Covid and longevity: What has the pandemic changed?

Experts Jen Caudle, DO, Juliana Hauser, PhD, and Patricia Geraghty, NP, discuss whether the pandemic changed our definition of longevity and quality of life.

Transcript

00:00

Has our definition of longevity and quality of life changed since the pandemic or not? [UPBEAT MUSIC]

00:13

I think the pandemic has made the conversations more often happening, and casual conversations,

00:20

and meeting with people, and I've seen a resurgence in my life and in my practice of people having just more deeper conversations.

00:26

Like, let's just get into the real stuff, which involves aging and mortality. And I would say what I've seen for myself is also

00:34

what I would see in a pattern for the people I work with is rejuvenation of, yeah, time is precious.

00:42

And what do I have control over and what do I need support in? Interesting. And what about you, Patty?

00:48

It has reinforced for me that the social contacts are a huge part of healthy living and healthy longevity.

00:55

And the blue zones identified that very easily is that all of the blue zones, the communities in the world where people do have long lives, one of the critical factors

01:05

was a social group. And so that's something with my patients. I'm assessing with every single patient right now,

01:11

what is your social group? Who's your beehive? I didn't like the analogy of the pandemic is fighting a war.

01:18

This is just planet Earth being planet Earth. There's viruses here, and we're one of the organisms, and we've got to figure out how we can live with this virus.

01:27

So it has reinforced for me that the social contacts are a huge part of healthy living.