longevity; it’s the engine.”
The idea of “joyspan” popped up at The Longevity Show (coming to New York next May) in London — even amidst a mix of leading experts talking about buzzier topics like what we can learn from our oral microbiome and the pros and cons of various tracking devices.
Day two of the event opened with a “longevity rave.” Coverage of these events had gone viral when 60-year-old health strategist and entrepreneur “DJ Tina Technotic,” aka Tina Woods, first took to the decks in 2024.
This was not a midlife crisis: The company she cofounded is pioneering research into the science of human connection and how it impacts our biology.
Those attending have been known to range from 18 to 81 years old. The whole exercise has now evolved into what they call the “JoyScore Experiment,” a science program for neuroscientists, longevity researchers, universities and tech people to see how music, dance, synchrony and community impact how we age.
“We are bound together by our evolutionary past, and humans evolved in tribal communities,” she said.
“When we move together, sing together or dance together, our brains and bodies literally begin to synchronize. Our nervous systems become more regulated, stress falls and we experience a greater sense of trust, belonging and safety.”
She recognizes the good work the longevity field has done on tracking and refocusing how we approach sleep, exercise and healthy eating, and says that the backlash we are seeing against metrics is not actually a rejection of health.
“It is a rejection of the idea that health should become a full-time, solitary and often joyless job,” she said.
Don’t worry if dancing isn’t your thing. Dr. Verdin suggests we might want to treat relationships like exercise, “something you schedule and protect, not something you hope happens on its own.”
“Frequency and consistency matter more than intensity — regular, in-person contact with people you actually care about beats occasional grand gestures,” he explained.
As we age, this can become harder, so he says we need to make a concerted effort to “keep old friendships alive… and find shared activities that give you a reason to show up.” He suggests walking with a friend, cooking and eating with people, joining something that moves your body and puts you in a room with others.
“And a sense of purpose and contribution — feeling needed — is part of the same picture,” he stressed.
And then comes the final challenge: How do we balance losing out on sleep to be out with friends, or having a glass of wine because it makes you happy? Well, there are trade-offs.
“Sleep is the one I’d protect most fiercely, because the downstream cost of chronically poor sleep is large and compounding,” Dr. Verdin said.
“An occasional late night with people you love is not going to undo you — the stress reduction and connection are genuinely part of the benefit. Chronic sleep deprivation, night after night, is a different thing entirely. So enjoy the late night; just don’t let it become the pattern.”
Alcohol is a tougher one.
“I won’t tell you a glass of wine is good for you — it isn’t,” he said. “But health is not the only thing worth optimizing for… The goal isn’t a maximally long life lived joylessly. It’s a long life worth living.”
