Issue 78 | October 3, 2025
Image created by Midjourney
Happy Friday! Get ready to celebrate Active Aging Week (Oct. 6 to 12), 🏃♂️ a week-long celebration dedicated to older adults’ contributions, activity, and wellness. Most of you are already wonderfully active, so why not use the occasion to try something new?
Whether it’s coloring a picture with crayons or testing out that weighted vest you’ve been hearing so much about, new experiences turn your brain on, 🧠 spark creativity, and make health novel and fun!
Let’s go.
This week:
The secret $160,000 recovery room
Is one-set right for you?
The inflammaging supplement
This 80-year-old hiked the Appalachian Trial
👁️🗨️Spotlight
⚡ The $160,000 Recovery Room and The Next Frontier of Longevity
Why tennis champs and athletes are turning to high-tech neuroscience tools for peak performance and athletic longevity.
At the US Open for tennis, a mythical $160,000 recovery chamber sits beneath the stadium, equipped with spaceship-looking technology to rapidly reset the pros’ nervous systems and boost recovery, writes Vanity Fair.
As part of a broader shift, top athletic coaches are beginning to tap into the nervous system as the next frontier of performance and career longevity.
Why your nervous system matters: Athletes – and the rest of us – can’t thrive if we are stressed out all the time. 😰
When you are chronically stressed, your nervous system can become dysregulated (your body doesn’t know how to naturally relax anymore).
This can contribute to:
⏳ poor sleep, slower recovery, burnout, and injury. Over time, stress can create enough inflammation that it can manifest as health conditions and early aging.
Mindset + recovery = outcomes
“The real frontier [of performance] is mindset,” says Athletic mindset coach Akin Akman in the article.
💪 A positive mindset boosts resilience to stress, and research proves it can extend lifespan by years. And more efficient recovery is better for performance, physical capacity, and reduces inflammation and cellular stress.
Neuroscience technology may be trendy in elite athletic circles, but free research-backed ways can help us all become a little more regulated.
Try this:
🌬️ Exhale longer than you inhale
💆 Do a small self-massage before bed
✨ Repeat positive affirmations before bed (theta waves are dominant, so your brain may be more receptive!)
Wellness Watch
Should You Go All Out?
The ‘one-set’ rule works, but it might not apply to everyone.
A new study in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise suggests that going all out for one set of exercises is nearly as effective for building muscles as doing multiple reps with less effort. 🏋️
💡 Tom’s Guide explains: “Training toward failure [doing reps until you can’t do any more] and prioritizing intensity rather than volume (high sets or reps) is where muscle adaptations can occur.”
But for older adults, this style can hinder gains…
⚠️ Higher risk of injury: older adults lose muscle and bone mass more quickly, making it harder to lift heavy, and it' increases risk of overuse injury. Going too hard can increase blood pressure and heart rate, serious considerations for some.
🐌 Slower recovery: Working out until failure is more likely to increase fatigue and slow recover time, making it harder to maintain daily physical activity.
It’s not to say older adults can’t keep going to failure. Some adults report that the approach offers significant boosts in physical performance, and it can make you feel “emotionally confronted.”
Big picture: The ‘one set’ rule may save time, but more repetitions at a lower intensity can also help with safely building muscle mass and reduces the risk of injury and soreness.
➡️ Prioritize form, warming-up, and consider working with a personal trainer.
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Top Story
🍫 New science on the sweetest superfood in our pantry
A new trial from Mass General Brigham suggests that supplementing with antioxidant-rich cocoa extract may prevent inflammaging, the chronic low-grade inflammation that accelerates aging.
Earlier research found that cocoa supplements reduce the risk of death from heart disease by 27%. ❤️ This research builds on that, showing that cocoa supplements lower an inflammatory marker called hsCRP by more than 8% every year.
Perhaps not as indulgent as a Hershey’s bar, the study suggests that adding antioxidant-rich foods into your diet can have clinical benefits for aging and disease.
Quick Hits
🏃♀️ Cellular health: Light physical activity can meaningfully strengthen muscles as we age and maintain cellular integrity.
🩸 A blood test for organs: Your organs might age at different rates. This blood test tells you how fast yours are aging.
🧪 Universal cancer treatment: “Phenomenal” early results show promise for one drug that treats all solid tumors.
Long-levity
The 80-Year-Old Appalachian Trailblazer
image credit: The Trek
🥾 On September 12, 80-year-old “Betty the Legend” Kellenberger broke a world record, becoming the oldest woman to complete a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, a 2,197 mile-long trek through 14 US states.
“Being healthier at 80 than your doctor expects is such a joy,” she tells The Trek.
An embodiment of resilience, she tried the trial three times before, enduring concussions, falls, Lyme disease, knee surgery, Hurricanes, and the loss of her hiking partner, Joe. She dedicated this achievement to him ❤️.
Her advice for older women:
💡 “The bigger the goal, the greater the reward. Don’t let society or friends and family set your limitations.”
Quick Poll
This Week
Check out the first edition of the Livelong Woman
We’re thrilled about The Livelong Woman, our latest newsletter dedicated to women’s health and longevity. Led by Editorial Director Rachel Lehmann-Haupt and writer Tiffany Nieslanik, it’s bringing you the science and strategies to optimize women’s health and longevity.
Longevity we’re loving 🗣️
You might be taking it too easy: How to become the person who achieves more as they get older. Read more
The Millennial caregiver: One woman’s mission to help young caregivers balance life and caring for a loved one with dementia. Watch the episode
Until next time!
Erin is the Senior Editor at Livelong Media, where she explores the intersection of health, science, and the human experience.
Thanks for reading!
- Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified healthcare professional before starting any exercise, wellness, or health program. Nothing in our content, products or services should be considered, or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Livelong is a media company and not a medical provider. We try to give the most accurate possible, but sometimes information is subject to change.
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