How to master the art of longevity

April 2, 2026 | 7 min read

Most people understand that making healthier choices is good for you, and that healthy behaviours and habits can improve how we feel, help prevent disease and build both longevity and health span. We know we should go for a walk before we flop on the couch. We know we should put our phones away before bed. We know we should, more times than not, go for the side salad instead of the fries. The gap between theory and practice, however, can remain stubbornly strong.

“It can be very daunting to try to implement lifestyle changes, especially if you’ve tried before and haven’t been successful,” explains Dr. Michelle Roseman with Cleveland Clinic Canada, which is Manulife’s medical director for group benefits. “There are practical, psychological, and systemic barriers that can make it challenging for people to adopt healthier habits and consistently prioritize preventive health.”

Maybe there’s a cost barrier to eating healthier food; or it’s difficult to find comfortable and safe spaces to exercise. Or maybe you’re one of the 6.5 million Canadians who doesn’t have regular access to a family doctor or nurse practitioner to get the advice you’re looking for.¹ Maybe you feel just too busy, too intimidated or overwhelmed to change your habits. Maybe it all seems like a problem for tomorrow.

These are real obstacles. But they are not insurmountable. “We all want Canadians to live longer, healthier lives and we know preventive behaviours can contribute to that,” says Karen Cutler, Vice-President and Head of Underwriting at Manulife Canada. “But we also know that prevention is not always intuitive or easy. So, the question becomes: What can we do to develop healthier habits that stick?”

We asked a panel of health experts just that. Here are five ways to establish preventive habits, integrate them into your real life, and start mastering the art of longevity. 

When you’re starting a health journey – especially if you’re doing so for the first time – it’s easy to be drawn to the idea of an extreme transformation. You might resolve to run every single day, for example, or to cut out all sugar, or to stop smoking cold turkey. While there’s no harm in a bit of big-swing ambition, Dr. Roseman says, it’s not always practical to maintain over time.

“It’s so important to set goals that are realistic, achievable, and measurable,” she explains. Over time, it’s far more effective to set modest goals that can be sustainably integrated into your current day-to-day life (like, say, eating vegetables with every dinner) than to attempt changes that upend your routine (like, say, swapping to a fully vegan diet overnight). “Trying to make drastic changes all at once often sets us up to be disappointed, or to doubt ourselves, or to fail,” Dr. Roseman says.

Prevention is a wide umbrella and can involve making improvements to our exercise routines, diet, sleep, mindfulness, and more. But it can be difficult to optimize every aspect of wellness all at once. And attempting to do so can result in disappointment. Dr. Steve Pomedli, primary care physician at Cleveland Clinic Canada, advises picking one or two small changes to start – such as walking a few extra blocks to work or replacing an afternoon sugary drink with water – and building momentum from there.

Dr. Roseman agrees. “When we dedicate our attention to one or two healthy habits, it can create a positive habit loop,” she explains. “If I’m walking more, I might feel more tired at bedtime, which means I might sleep better, which means I might have more energy to focus on nutrition the next day. Starting with one change can really help enable other positive changes.”

While your longevity journey will be unique to your own situation and goals, you don’t have to pursue it alone. Experts say there are benefits to involving others.

People are more likely to stick to new habits when they feel a sense of accountability, says Dr. Roseman. Developing support systems or taking advantage of accountability tools can help keep you on track. This might mean using a smart watch or other fitness tracker to log your daily activity or booking a check-up with your doctor to review progress or plans to address setbacks. It could mean asking a friend to commit to a weekly yoga class, or to batch-cook healthy meals together, or to come to medical appointments with you. “It can be tremendously helpful to let someone else know what you’re working towards and enlist their support,” Dr. Roseman says.

If you’re working, you can also lean on the supports available through the group benefits plans offered by your employer. “If your work offers programs like screening for diseases, on-site yoga, or stress-management classes, it really is in your best interest to take advantage of them,” says Dr. Al Qahwash, DPT, and director of cardiac care and critical care at Waterloo Regional Health Network (WRHN) in Kitchener, Ont., home of the Manulife-supported PREVENT Clinic. “These workplace benefits can help you be deliberate about making prevention a priority in your life.”

Earlier bedtimes, choosing green juice over a cocktail – it’s easy to feel like the pursuit of wellness and longevity is a bit of a drag. But there are ways to make healthy habits immediately satisfying. Even fun.

“It might sound obvious, but the trick is to find something you like to do,” says Julie Kim, Nurse Practitioner at WRHN’s PREVENT Clinic. If you feel uncomfortable in a gym or hate team sports, you might think you dislike exercise. But would you feel the same way about a walk around the neighbourhood with a good friend? Or some time on a stationary bike with your favourite book, TV show, or podcast? “If it works for your body and you enjoy doing it, it can create the motivation to keep it going,” Kim says. “And if it’s social, it can deepen accountability.”

Incentives can also help motivation, according to Dr. Pomedli. “Extrinsic rewards² can really work when used in the right ways,” he says. He explains that even simple strategies can effectively kick-start a new habit or help initiate a difficult change. For example, you could give some money to an accountability buddy with the understanding that if you hit your agreed upon wellness goal, you get the money back. “Everyone has a unique set of motivators. And it sometimes takes creativity to figure out what’s going to push us in that right direction,” Dr. Pomedli says. “But when you find that lever, it can really support us in making the change we want.”

The downside of a slow-and-steady approach is, of course, that you don’t get the rush of an immediate reward. “People often think they should get instant gratification, that if they exercised this week, they should feel better immediately,” says Dr. Qahwash. “But it really does take time to see a difference in your health.”

It might be helpful to “think of what you want the final 10 years of your life to be like,” says Manulife’s Cutler. Do you want to travel? Do you want to be active? Do you want to be as independent as possible? “You want to be able to live out the dreams you’ve worked so hard for. And your dreams are going to be affected by your health.”

Envisioning how your happy and healthy future could look – even in vague or general terms – can be a powerful motivator to lace up your sneakers on those days when you just don’t want to do it. “We all want to get to retirement in a healthy state,” Cutler says. “It can really help to think of the small, incremental improvements we make today as an investment in that.”

This article is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose or treat a condition. If you have questions or concerns about your specific situation or are seeking medical advice, contact your medical doctor or your health-care provider.

Cleveland Clinic Canada

Manulife is proud to have Cleveland Clinic Canada on board as Medical Director for our Group Benefits operations. Cleveland Clinic Canada has a wealth of global health care expertise and shares our goal to help Canadians live longer, healthier, and better lives. Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit organization that has been at the forefront of modern medicine since 1921. In recent years, Cleveland Clinic has worked with progressive companies in Canada and around the world to prioritize the health and well-being of their employees, customers, and communities.

Waterloo Regional Health Network (WRHN) PREVENT Clinic


In alignment with our Impact Agenda and our commitment to sustained health and well-being, Manulife Canada is proud to support the PREVENT Clinic powered by Manulife. Located within the WRHN Cardio Pulmonary Rehabilitation, the clinic serves as a multidisciplinary, risk-factor reduction program for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease.