People around the world collectively spend billions of dollars each year on products and services designed to extend their lives. But if they funnel all that money, time, and energy into the pursuit of longevity—only to reach those extra years and realize they’re not exactly enjoying them—what’s the point?
Such is the dilemma that inspired Dr. Kerry Burnight, a geriatrician who’s treated thousands of older patients, to coin the term “joyspan”—what she sees as the third piece of the longevity puzzle, alongside “lifespan” (how many years you live) and “healthspan” (how many of them are spent in good health). Joyspan, as its name suggests, describes the experience of well-being and satisfaction in longevity.
“What motivated me is watching all the suffering,” Burnight says. “For the first 20 years of my career, I kept seeing people alone, slumped over in wheelchairs, who were like, ‘I don’t have any purpose in my life.’”
At first, she assumed that was the inevitable result of reaching an advanced age. Then she realized that, actually, a robust body of research shines light on why some people thrive in their later years and others don’t. In her 2025 book Joyspan: The Art and Science of Thriving in Life’s Second Half, Burnight dispenses tips on how to achieve this better way of growing older.
As part of TIME’s series interviewing leaders in the longevity field, we caught up with Burnight to talk about what the new “old age” could look like.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
When should people start thinking about cultivating their joyspan?
Joyspan is for anyone who’s aging, and guess who that is? Everyone. The earlier you start, the better. What improves your life from 83 to 84 is the same thing that improves your life from 23 to 24.
In this emphasis on quantity of years, we’ve overlooked quality. Joyspan focuses on the quality of your long life—and it isn’t just chance; it isn’t just genes. It’s these small, everyday habits and outlooks that we adopt. It’s up to us to lean into growing older, and to change the question from how not to age, to how to age with vitality, with beauty, with relevance, with humor, and with gusto.
It sounds like the million-dollar question: How does one go about doing that?
It’s very clear. The research groups it into four areas: grow, connect, adapt, and give. They’re all verbs, because they all take effort. Just like with physical health, you don’t just say, ‘Oh, that person’s just lucky.’ No, every day they were choosing to do things that lowered their risk of cardiovascular disease and improved their flexibility and agility, and as a result, they changed their aging trajectory physically. Likewise, you can do these four things on the inside—and it’s a lifelong practice.
Let’s talk through each of these four actions. What does prioritizing growth look like as you age?
When we say things like ‘I expect to grow, I’m going to put effort into my growth, and I’m going to push myself to do hard things, uncomfortable things, novel things, and fun things,’ that’s going to make you a different older person than an older person who’s like, ‘I can’t do anything anymore. I can just stay in my house.’
Read More: 4 Science-Backed Habits That Could Help You Live Longer
Ask yourself: ‘What am I currently doing that is growth?’ It starts with curiosity, like if you have any tiny inkling of, ‘What the heck is Bitcoin?’ Or, ‘I wonder if I could do stand-up comedy or learn how to do makeup so I can do it for women who have cancer, and draw on their eyebrows.’ The next step is actually doing those things. We make kids do hard things all the time: ‘You never jumped off a high dive? Too bad.’ When we’re older, we stop doing that—so we need to get back in the habit of pushing ourselves to do things that are a little hard.
Connecting is another key to aging well. How can people get better at it?
People who excel at connecting put time into new and existing relationships. We need to be that friend—the one who picks up the phone to call, who offers to drive you to chemo, who remembers that your dad died five years ago on this day. I have people come to me and go, ‘Nobody calls me, nobody invites me anywhere. I don’t have anything to look forward to.’ I listen with love, and then I say, ‘Tell me about the invitations you’ve extended. Tell me about the people you texted.’ And every time, they go, ‘Oh, shoot.’
At every age, we need to be putting ourselves out there, even if it takes knocking on five doors to find our person.
What does it mean to learn how to adapt?
Adapting means adjusting to changing and challenging situations. You’re going to have to deal with hard stuff, and when you do, you can say: ‘I have a choice on how I attend to this.’ The way you’re remembered in life is largely how you walk with your hard thing, whatever it is. There’s this quote from Henry Miller I always think about: ‘There is nothing wrong with life itself. It is the ocean in which we swim, and we either adapt to it or sink to the bottom.’ We can do that through coping strategies like journaling, meditating, and adopting a gratitude practice.
Read More: Unlocking the Secrets to Living to 100
That gratitude practice seems so simple, but it’s really proven in the literature. I see it over and over again when people wake up in the morning and go, ‘I have to do this, then I have this doctor’s appointment, and this is wrong, and my daughter’s getting a divorce.’ This is the opposite of that. You proactively wake up in the morning and go, ‘I have a soft pillow. I get to go downstairs and have some coffee. I’m going to call this person. I’m going to pet my cat.’ And then, you start seeing things to be grateful for everywhere you look.
You’ve said your favorite element of aging well is giving. Why is it key to thriving in life?
When people give, they’re sharing themselves. I recommend coming up with a giving goal, like doing one little kind gesture a day. Maybe you live next door to a single mother, and you tell her that at dinner time, you can go over and hold or entertain the kids while she focuses on cooking. Then it becomes a habit, and before you know it, you feel great, because these acts of giving feed you as much—if not more—than they do the person you’re giving to.
Read More: Want to Live Longer? First Find Out How Old You Really Are
I have a patient who’s almost 100, and she is the best listener in the world. Everybody—her kids, her nurses, the grandkids—can’t wait to be with her, because she’s such an engaged listener. When I look at her, I think, ‘Oh my gosh. Even if I have all these challenges, I could be like her, because she has something to give, and she’s giving it.’
Joyspan doesn’t just make you happier—it makes you healthier, too. What are some of the benefits?
That’s the great news: The same things that increase your joyspan have also been shown to increase your lifespan and your healthspan. There’s research showing that the “giver’s high,” for example, lowers inflammation, and that’s correlated to a healthier and longer life. And when physical exercise releases endorphins that help you feel better, that enables you to go, ‘Hmm. I think maybe I’ll give it a go to try to make a new friend.’ All these arrows point in the same direction.
What message of hope do you want to spread to people?
My mom started these practices 20 years ago, and I have watched her change the trajectory of her life. She’s 96 now. She lives alone in her home, and she’s the best version of herself that she’s ever been. She wasn’t always positive. She didn’t always have perfect health habits. But these seemingly small changes have made a different life for her.
She has congestive heart failure and she’s had knee replacements, and she also went through bankruptcy and her husband died. Yet she is gorgeous, radiant, and hilarious, and people can’t get enough of her. And she’s not unique. There are millions of people who are doing this, and it’s possible for all of us regardless of external circumstances. I want to normalize that, so we can all recognize that this new longevity—this new old age—is different.
This article is part of TIME Longevity, an editorial platform dedicated to exploring how and why people are living longer and what this means for individuals, institutions, and the future of society. For other articles on this topic, click here.
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