5 longevity podcasts to share with a parent who is thinking about ageing

Physical therapist Kelly Starrett and his partner Juliet Starrett challenge the idea that staying supple demands punishing workouts. In this conversation, they favour small changes: sitting on the floor to keep the hips mobile, working out stiffness while watching television and building a steady baseline of daily steps.

They acknowledge that arthritis and joint replacements are real obstacles, and the advice stays forgiving rather than prescriptive. That makes the episode a gentle fit for a parent who has written off exercise as not for them. Share it after a passing remark about stiff knees or aching hips, and let the habits speak for themselves.

Don’t miss: 11 Asian books on healing generational trauma, from ‘Pachinko’ to ‘Beauty Is a Wound’

Surgeon and public health researcher Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal, joins Krista Tippett to discuss how medicine can prioritise survival over what makes a life worth living. He describes five questions that patients, families and clinicians should revisit over time, covering a person’s understanding of their condition, their fears, their goals and the trade-offs they would or would not accept, alongside a deceptively simple one: what does a good day look like? Drawing on his experience as both a surgeon and a son, he shows why knowing a parent’s priorities matters long before a crisis.

Geriatrician Louise Aronson, author of Elderhood, talks with Terry Gross about a stage of life she believes deserves its own name and its own kind of care. Aronson describes human development as childhood, adulthood and elderhood, and criticises medicine for treating ageing either as a pathology or as something anti-ageing products can erase.

She makes the case for care that looks at the whole person, including reviewing unnecessary medications, adapting the home and supporting independence. For families wary of doctors, it recasts geriatric medicine as support for living well on your own terms, not a surrender to decline.

Arthur C Brooks, a professor at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School who co-wrote Build the Life You Want with Oprah Winfrey, joins Dan Harris to bust common myths about happiness. He breaks it into three “macronutrients”: enjoyment, satisfaction and meaning. The conversation also covers the perils of chasing pleasure, how to be wisely ambitious and how to tell whether you have meaning in your life.

It is not explicitly framed around ageing, which is part of its appeal: it invites reflection on what makes life feel worthwhile without putting age in the spotlight. Share it with a note on which of the three struck you most, then ask which they would pick.

NOW READ

Straight from the heart: the advice that cardiologists actually live by for good heart health

Is a lower resting heart rate always better?

From Dua Lipa to Harry Styles: what performers do when the moment is over but their body is still switched on