Check out UNSW’s new Podcast

Photo by Centre for Ageing Better on Unsplash

It was an honour – and a treat – to work with the Ageing Futures Institute at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in 2024 on their first podcast series, New Ideas in Ageing.

If, like me, you are interested in the ageing process and keen to understand how best to navigate it, you might have noticed a proliferation in recent years of books, media articles, social media posts, videos and podcasts about ageing. More often than not, it’s about how to avoid it at all costs. So you probably will also have noticed an associated proliferation of businesses and products with this goal of denying, avoiding or reversing ageing.

I don’t buy hype and I don’t think avoiding or denying ageing is a very helpful way of thinking about a natural, inevitable, lifelong process. (If you want to avoid ageing, there’s only one way and it’s inconsistent with life!)

I don’t buy hype and I don’t think avoiding or denying ageing is a very helpful way of thinking about a natural, inevitable, lifelong process.

With my background in writing and reporting on ageing and ageing related research, I look for evidence. What does quality research tell us about how we can live well – in every sense and within our capacity – into our 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond? What’s important? What can we do? How and where should we live? What works and what doesn’t work if we want to continue to live happy, healthy, engaged, satisfying lives into very late life?

UNSW’s Ageing Futures Institute is premised on the understanding that ageing and navigating an older world requires big thinking from a diverse range of experts. Yes they include leaders in what might seem like the obvious: geriatric medicine, aged care and dementia. But they also include experts in work, relationships, psychology, physical health, technology, housing, nutrition, architecture and urban design, family life, societal trends, economics, the arts and more.

If we can begin to understand the importance of big picture thinking about ageing and take steps across a whole lot of domains of our lives, and across our whole life course, we can age smart. We can arm ourselves with knowledge that can genuinely help us to optimise the experience of growing older – not just as individuals, but as a society as well. 

The Ageing Futures Institute doesn’t have all the answers – at least not yet – but this season of interviews offers important evidence-based insights into some of key factors influencing our experience of growing older right now, as well as what we might expect in the future.

I hope you enjoy the listen.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

Click here to get an overview of the podcast series and listen live. Alternatively, you will find New Ideas in Ageing on your favourite podcast platforms – Apple, Spotify and Amazon.

Disclaimer of sorts: I (Keryn Curtis) am not an employee of the University of NSW or the Ageing Futures Institute. I very happily worked with them on this project and, while I don’t think they would disagree with anything I have written here… the comments in this post are mine and should not be attributed to UNSW. That’s all 🙂