Healthy Living

Peak Performance …

I ran across this chart from Business Insider this week and thought I would share it. I’m not sure the actual veracity of the research that went into the “according to science” claim, but it seems reasonable.

I have heard before that “life satisfaction” is U-shaped. It’s high when you are young (listed here as 23 years old) and again when you are older (69 years old). I guess the things that people do in-between those two ages (jobs, marriage, raising kids, etc) aren’t real satisfaction drivers when you are in the moment. For me, they are certainly fun to look back on.

At 59, I’m happy to have my second shot at “peak life satisfaction” to look forward to. That will be some consolation for retiring 1 year after hitting my “peak earning years” (age 48).

The age 71 peak “vocabulary” and age 74 “happiness with your body” seem to be a bit suspicious. I’ve forgotten many of the words I used before and I think my body peaked at about 28 years old, when I actually trained for & ran a 10K race.

What “peaks” are you at in your life, or looking forward to?

Image: Pixabay

6 thoughts on “Peak Performance …”

  1. These peaks are from birth to present.

    Currently peak psychological well being, peak financial security, peak professional (although semi-retired) usefulness. I was likely more useful when employed, but I gave advice which many did not want to hear or accept. Today because I charge for my time I get more of a sense of people valuing what I say.

    Age 29 peak physical fitness as I was driving 300 miles each way to ski lifts open to lifts close and hiking long days even if I had flown for business that week. The stamina I had was off the charts.

    I am currently peak understanding of the complexities of life including history and politics.

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    1. There ARE a lot of important “peaks” to life when you think about it, aren’t there? I concur with all of your peaks (although I’m certainly passed “peak professional” at this point). At 59, I am also feeling the loss of stamina that I had when I was younger.

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  2. My current peaks are knowledge and temperament for investing, financial resources and earnings, peak free time (no work, no school, no children to take care of), and knowledge has grown in eclectic ways as I take on projects and topics that interest me (the internet has made information readily available that was very hard to get your hands on when I was younger).

    Health and fitness wise, I had multiple peaks throughout my life. College was my peak in terms of weightlifting. After not taking great care of myself after graduation, I got serious about diet and exercise and learned that abs are made in the kitchen. Since retiring I have joined the biohacking movement, my weight is down 15 pounds, my weights are starting to go back up and I have less joint pain than when I was in high school.

    Youth is wasted on the young. Wouldn’t it be great to have known then what we know now?

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    1. I’m just reading about what “bio-hacking” is. That’s a new term for me as us midwesterners who are hopelessly behind the hipsters of California. 😆 My weight and fitness level are good since retiring, despite my bad heart attack. I don’t have the energy / stamina / recovery I had at age 30, but I still feel as “fit” overall and maybe more competitive at sports than I was then. Maybe I’m kidding myself, but I think I could beat my younger self in tennis, golf, etc.

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      1. Ironically, one of my favorite bio-hackers that I follow is Dr. William Davis located in Milwaukee, WI. He was a traditional cardiologist for the first 25 years of his practice before changing to a different approach after his own mother died shortly after getting a stent. He wrote the book “Super Gut”, which is about using probiotics to tackle many modern day ailments. The super star of his probiotics is L. Reuteri, which was present in most humans through the 1970s. Since then a combination of antibiotics, chlorinated and fluoride in our water and toothpaste, and RoundUp in our food supply has killed our friendly bacteria and allowed harmful bacteria to prevail.

        Reintroducing his and other probiotics into your gut lead to less inflammation which is the main cause of cancer, heart disease and auto-immune disorders. Your waist decreases while your strength increases. My wife’s hair got thicker to the point that she gets asked about her hair extensions which she doesn’t have. He sometimes has his patients post their before and after photos, and some of the women who are 8 years older in the before picture, look ten years younger. I attached a video link to Dr. Davis.

        https://www.culturedfoodlife.com/what-happened-after-a-year-of-eating-l-reuteri-yogurt/

        Larry Ellison, one of the co-founders of Oracle is 80 years old and is a good public figure example of bio-hacker.

        https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-23/ai-s-100-billion-stargate-venture-touted-by-trump-will-tap-solar-power?embedded-checkout=true

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      2. Interesting! As someone who used to run a billion-dollar MegaCorp yogurt business, I have to admit I haven’t heard of Dr Davis. We studied probiotics quite a bit – particularly with respect to IBS. Our (failed) probiotic yogurt didn’t have that particular probiotic L. Rutieri.

        https://www.foodprocessing.com/new-food-products/product/11352133/general-mills-new-food-products-reformulated-yoplus-yogurt-offers-trio-of-benefits-food-processing

        It looks like L. Rutieri is in Stonyfield. That small, organic brand is well respected. Their founder, Gary Hirschberg, built a great brand (Danone owns now). I’ll have to check that probiotic L. Rutieri out. The clinical knock on probiotics in yogurt is how much you need to consume. I think Activia requires a continual 3 servings a day for the claims they make.

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