00:00:00 Shreya: A lot of people hit somewhere after forty when the life you build is real. The responsibilities are real and yet your body starts sending messages you can't ignore. Less energy, more stiffness, shorter patience, and a question Underneath it all. Is this just how is it now? And today we are reframing midlife wellness not as a comeback story, but as a sustainable way to live.

00:00:31 Shreya: Welcome back to the Wellness Reimagined, where we have honest conversations about health, healing, and how to build a life that actually holds you. I'm your host, Shreya, and today I'm joined by Phillip Blackett, founder of Life After Forty and the author of Life After Forty. Mastered the four Pillars of Lifelong vitality. Our topic is wellness in midlife. What changes, what matters more now, and how to build strength and clarity without burnout or extremes. If you have ever felt like you are doing all the right things but still feel tired, foggy, or stuck, then this one is for you. Welcome, Phillip. I'm honored to have you on my show.

00:01:12 Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Shreya. I'm very excited to be here with you

00:01:16 Shreya: Before we get into like the strategies and all, uh, take us into the human moment that made you realize that midlife wellness needs a different approach than just trying harder.

00:01:30 Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think the biggest thing here is just recognizing that your body changes just like every, everything else as we get older, right? And so one way to look at it is, um, when you recognize that aging is more than just gray hairs on top of your head. It's just your body just changes. It processes things differently. It doesn't bounce back as quickly as it once did. Um, you can't get away with eating the type of food you might have ate before without it coming back to haunt you. So, um, it's something that is, you know, quite frankly, we don't talk enough about it. Um, and oftentimes what that means is that we're experiencing it real time and then just adjusting in real time of what's happening, and sometimes it'd be helpful if we had a better sense of what to prepare for so we can better go about things in a better way than we used to. When we're in midlife now.

00:02:32 Shreya: Yeah, that's like trying harder. Trap is so real, especially for high achievers, I think. And midlife has a way of making effort feel expensive.

00:02:46 Speaker 2: Absolutely.

00:02:48 Shreya: let's start with the story we all have heard. Like your metabolism is doomed after forty. So just accept the decline. Uh, what do you think is the biggest misconception people carry about wellness in midlife?

00:03:04 Speaker 2: So I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that really like wellness, one I often hear is like wellness is not something that everyone can participate in. Maybe it's for a certain type of person, certain type of people. Um, you know, and it's all about like biohacking and things that, you know, people that are more well-to-do, more wealthy can take advantage of. And everyone else cannot. And so what I would say to that is, you know, that's not the case because there's certain things your body changes that anybody of any income level can do to improve. Um, whether it's improving the type of food that you're eating or making sure you have enough physical activity regularly or improving how you're mentally processing things. Uh, taking care of your mental health, um, or even just making sure you have enough sleep at night. You know, these are all things that are not, you know, far reaching, um, or out of reach for people. It's just more so the question as far as what can we do with what we have to improve where things are because we're not going to get any younger. So if that's going to be the case, we're going to continue to get older. It just makes sense for us to know what our body is doing and what can we do now with what we have to improve the inevitable as far as us getting older and making it more sustainable for us to work with our aging body?

00:04:40 Shreya: Yeah. when someone believes that misconception, what tends to happen to their mindset and habits, like, do they get rigid? Do they give up or do they swing between extremes?

00:04:54 Speaker 2: So what's really challenging about this is the notice of your body changing in the midst of everything else in your life changing as well. And what I mean by that is that midlife is really so I look at midlife between the ages of like thirty five to fifty five years old. What often happens to people in that age range is more than one thing. You know, obviously the first one we're talking about here is your health, where you realize certain things about your body is different than it was when you were younger. But what also happens around this time is we tend to find people having increased work responsibilities. Maybe they've been promoted to different positions, higher up leadership positions, which means more accountability, more responsibility, more at stake financially. Also, you know, if you think about it, that in this age range, more people are taking care of more than just themselves. So you have people that are often married, that often have children, that often have aging parents to care for as well. So they have to think beyond just themselves. They have to think of other people too. And then on top of that, it's also the notion that, okay, this whole new technology, how does it impact our jobs here? How does it impact our relationships, AI, social media, trying to stay up on things. What I'm trying to say is that we're not in a position in this age range where we can truly have undivided attention and focus just on our health and wellness at this stage, because oftentimes we're competing with other things that are priorities of ours, which oftentimes, unfortunately, puts us on the back end where we're considering ourselves and our health, usually on the last item of the totem pole. And oftentimes that's where the neglect over time can really get us in the end.

00:07:12 Shreya: Yeah, I think that totally makes sense because when we think declines, a decline is inevitable. We either over control or under care it. And neither one builds a life we can really sustain. And I'm really curious, when you work with people in midlife, what is really underneath the fatigue and the health slide? Is it is it more about food and exercise or more about stress, identity, pressure, sleep, and like caring too much for too long?

00:07:47 Speaker 2: So it's a mix of all of them. But what I would tend to focus on first and foremost is one's mindset about this whole midlife thing to begin with, right? Um, oftentimes when I work with people, there's three common midlife myths we're trying to debunk and correct for people so that they think about midlife in the right frame of mind. So, for example, the first myth that comes to mind is it's too late for me to change. I've already gotten older. My young days are over. And, you know, it's. I've accepted that, you know, midlife is just the beginning of the end. It all goes downhill from here. And so if you have that sort of mindset, for example, you're not going to be as invested in trying to improve things. You pretty much resign yourself to say, hey, this is as good as it gets. There's no point in me trying to do more. The second myth that comes up oftentimes is self-care is selfish. Meaning like what we talked about before, we have all these other competing priorities in your life, you know, work, family, kids and parents and all these other things are grabbing for your attention. I thought that often comes up is well, if I take time for myself and take better care of myself, then that's less time I have for my kids. It's less time for my parents who need me. Why am I going to be selfish on that? And I should just pour into my family that really needs me, as opposed to thinking if I take better care of myself, then I become a better version of myself. One that's more patient, more loving, less critical, and more long standing to care for those who I love. And so by actually taking care of myself, I'm also taking better care of others. And then the last one that comes up oftentimes is, you know, quite frankly, I don't have enough time to be healthy. That's where people think it has to be something huge, has to completely overhaul your schedule or overhaul your life to be healthier. Um, so now they get caught up in these quick fixes, these fads, these extreme dieting, all these different types of things where, um, for the sake of time, it's not something you can find that you can start small and sustainably build from there over time. And so oftentimes if we don't get the mindset right and think about midlife, not as a crisis, but as essentially a turning point where it actually is possible that the second half of your life can be better than the first half. If we can't get on that sort of playing field to begin with, it's a really tough road to climb. When you're now starting to talk about how can you improve the food that you're eating? Getting yourself to exercise more. Taking better care of yourself. Um, a lot of those things might be even fruitless to even talk about if we don't even accept the fact that midlife is actually a good place for us to be. And, you know, not only is midlife worth living. It's also worth living well.

00:11:27 Shreya: I really love that distinction. And also, like, paint the real life picture. Like, how does midlife burnout show up before people call it burnout? Like, what do you notice in sleep cravings, relationships, mood, focus, or even confidence?

00:11:49 Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think one thing you think about like with midlife burnout, it's, it's something that looks very similar to stress, right? And I'm not saying that people should live stress free lives because that's not realistic. What I would say, though, is that if stress gets out where it's extended beyond usual, you're kind of feeling in a sense of hopelessness about things. Um, you find yourself, you know, being low energy on the regular. You find yourself being more irritable to be around, uh, whether it's people at work or people at home as far as family is concerned. Um, if you start to see yourself not really caring about your health and what goes in your body, and then that kind of compounds with, you know, not getting the right type of rest. You know, these things compound where over time, it's just something as small as, you know, not getting enough sleep. And it just builds over time where it just, it just builds up to a breaking point. And so I think that's one where we don't often pay attention to the small things that happen little by little each day until it actually balloons up and blows up into a breaking point. And then we ask ourselves, how did we get to this point? And oftentimes we can say, well, if we were just honest with ourselves, this started a long time ago, which is something very small that we thought was very subtle.

00:13:27 Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:13:27 Shreya: And here is a slightly uncomfortable angle for like high performers, like high performers sometimes. Uh, the problem is not lack of knowledge. It's self trust. So what tends to happen when someone's identity is tied to being capable, but their body starts saying, I can't do it the old way anymore.

00:13:53 Speaker 2: So I think a big issue with this one is if you're a high performer at forty and you've been doing this, let's say, for twenty years, you start to think to yourself, what got me here up to this point, twenty years ago is what I should continue to do with my older body and mind, especially when you're in an environment where now you're in the same place as a twenty year old, somebody twenty years younger than you, that has a body that's a lot different than yours, a mindset that might be a lot different than yours. And you think to yourself, the lie that I just need to keep doing what I've been doing before and I should be fine. It doesn't seem to make sense, right? It's just like if you have a new car racing up against a car you had for eight years and the one you had for eight years, it hasn't had a tune up or proper maintenance in, let's say, three years. and you're going to race that car with a brand new car fresh off the car lot. It seems kind of silly to think that you actually stand a chance with the new car. But yet we kind of have that same mindset about ourselves to say, hey, I might have neglected some proper maintenance for myself and taking care better care because I've just been hustling and working the midnight hour and, you know, forgoing sleep and eating a bunch of fast food when I should have better food and, you know, sitting on my desk for ten hours a day and thinking that that's the right strategy to continue with. Except the fact that your body is going to respond differently to that. And I think that, you know, one of the things that comes up here is really understanding the game has changed for you, not necessarily where it's time for you to quit. It just means it's time for you to notice what's happening and make the right adjustments where you can stay in the game longer and you have a better chance at winning it as well.

00:16:07 Shreya: Yeah, I think that is so real because midlife can feel like a negotiation with yourself, not because you are broken, but I think because you are being asked to evolve. And also, let's talk about like setbacks because midlife has curveballs or shifts, uh, schedule change, injuries happen, motivation dips. So when someone hits a like when someone falls off, what is the most important mindset shift to prevent shame from taking over?

00:16:43 Speaker 2: I think the biggest thing is, is that no one's going to be as critical or as compassionate towards you more than yourself. And so if you think about that, that you can be either your greatest cheerleader for your worst critic. I think you should open your mind up to thinking in terms of how you treat yourself when things don't go right. When you don't ace the test all the time and things don't go well the way you were expecting all the time. Which inevitably I always say, if you live long enough, you'll have your fair share of good times and bad times. Everyone does, regardless of what social media tends to say. Everyone has good days. Everyone has bad days. Um, it just depends on what days they want to show up publicly. And so the thought is, is that when you have that in mind, when you have the inherent notion of comparing yourself to your peers and measuring how well you're doing based on what someone else is doing or not doing, you put a lot of pressure on yourself as opposed to saying, listen, everyone has their moments. I'm having mine. But let's focus on what are we trying to achieve here. Understand we're not going to be perfect from the get go and understand that if we just take it one day at a time and focus on just getting better than we were yesterday, not paying attention to what other people are doing, but just focus on you growing you getting better. That is a much better, more sustainable approach, especially given that your body is changing as well as your mind.

00:18:35 Speaker 3: I think that's.

00:18:36 Shreya: Such a relieving takeaway because I think your progress is not a proof of your worth. And also, I want to bring a perspective that might challenge people because wellness advice can get a little simplistic. So some people swear midlife transformation requires Intensity. Like hard workouts. Strict eating. Serious discipline. But others say intensity is exactly what burns people out. Where do you stand when, uh, is intensity helpful and when is it just another form of self punishment?

00:19:17 Speaker 2: So one of the things I often say is consistency over intensity. I would much rather be consistently good over sporadically intense. And I think that's where you have to think about midlife as playing the long game. This is something where you're looking at the second half of life, the next forty to fifty years of your life. Um, and more so saying to yourself, okay, this is like a marathon we're preparing for. You don't start a marathon sprinting. Otherwise you're going to run out of energy and you might not even finish the race. So you have to look at this from the standpoint of it's much better to find something you, you can consistently do and do well enough and then look to improve as you get more experience in it over time, rather than putting everything you can intensely on one moment and you're so tired, you have to take two weeks of to give yourself a proper break. And then at that point you ask yourself, do I really want to punish myself again just for this sense? Like this has to be something you can find is hopefully easy to do on the regular and honestly, something that you can find enjoyable and at the same time, something you could feel that if I do what's necessary. I should see results that will further motivate me to keep going. So if you think about it, easy, enjoyable gets results. That's what we should be going for. And it's much better to do that when it's something that's consistent. Even if it's small rather than intense, where it might feel hard, not as enjoyable. It may get results, but it might be temporary because you're not consistently doing it because it seems more punishing than enjoyable.

00:21:36 Speaker 3: Yes, I think that.

00:21:37 Shreya: Matters because I think intensity without recovery can look like commitment but feel like collapse. And I think you have given thank you that you have given such messages that people don't really hear enough. And if one thing I'm taking away from this conversation is that midlife wellness is not about doing more. It's about doing what sustainable enough to become an become your new normal. And this is again, a very wonderful and a very helpful conversation with you. And so after this, my listeners want to connect with you and want to know more about your work, your books, then what's the best way?

00:22:19 Speaker 2: Yeah. So the best way, if someone wants to learn more about our work at Life After Forty is to go to our website at life after forty dot com. And then just to connect with me, learn more about how you can work with me personally, in particular as far as what we have to offer. Um, you can also visit my personal website at it dot com.

00:22:46 Speaker 3: Yes. And I will.

00:22:47 Shreya: Make sure to attach all these details and links below so that the listeners can find them easily and get in touch with you. And for my listeners, if this episode made you in a tender place, then take a break. Midlife is not a sentence. It's a season, and seasons can be redesigned. If you want more conversation like this honest, practical, and human, then follow the Wellness reimagined not for perfect routines, but for steady reminders that your health can be revealed without losing yourself in the process. I am Shreya and I will see you in the next episode. Until then, choose one small thing that supports you today and do not forget to hit the follow button. Subscribe and feel free to share your thoughts because your ears deserve premium content. Thank you.