When Maddy Dychtwald was in her teens and twenties in the 1980s, she was a working actor, shooting commercials for Skippy peanut butter and DuPont paint. It was clear that women, especially in her industry at the time, succeeded when they exuded youthfulness and met largely unrealistic beauty standards. The rhetoric that women hit their prime at a certain age dissuaded Dychtwald from thinking positively about getting older and the longevity of her career.
“You hit 30, 35 at the latest, and if you hadn’t made it big, you just weren't going to,” Dychtwald tells Fortune.
Fast-forward 50 years: Dychtwald is now the author of a book called Ageless Aging: A Woman's Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspain, and Lifespan. She and her husband Ken Dychtwald, cofounders of the decades-old research and education platform Age Wave, are at the forefront of the age-inclusivity movement. Their work has profoundly shifted Dychtwald’s perspective on embracing aging, and she takes pride in proving her younger self wrong.
Reframing aging makes life more rewarding and plays a massive role in how well people age physically and mentally.
Women have lived longer than men for millennia, and they have a unique opportunity to maximize their “longevity bonus,” Dychtwald, now 74, tells Fortune. In Ageless Aging, she outlines how women can take advantage of a long life.
“Science tells us that women have really won that longevity lottery,” she says. “Aging is an opportunity to reinvent yourself and try new things and have more energy than maybe you even had when you were younger.”
Despite living longer, women spend at least a decade at the end of their lives in poor health, more so than men, due to financial inequities, disease risks, and other factors. Because of this, Dychtwald says, there is a pressing need to help women close the gap between life span and health span—how long you live versus how long you live in good health—so they can thrive in their longevity bonus.
“There was this belief that genetics were our destiny in terms of our health and wellness,” she says. But now, “we have agency that we never thought we had before. We make 80 percent of all health care decisions for our families and for ourselves. We have the power, I believe, to really change the game for ourselves.”
Here are four pieces of advice Dychtwald outlines in her book to empower women as they age.
Embrace the potential for more happiness
Embracing the upsides of a long life is the first step in making getting older more exciting, especially for women, who tend to face more stereotypical messaging about the need to maintain a youthful appearance. Thinking positively about aging can also influence how well you age by reducing chronic stress and the risk for chronic conditions.
“Recognizing and appreciating the many upsides of aging is an essential ingredient to approaching longevity with a more positive mindset, which we know can influence our healthspan and our lifespan,” Dychtwald writes.
First, acknowledge the gifts of living a long life, Dychtwald says, which include self-awareness, wisdom, and the ability to interact with broader perspectives.
Another upside? Dychtwald highlights the U-curve of happiness, which shows how people’s happiness peaks when they’re younger and older. She writes that the “sweet spot for happiness” is between age 50 and 75, when people on average have fewer caregiving responsibilities and feel more confident in their careers, according to a 2023 study from Age Wave. It’s a time Dychtwald’s team deems the “freedom zone,” and many women are embracing the growth mindset of trying new and exciting opportunities.
But women don’t need to seek another degree or make a massive life pivot to feel like they are embracing their bonus.
“In fact, from the studies we've done at Age Wave, we found the number one way that people find a sense of purpose is by spending time with their family. And the number one thing people are willing to try to have a sense of purpose is to adopt a pet,” she says.
Lean into the domino effect of lifestyle changes
There’s no magic pill to living a long, healthy life. However, we know more than ever that lifestyle factors—more than genetics—can influence how well we age and how long we live. It’s time to be the “CEO of our own healthcare,” Dychtwald writes in Ageless Aging.
Instead of making sweeping lifestyle changes, Dychtwald says to take advantage of the domino effect of healthy habits. Yes, it’s a combination of eating well, moving your body, having strong relationships, reducing stress, and getting quality sleep—but it’s also having faith that one will lead to the other.
“There is this bouquet or holistic set of ingredients that work together,” she says, especially for women going through perimenopause, menopause, and hormonal changes. “If you start to sleep better, you'll have more energy and vitality to do the various tasks you'd like to do during the day, including exercise. You can see this cascading effect that it can have.”
Look at role models embracing aging
There’s no better place to look for aging wisdom than the women aging in positivity. “Aging is something to be embraced, not something to freak out about or run away from,” Dychtwald says, who notes that Toni Morrison wrote her first novel at 40, and Dr. Ruth Westheimer was 52 when she got her own show on the air.
In a recent YouTube interview series called “Moments That Make Us,” Melinda French Gates, who just celebrated her 60th birthday, interviewed Gayle King and Oprah Winfrey about the upsides of getting older.
All three women have set examples for the upsides of aging.
“Women used to not talk about their age as if we should be ashamed to be our age. But I'm really proud that I'm about to turn 60,” French Gates said in the interview. “Shouldn’t we celebrate? I hope by this age we have some wisdom, right?”
As for CBS anchor Gayle King: “Aging is another word for living. I think if we are all lucky, we can get to that stage.”
Lengthen your brain span
Women are twice as likely to suffer from cognitive decline and Alzheimer's. While fate is not entirely in your hands, “there are steps we can take to prevent and delay cognitive decline,” Dychtwald says.
While lifestyle factors play a role in brain and physical health, there are more precise ways to strengthen your memory and brain power.
These include being a lifelong learner who continues challenging the brain; connecting with others, which may help reduce the risk of dementia; and practicing gratitude and mindfulness.
These tips are a place to start, but Dychtwald recognizes that financial, socioeconomic, and social inequities don't give everyone the same opportunities to reap the benefits of the longevity bonus.
For more, here is a recap of four ways women can reap the longevity bonus:
- If you’re under 50 today, could you really live to 150? Geneticists and aging researchers weigh in
- Embrace learning new things at any age
- Connect with others, even for 10 minutes every day
- Remember the upsides of aging, like wisdom and self-awareness
- Stack healthy habits like sleep, exercise, and stress reduction
