Each month this year, I asked top longevity experts about the daily habits they practice to stay in good health.
“There’s really not one thing you can do, one time, that’s going to improve your longevity,” Dr. Darshan Shah, told me in January.
Shah explained that to have a profound impact on your healthspan — the years you’re living in good health — you need to implement several healthy practices in your daily routine and stick to them.
He interviews specialists in the field of longevity for his podcast “Extend,” and what Shah has learned about how to increase one’s chances of living a longer life, he practices in his daily life, he says.
It’s a common theme among the experts I spoke to in 2025.
Here are four key practices these longevity experts all say they prioritize to live longer, healthier lives.
1. Daily exercise and movement
“I always try to do a 10-minute workout first thing in the morning,” Shah said. “It’s so important to get your body moving in the morning and doing some strength training.”
Stephanie Venn-Watson, who helped discover the first essential fatty acid in nearly a century, walks one to three miles a day, and does aerobic exercise and resistance training weekly. “It helps not only my daily mental health and physical health, but getting in exercise is critical to ensuring our longevity,” Venn-Watson said in February.
A top priority for Dr. Suzanne Ferree, a human performance and longevity expert, is “moving my body in significant ways. Anything that’s anti-sedentary,” she said in October.
That can range from taking a yoga class and doing Pilates to walking her dog. Another fun way that Ferree engages in movement is salsa dancing, which she says is great for brain health. “You’re using the body in different directions at the same time and requiring your brain to memorize steps,” Ferree said.
2. Good quality sleep
“I think sleep is my number one thing for longevity,” said Poonam Desai who worked as an ER doctor for 20 years and started practicing longevity medicine in 2017.
“It’s something we do every single day. It’s free. You have an opportunity to optimize it every single day.”
Desai and Dr. Vonda Wright, a practicing clinician and expert on longevity, both prioritize waking up and going to sleep at the same time each day for the best sleep quality.
“I am religious about my sleep, meaning I am in bed by 9:30 p.m. I am up by 5 a.m. You can count on it, weekend, weekday,” Wright told Make It in August.
Longevity investor Sergey Young uses tech to measure how well and how long he’s resting each night to improve his sleep.
“I use an Oura ring to measure my sleep cycles. Every morning, I can learn what I’ve done the last day or the evening before that created a positive or negative effect on the quality and the structure of my sleep,” Young said in April.
3. Maintaining peace of mind
Managing stress levels and prioritizing peace came up often when speaking to longevity experts.
“I think most people nowadays don’t enjoy life. And if you don’t do that, and you don’t live with compassion and love for others, you have a negative stress point,” Dr. Simon Feldhaus, a doctor who’s studied longevity for 15 years, said last month.
Stress management should be a top focus for longevity, said Dr. Angela Mazza, an integrative endocrinologist and founder of the Metabolic Center for Wellness whose specialty aligns with longevity medicine.
Mazza keeps stress at bay by spending time with her husband and pets, and keeping up with her hobbies like crocheting, she said.
“You want to live a longer life, but also you want this longer life to be full of healthy and happy days. So happiness and proper attention to mental health is super important,” Young said.
4. Eating whole foods and avoiding ultra-processed ones
“I try to eat whole foods,” Ferree said. “Rather than eating things that are packaged or processed.”
Most longevity experts I spoke to encouraged following a diet primarily centered around whole foods, especially one that included lots of green leafy vegetables. They also said people should cut back on simple carbohydrates that quickly break down into sugar and ultra-processed foods that have been associated with chronic diseases.
“Just avoiding ultra-processed foods, avoiding additives, avoiding things that could be causing inflammation, is really important,” Desai said.
“You really want to optimize things like leafy green vegetables, nuts, protein and omega-3s in your diet.”
Wright optimizes protein in her diet to build muscle and doesn’t eat sugar as often as possible. While Young focuses on cutting sweet and sugary drinks out of his diet.
“You can be in any kind of dietary program you want, as long as you’re avoiding ultra-processed foods,” Shah said. “I 100% try to avoid ultra-processed food at all costs. So we don’t even have it in the house.”
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