How Strong Relationships Add Years to Your Life | Ken Stern

Social bonds may be the most overlooked key to longevity. In this episode, Ken Stern, author of Healthy to 100, explains how connection, purpose, and community can profoundly extend healthspan. 

Drawing on insights from Japan, Singapore, Korea, Spain, and Italy, he reveals how cultures that value older adults achieve healthier, longer lives. He contrasts this approach with the U.S., where technology-driven isolation and ageist norms undermine health and life expectancy. Intergenerational programs, lifelong learning, and community design that fosters everyday contact offer practical remedies for urban, high-stress environments. 

In this conversation with Peter Bowes, Stern challenges the “three-stage life” model and reframes later years as a period for contribution rather than decline.

Ken Stern is the founder of The Longevity Project and author of “Healthy to 100: Lessons from the World’s Healthiest Countries.” A former CEO of National Public Radio, he focuses on reimagining work, retirement, and social connection for healthier, longer lives.

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• 9:01 [Ad] Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast
• 9:49 (Cont.) How Strong Relationships Add Years to Your Life | Ken Stern

Transcript

Ken Stern: 0:24

I'm terrorized the idea of retirement. As I look at colleagues struggling to fill voids in their lives, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing until I can't, because I think on the other side is a chasm of, not for everyone, but for a lot of people, a chasm of loneliness and social isolation.

Peter Bowes: 0:46

What does it really mean to have strong social connections? We know a lot of people. We have a lot of friends. The neighbors are always popping over for a chat. We hear it a lot these days. But do social connections really help us live longer? Hello again. Welcome to the Live Long podcast, I'm Peter Bowes. This is where we explore the science and stories behind human longevity. Ken Stern is the founder of The Longevity Project, a think tank rethinking what it means to live longer, how we work, retire, connect and thrive in a world where, for many of us, an extended healthspan is the primary goal living for as long as we can without chronic disease.

Ken is also the author of the new book, Healthy to 100: 1:35

Lessons from the World's Healthiest Countries. How Strong Social Ties lead to Long Lives. Ken, it's great to meet you.

Ken Stern: 1:43

Peter, thanks for having me on your show.

Peter Bowes: 1:46

It's a pleasure. So what are social connections? People talk about? Having friends, neighbors, coworkers, family members. Is that essentially what we're talking about? Or do social connections go a little deeper?

Ken Stern: 1:59

So social connections might be thought of as the entire web of relationships you have from very close ones. Family, first of all, close personal friends, people who you can turn to in emergency. Those are sort of the inner circle. Beyond that, there are lots of other relationships that count as social connections all the way up to what social scientists call weak ties. The butcher that you see in the street that you see at the store. The bus driver who you greet every morning, all those social connections is actually really important. They're all part of your web, your ecosystem, if you will. And they're all important to your health and healthy longevity.

Peter Bowes: 2:37

So, Ken, is it possible to know a lot of people but not necessarily have valuable social connections?

Ken Stern: 2:46

That's an interesting question, Peter. And I think the answer is all social connections are valuable. Some are perhaps more valuable than others. I mean, close people you can turn to in an emergency, I think is, uh, standing definition of what close connections are. But, um, having social connections, um, knowing a lot of people means you're probably means you're out in the world, means you're probably moving a lot. It probably means you're engaging with people. It means you're keeping your mind active. Social connections are actually sort of the heart of a whole set of activities that matter to you, that matter. And, um, if you have a lot of social connections, it probably means you're engaged. It probably means you're out of the house to a certain degree. It probably means you're talking to people thinking about issues. And those all matter, whether they're close or not.

Peter Bowes: 3:35

What I want to dive into, the question of whether those social connections really do help us live longer in a second. But just before we get to that, you, like me, have had a long career in broadcasting and now podcasting. You were CEO of NPR, National Public Radio here in the United States. And I'm just curious from that background, what led you to longevity, what brought you into this field and piqued your interest?

Ken Stern: 4:01

So a couple of things. First of all, I got older. I mean, just naturally, uh, I got into my 50s and began thinking about what is the second half of life mean to me? The other was actually just more happenstance. I came across and met, uh, people at the Stanford Center on longevity, starting with a woman named Laura Carstensen, who is the was the founder and a social scientist, and they helped me turn my thinking from, uh. Aging, which is like, we're getting older, uh, what you might call the decline narrative. We associate age with decline to longevity. How do we think rethink our longer lives so that more years can be productive, meaningful, and purposeful? And that change really sort of fascinated me and got me focused on on this work and largely what I've been doing for almost the last decade.

Peter Bowes: 4:49

I'm also curious in terms of your experience with broadcasters and, uh, to use a phrase, the mainstream media, whether you felt then and what your attitude now is in terms of how longevity is represented and covered in the media, do people who are making programs about this, who are writing about this, do they get it to the extent that perhaps you do now because you've really thrown yourself into this subject?

Ken Stern: 5:15

Yeah, it's such a fascinating question, Peter, and I'm not sure I can give you sort of a broad overview, um, on that question, but I think I would say that most, uh, broadcasters, most reporters, other than the ones who really focus on the topic, think of aging in the way most Americans do. And I'll focus on the American media and the American environment, which is, uh, the the recipe we've been, um, handed down through the years, first third of life for education, roughly speaking, middle, middle part of life for, uh, work. And then you retire and you go into a sort of a steady climb towards death. And they associate aging with that. They don't think about longevity. Um, they don't think about sort of how do we, um, how we are reinventing what are the changes that can be made that need to be made for longer, healthier life? They're citizens in conversation with other citizens and think like, by and large, think like others do. About what? About aging, not about longevity.

Peter Bowes: 6:14

Yeah. And I guess at the back of my mind when I asked that question is that. And I experienced this quite a lot, is that there is a sense that at its most extreme, you're a little bit weird if you're thinking about living to 100 or 120, that if you talk about and I don't like anti-aging or reversing aging, I see aging as a as a pro thing. Pro aging were were getting older in terms of the number of years. But clearly what you understand and what I try to understand is that there are things that we can do to slow down the decline of the physical body and enjoy to a greater extent, life as we get older. And that is the point that I certainly I feel sometimes isn't, isn't got across, and perhaps an appreciation of the science that will help us achieve those things also isn't necessarily fully understood.

Ken Stern: 7:03

Yeah. So I think if you probably sort of did a media analysis, which I've not done, so this is guesswork on my part of most American, let's say, American broadcasters of their covering age. I suspect it's, uh, heavily tilted towards healthcare. The science of how we take care of the people who are infirm. Nothing wrong with that topic. Vitally important one. But it's not the sub and sub sum and substance. Not even the centerpiece of how we age healthfully. Um, and that's, you know, I think that's probably what you would find and not what we should find when there are lots of different ways to think about aging and healthfully. And most of it has to do with before you get sick.

Peter Bowes: 7:39

So let's talk about your book. I know you've been on a journey to research and write this book. Healthy to 100. Let's start with the 100. Why 100? Why not 120? Is that a a relatively arbitrary figure or is it a realistic aspiration?

Ken Stern: 7:56

So it's entirely arbitrary. There's a figure. It's, uh, but it's a fascinating one. Right? There's no real difference between 99 and 100, 101. But I picked that number because it holds the idea of being a centenarians holds some cultural cachet. And also, uh, not that most of us are going to live to 100 or even necessarily aspire to 100. But it is no longer the sort of the stuff of fantasy. Lots and lots of. When I was growing up in Washington, D.C., there was a local broadcaster named Willard Scott who eventually went on the Today show. And one of the day when he got on the Today show, he did a eventually did a segment which was celebrating people who turn 100 that day. And he could actually do it on the air because there weren't that many. Um, today, you know, there are hundreds. There are millions around the world, and there'd be millions more. Um, as, um, as we get towards mid-century, um, and it's no longer a stuff of fantasy or legend that we can live to 100, and then we can actually do that in pretty good health. There is actually no biological reason that we can't. Most people won't, but it's a reasonable aspiration and an era of new longevity.

Peter Bowes: 9:39

So when I first looked at what you've been doing to write this book, my first thought was, and you talk about it in the book, is the concept of a Blue Zone, the Blue Zones around the world, the places where statistically people seem to live longer than other places. I'm in California, Los Angeles. Loma Linda is one of the Blue Zones. It's just outside of Los Angeles. And it. To all intents and purposes, looks pretty much like greater Los Angeles if you visit there. But then you you dive into the lifestyles of the people who are there. Seventh Say Adventists. You begin to understand why they're different. But was that in your mind as you tackled this subject and did you find something different?

Ken Stern: 10:17

So I kind of wanted to write the anti-Blue Zone book, because the Blue Zones, I think most of your listeners will know a series of books and now a Netflix special, uh, around some very specific places in the world that are claimed to have long, great longevity. Some statistical debate about the accuracy of the data around there, um, coming from a guy named Saul Newman at Oxford. But I was less interested in the blue Zone narrows because they're very specific cultures that aren't replicable or transferable to our busy, modern lives. It's great if it turns out to be the case that Ikaria and Greece or the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. Very people live long, but they live very different lives than we do in the middle of Washington DC or New York or Tokyo or wherever. I was really interested in if we're going to think about social connection as a source of health. What they do in those places is actually not going to be terribly relevant to our stressful modern lives. When we live in the, you know, in the loneliness of the big city. So I was really interested in going to places that are very much like very urbanized, very complex, often very stressful, and say, how come those places have, you know, in Japan, the median life expectancy of a woman now is 90. Um, if they can get to that. Um, what lessons can we learn from that that are really transferable to our lives here in the United States or in the UK or wherever else we live?

Peter Bowes: 11:38

So tell me in more detail then where did you go and and what did you find that maybe surprised you initially?

Ken Stern: 11:44

So I went to five countries. I went to Japan, Singapore, Korea. Uh, uh, Spain, Italy. And I pick those five because they're among the longest lived and healthiest countries in the world. But there are others that sort of fall in that category. I could have gone to Switzerland or Germany. I went to those five because they're not only among the healthiest countries in the world, but they're also, um, they not necessarily should be. I mean, they're not the richest. They're not the thinnest necessarily. They don't exercise the most. Um, Singapore has a fascination with fast food. Uh, there are places that are succeeding despite often, um, contraindicating indicative uh, circumstances. Uh, Singapore take a highly stressful bad, you know, very, um, uh, urbanized environment. Um, uh, it's not necessarily how you would design a long lived society. And what I found, I think that connected they all do different things. They all have different stories to tell. Um, and longevity is a complicated thing. But one thing that really connected is that all basing essentially their public health strategies on social health, they all are aging countries that say, we're not going to succeed as a country unless our older people are active, healthy, productive and working, doing purposeful activities. And we're going to set up our public health strategies to ensure that those people aren't just well taken care of in terms of caregiving, health care, but really have the opportunity to contribute to society in a meaningful way. That's very different than how we think about things in the United States and elsewhere. And that was the connective tissue that I was fascinated by, a little surprised by, and then forms the core of the book.

Peter Bowes: 13:24

And you mentioned that quite accurately, that some of these places are potentially quite stressful. I'm just wondering, does that downplay then, the role of, of stress in terms of longevity, that you could potentially be surrounded by certain pressures that are not necessarily going to affect your longevity if other aspects of your life and the care that you're receiving are optimized.

Ken Stern: 13:50

Yeah, I think I would say, um, if we can go back to the blue zone narrative, the story that they sort of depict of these places are idyllic. We don't live in idyllic times or idyllic places. By and large, some people do. God bless them. But 99% of us don't in a highly urbanized, highly stressful world. I think the data is continually showing that even in Korea, where half the people live in Seoul, which is a loud, noisy, complicated urban environment where work is stressful, um, where there's a complicated political environment that even in those circumstances, we can make enormous advances in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy. So I'm not saying go out and be stressed. Uh, that's not particularly good for you, but definitely we can overcome an environment that is not optimized for healthy longevity.

Peter Bowes: 14:39

And you used a phrase a few moments ago of the loneliness of living in a big city. And you've got to think about that for a second, that you can be surrounded by, by people, by action, by perhaps attractive things to do. Let's say New York City, which is perhaps the most vibrant and lively place that I can think of, certainly as a visitor. But you can be essentially lonely in those places. And that to some extent goes to the heart of what you're talking about in terms of social connections, especially as we grow older and the importance of those connections, if they are real connections.

Ken Stern: 15:16

Yeah. So you could definitely be you know, it's not my phrase. The loneliness of the big city. You can be surrounded by people but not know them. You can be in a big apartment building and not know your neighbors. No one to turn to, no one to look in on on you. Um, that's the environment that we find, uh, too often in modern society. I mean, Korea, again, is a good example, which was, uh, until very recently, a very traditionally organized society built around the family unit. Uh, most people lived with their families in multi-generational housing until the last 30 years. And now they've had the Great Migration. The city's leaving behind a relationships that were built over 100, really built for families over hundreds or thousands of years. That's a very lonely environment, but one that can be overcome.

Peter Bowes: 16:01

And what about the impact of technology and new technology? Our phones, the digital world that we live in, is that contributing to loneliness and and downgrading of real social connections?

Ken Stern: 16:15

Oh my God. Yeah. So so Peter, I actually got in the I got interested in the topic of social connections as sort of an explainer of what I call the American life expectancy disparity. Until about 1980, the US life expectancy. You probably know that right now, the US trails all other developed countries, often by a significant margin in terms of life expectancy. That wasn't always true. As recently as 1980, we were right in the middle of the pack and had been for 50 years. Weren't the top, weren't the bottom. We were right there in the middle. What started happening in 1980 is what is the is the time that Bob Putnam started studying the decline of social capital, which he chronicled in his book Bowling Alone. Um, all the organizations that brought Americans together churches, unions, sewing circles, PTAs, book clubs all started in decline. And with that, at the time, almost almost like in Lock Step, so did our life expectancy compared to the rest of the world. What Putnam wrote about was when he was writing about the decline of social capital, he pinned the sort of blame on television, which had become sort of ubiquitous, and time spent with television started to to increase, to sort of extraordinary levels by 1980. That trend has continued. It's less television now. We only watch, I think, something like three hours of television a day, but we spend about seven hours a day on our phones and all that has contributed to much greater social isolation. Um. My son's generation spends an hour or less a day with friends than I do. That's. You know. Uh, then my generation did. And that over the course of the year adds up to hundreds of hours. All that. You know, we're definitely building a society which is built around technology, not around human connections. And that's the biggest challenge, I think, to our health and healthy longevity.

Peter Bowes: 18:05

Exactly. And in fact, does that really worry you as we look to the future and younger generations? Because. Well, I certainly agree with everything you've just said. And on top of that, we have AI and we have the world that we live in that is clearly linked to the technology on our phone, where not only are people looking at their phones, but they're not necessarily looking at anything that is real. And we're living in almost certainly younger people living in this imaginary world where we don't know truth, we don't know fact from fiction. And it's kind of creating this artificial bubble that just feels incredibly bad for us.

Ken Stern: 18:42

Yeah, I think you can pin a lot of the ills of society on technology, and loneliness is just one of them. So I have a 17 year old son going to be starts in a senior in high school, um, shortly. He spends lots of time, like his friends do, on his phone. I write in the book. He would spend 25 hours a day on his phone. If he could figure out how to slow the rotation of the Earth. Um, that's, uh. The more time you spend on the phone, the less time you spend with real human connections. Um, people are starting to build relationships with AI. Uh, you see stories about that, um, uh, treating ChatGPT as if they were friends. Uh, I think we should all be deeply worried about the consequence of the wall that technology is building between humans.

Peter Bowes: 19:28

Yeah. And it's ultimately, I think about balance, isn't it? I mean, ChatGPT is an extremely useful tool used responsibly. And that's the the dilemma for us, isn't it, in terms of how we continue to push it and pursue it and use it and encourage others to use it in a responsible way, that there are certainly pluses and minuses in terms of its of its use. But it feels like there's a sort of roller coaster that's in a negative sense that's just getting out of control.

Ken Stern: 19:56

Yeah. And I would say that the countries that I visit, they're not all they're not anti-technology. People still use technology probably too much in many of those places. You can be on a on a subway in Singapore and see everyone on their phone, no one talking to another. But they have strategies that put people together, whether it's work or volunteering or intergenerational relationships. They've created, um, essentially public health strategies that put people in direct contact with one another in ways we don't think about. And I think that's the biggest difference between health in those countries and, and, and relatively poorer health here.

Peter Bowes: 20:31

Yeah. So let's look on the positive side and look at some of the positives that have come out of your research. You just mentioned intergenerational relationships, which I think are fascinating. Kind of putting together of older people and younger people oftentimes when they don't know each other, it could be a carer type relationship or it could be just a friendship relationship. I know of universities that are placing students with with older people, and it really is just a there might be an element of caring there, but it's a bond and a friendship that is especially beneficial, I think, to the older person, but I think the younger person gets something out of that as well, perhaps learning from the wisdom of the older person they're with.

Ken Stern: 21:11

Yeah. So the, um, I think first of all, we should recognize sort of the power of generativity. My friend Mark Friedman has written one of his books. It's sort of like a jigsaw puzzle. The old, the young fit together as if they were some type of as a design. Young people learn from the wisdom of older people. Older people get value out of the energy and the and the and the support and the care of younger people. It's actually in many of these countries. It's an intentional strategy. So in a lot of places I saw them. I saw um, senior centers being, um, redesigned as centers for all ages. Uh, and the notion of bringing, um, the generations together in Singapore, which is deeply committed, intergenerational relationships, they actually have tax incentives. If you move within a certain, I think, a kilometer of your parents and there's just a lot of, you know, playgrounds, they don't have senior housing in in Singapore anymore. Every building is designed to be both places for the young and their old. Playgrounds for the young are next to exercise uh, platforms for for the old, uh, there's just lots of things that bring people into natural contact across the generations. It's not only it's not only their last. About two weeks ago, I was up in Maine and I went to a nursing home in a place called Gorham House in Gorham. Gorham, Maine, um, and right smack in the in the entryway as a preschool. Um, which is a sort of astonishing thing to see the little kids, you know, three, four, five playing with everyone up to age 101. And the interesting thing about you can tell Peter how much the older folks love, uh, get energy and feeling of purpose and meaning of their lives from hanging out with the young. But the story that meant the most for me there was when the head of the preschool said, uh, that the elementary school teachers in in Gorham have reported to her that the most empathetic kids they get are the kids who come from that preschool. If there's a kid who comes in a wheelchair, they don't think that that is differentness. They're used to it. They are naturally empathetic because of their experiences with different generations. Um, and we could use a lot more of that in this country.

Peter Bowes: 23:17

And what about a connection and an appreciation of of nature and the natural world and melding that into your life? I went to a nursing home. You just mentioned nursing home. I went to a nursing home in Loma Linda. So in one of the blue zones, I was researching a documentary. And one of the key elements of that nursing home was the and it was more assisted living than a nursing home. Assisted living for very old people in Loma Linda. But a key factor there was their huge garden and the involvement of the people living there of the residents in the garden, not only tending their own flowers and that kind of thing, but actually growing food that they could eat themselves. And it seemed to me to be a huge boost to their daily lives. That it was something to it was a great interest, but it was always something to look forward to. Gardens constantly change, and that element of aging seems to be so important to me.

Ken Stern: 24:11

Yeah, I think that's a it's an interesting story you tell Peter, and I think a right one. I think there's plenty of research that shows just even being out in nature, taking a walk, having access to a green garden is good for your health. I think the one interesting challenge, of course, is that most of my reporting was for this book was being done in some of the most congested urban environments in the world Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul for instance. Um, uh, Barcelona. and the interesting experience I had there is like when I was in Singapore, which is very has sort of the advantage of sort of a command economy to a certain extent. but also had sort of cramped spaces and limited spaces, building after building, after building. And I thought, this is the urban jungle. And then one day one of my, one of my hosts took me up to the top of one of the building, and you look out and it's a sea of green and they because of they know they knew the importance of, of green space to health and wellbeing. They built what they call a city within a garden. And you don't see it necessarily on street level, but you see it when you look at the city as a whole. And I think that's very smart from, um, uh, due to stress. It's just. And green is good for you. There's just no question about it, is there?

Peter Bowes: 25:26

I mean, there are obviously multiple things, but if you could focus on one thing that you would like to see city planners at a city, state or even national level governments do to change the way that people live, to help them nurture their longevity and healthy aging. I think clearly this is all entwined in politics, which is sometimes confusing and difficult to grapple with. But is there one thing, based on your research, that you would like to see change in terms of the way that society works?

Ken Stern: 25:59

So I think it's actually not necessarily a challenge, sort of a request of city planners or governments, because I think it actually starts with our cultural norms around aging. The idea that especially in the United States, we've really sort of adopted this idea of a three stage life. And I have an idea from 100 years ago that, you know, we get educated to a certain age, we work. And then at 65, which has been the, you know, the functional retirement age in the United States for about 80 years, then we're idle for the rest of our lives. There's a lot of those rules don't make any sense anymore, but we've adopted them. So let's take the sort of the retirement age of 65 that was originally invented by Bismarck in 1880, when the average life expectancy was 46. He was creating the first, uh, state pension plan he didn't really want to pay people. So he adopted the age of 65, when most, uh, miners and other workers died decades before, when we've had 30 or 35 years of life. That's still the age that people think of as sort of old age. And it's really not, we've gotten healthier, we've gotten stronger. We have so much more to contribute, as aging people. And until we wrap our heads around the idea that, those artificial dates that have been stuck in sort of in our, in our cranium don't make sense anymore, we're going to have trouble with with that. So, you know, in Japan you see people working much longer because they know that that's a route to health for themselves. They don't do it because of economics. They do it because they associate work with social connection health in Korea. I write about a lot about lifelong learning because they've created a constitutional right to lifelong learning. That doesn't end at 21 or 25. That goes your entire life. The culture needs to stop thinking about sort of 65 as sort of the beginning of the end and just think of sort of the second half of life as valuable and meaningful as the first.

Peter Bowes: 27:53

That's really fascinating. And I think even though some of us might think, well, oh, 65 isn't going to bother me, I'm. And in polite society, we don't ask each other our ages. But I kind of make an exception for this podcast. I'm 63 and I noticed, and it came as a surprise to me that turning 60 had quite a significant impact on me in terms of how I viewed the years ahead. And you actually started this by saying that it was aging per se, that actually influenced some of your views, that you were just getting older and maybe your attitudes changed. I think you're about the same generation as me. I'm just curious in terms of being around 60, how that's affected you.

Ken Stern: 28:32

So I'm 62, so we're almost exactly the same age. It's an interesting question. So for me, 62 doesn't feel any different than 52 or maybe even 42, except for the notion that others may be viewing me differently. I think it's worse for women. It's easier for men to age, I think, because of sort of gendered sexism. But there's ageism and expectation that society's. So, I'll tell you a story, Peter, because this is actually a story that I sort of build the book around right in the middle of my research between sort of my age and my Europe leg. I came home and I went to a wedding, uh, of the daughter and now son in law of old friends of ours. And we were put at, uh, my wife and I were put at table 23, which was the table for the old folks. you know, the young folks sort of in the middle and table one, two, three and four, uh, we were the old folks, table 23. And we regrouped there only because of our age, which is sort of, sort of an interesting concept to begin with. We didn't necessarily know each other and we spent the whole time the people, I think, at the other tables were talking about their adventures and what they were going to do in the future. And here we were talking about retirement. And, you know, the fact that we get to read books during the day and things like that, and there was just a very different vibe to it, which I think is not good for our sense of self or our sense of aging. I like to think I still have decades in front of me, of times, of years I could contribute. And I think that's true as, as a, as a, as a demographic matter, but an actuarial matter. but society works against that. And I think they view you differently. I don't know if you feel that yourself, Peter.

Peter Bowes: 30:09

Oh, totally. Yes. And I think that goes to the heart of the matter. It's interesting you say that the other tables were talking about the future, exciting times, what they're planning to do. You were actually also talking about the future. But but in negative terms, uh, retirement, which is generally seen as not something. Well, I guess some people look forward to retirement. You do have more time. You can potentially read books during the day. You can go on the trips that you haven't been doing, but generally it is kind of shrouded in this sort of negative sense that you're you're beginning to get a little bit past it and, you know, you won't be that important in terms of your society and maybe the work that you've been doing all of your life, that you wouldn't be considered for opportunities in the future. And it does kind of if you let it drag you down a little bit, you get that sense that there isn't anything which I don't go along with. But you get that sense sometimes that the world feels that you really don't have much to look forward to.

Ken Stern: 31:03

Yeah, yeah. I was also down, for for my own podcast, uh, down at, uh, retirement 55 plus community, in which most of the people I was interviewing there were my age, our age, Peter, most of them were just retiring, and there was a sense that they were trying to hang on. I guess I would say they were trying to be as busy as humanly possible without knowing why. Because society really didn't give them a role anymore once they'd sort of hung it up from their jobs. And that's a huge waste of resources and a society that aging society that will need those resources, but also bad for those people as they think about their social connection, their the meaning of their lives and why they want to live another 20 years.

Peter Bowes: 31:44

So let me ask you that question. I think you've kind of covered it already to some extent. But why do you want to live potentially to 100? Do you have big goals? Do you have ideas for the future that might surprise us?

Ken Stern: 31:58

So, I don't know if I have that, uh, Peter, I mean, I'm sort of terrorized. I'm terrorized with the idea of retirement. Um, because I think, you know, as I look at colleagues who retirement, who are struggling to fill voids in their lives, and I don't want to do that, the question sort of reminds me of questions I ask people during my trip. So when I was in Japan and I would ask people how long they wanted to work, or I was in Italy, and I was asking people how long they wanted to keep volunteering or anything, almost invariably the answer was until I can't, because they knew that their sense of value, the sense of purpose, their sense of their set of relationships would all decay if they, you know, had to give up what they were doing. And, I mean, I sort of feel that same way. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing until I can't, because I think on the other side is a chasm of not for everyone. I don't want to generalize, but for a lot of people, a chasm of loneliness and social isolation. So I want to stay connected, meaningful, contribute to society as long as I possibly can.

Peter Bowes: 33:01

And I think and interested in your thoughts on this. One of the secrets to this is actually thinking about these issues much earlier in life, and not suddenly, at the age of 60, thinking that this is approaching. And how on earth am I going to deal with the the voids in my life? But if you think, and this is why I try to encourage a listenership to this podcast, that isn't just the 55 plus that it could be, ideally my world 20 plus, whereas, you know, you've got the 30 year old, the 40 year old knowing and appreciating that these times will come eventually and that you fill your lives with enough things to do, positive things to do, that you will continue, health permitting, into older age, rather than it's suddenly becoming as a shock at the age of 55 or 60 that you're going to have this time, potentially in the future.

Ken Stern: 33:52

Yeah, I think that's exactly right, Peter. And, uh, uh, aging is continuum. It starts early, I guess starts the day we're born. One of the interesting things I saw, was in Korea, where Korea is sort of an odd economic system where most people retire from a first career in their late 40s and they have to find a second career or even a third career. So the city of Seoul has created something called the Seoul 50 Plus Foundation, which is really to help people in midlife. It's 50 plus, but they really start earlier, start to imagine what the rest of those years could be like they have a designer life course. They have lots of things to help people think, wait a minute, I'm retiring. That's not the end. That's the beginning of just another chapter, which is the way we all should think about it as soon as we can.

Peter Bowes: 34:35

Ken, this has been a fascinating conversation. There's obviously much more detail in the book than we've had time to talk about during this conversation. It is 'Healthy to 100.' I wish you all the best luck with it and hopefully we'll talk again. Thank you so much.

Ken Stern: 34:50

I look forward to that. Peter, thank you for having me on the the podcast.

Peter Bowes: 34:53

The Live Long podcast is a Healthspan Media production. I'm Peter Bowes, you can contact me through our website, livelongpodcast.com, where you'll also find show notes for this episode.

DISCLAIMER: 35:05

This podcast is for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. We do not offer medical advice. If you have health concerns of any kind or you are considering adopting a new diet or exercise regime, you should first consult your doctor.