What We Get Wrong About Ageing
Ageing isn’t the problem. A calm look at the difference between normal ageing and degeneration—and why fear itself often accelerates decline.
What We Get Wrong About Ageing
One of the most damaging ideas about ageing is the quiet assumption that it is, by definition, a problem.
Something to resist.
Something to slow down.
Something to fight before it “gets you.”
I see the effects of that assumption every week.
People arrive already braced for decline. They expect stiffness, pain, fatigue, and loss of confidence to be inevitable. And because they expect them, they often respond with urgency — pushing harder, forcing routines, chasing solutions designed to defeat ageing rather than live with it.
That reaction is understandable. It’s also often counter-productive.
When you spend long enough observing bodies over time, a useful distinction becomes clear: ageing and degeneration are not the same thing.
Ageing is change.
Degeneration is loss of capacity beyond what change alone would predict.
They get bundled together so often that people stop questioning the difference. But it matters. Because when ageing is treated as the enemy, people end up fighting their own biology — and that fight carries a cost.
Fear changes behaviour.
It encourages rushing.
It discourages listening.
It makes people override early signals because they don’t want to “give in.”
Over time, that fear-driven effort often accelerates exactly the outcomes people are trying to avoid.
What I’ve noticed is that many of the changes people attribute to ageing are actually the accumulated effects of how they’ve lived with their bodies — not how long they’ve had them.
Reduced movement leading to stiffness.
Chronic stress narrowing recovery.
Long periods of ignoring discomfort until adaptation hardens into limitation.
None of these are inevitable consequences of getting older. They are predictable responses to long-term conditions.
This isn’t denial of ageing. It’s clarification.
There are changes that come with time — slower healing, altered recovery, different margins. But there is also a great deal that depends on how early and how gently people respond to what their bodies are telling them.
The people who age best are rarely the ones who try to stay the same. They adjust without panic. They reduce strain before damage accumulates. They stop asking how to push through and start asking how to stay capable.
What ageing well tends to look like is not preservation of youth, but preservation of confidence.
Confidence to move without fear.
Confidence to trust the body’s signals.
Confidence to adapt rather than force.
When fear dominates the picture, people often misinterpret normal changes as signs of failure. They do more when they should do differently. They add pressure when they should change conditions.
From the body’s perspective, fear is just another form of load.
It tightens.
It reduces range.
It biases toward protection rather than exploration.
Over time, that protective stance becomes self-reinforcing.
Removing fear doesn’t mean pretending ageing doesn’t exist. It means recognising that the body is not trying to betray you. It’s trying to manage change in a way that preserves continuity.
Ageing well is less about holding on to what was, and more about staying in relationship with what is. It’s about responding early, adjusting kindly, and allowing capacity to be maintained rather than challenged unnecessarily.
Ageing is not the enemy.
Unexamined fear often is.
When fear quietens, people move more freely. They make better decisions. They stop escalating effort and start preserving what matters.
That shift alone changes the trajectory more than most interventions ever will.
For reflection or discussion
Which changes feel like normal ageing — and which might be the result of long-term strain?
What does ageing well look like to you, beyond avoiding decline?
If this perspective feels steady rather than reassuring, you’re very welcome to subscribe to The Longevity Letter for future essays,
share this with someone who worries about ageing more than they need to,
or comment with what you’ve noticed helps people age with confidence rather than fear.