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Healthy aging is not about turning back the clock, it is about making the most of the years ahead, says Ōrewa-based health and longevity coach Sarah Pearce.
A registered master health coach, Pearce works with people of all ages who want to feel strong, capable and optimistic about the future.
Pearce says her interest in healthy aging grew out of her own life experience.
“I realised that if I was going through it, other people would be facing the same challenges,” she says. This prompted her to train as a health coach.
Many of the people she sees are navigating major transitions as children leave home, careers shift or slow down and parents age and need care. At the same time, long-standing bad habits begin to catch up with us, and chronic conditions can emerge.
“It can feel like everything is changing at once,” Pearce says. “People reach a point where they think, ‘I don’t want to just survive from here. I want to thrive’.”
She describes her role as supporting people at those crossroads.
For some, that means learning how to better manage an existing health condition through lifestyle changes. For others, it is about prevention, using evidence-based lifestyle medicine to reduce the risk of disease and extend what she calls “healthspan”, the years lived in good health, to better match lifespan.
“We don’t want to spend our last 30 years on a cocktail of medications and dragging ourselves to the end,” she says. “We want to live well every single day.”
Pearce also challenges what she sees as a deeply embedded cultural narrative that aging means decline.
“One of the biggest myths is that it’s too late and it’s all downhill from here,” she says. “Our western culture glorifies youth. Even the language we use, like saying we need a ‘nana nap’ or we’re ‘too old for that’ shapes how we see ourselves.”
She believes people become elderly when they decide they are.
In her coaching sessions, Pearce takes a holistic approach, exploring physical, emotional and mental well-being. Each programme is tailored to the individual and built on what she calls ‘deep listening’.
“You don’t have the answers for people. They do,” she says. “My job is to help them unpack that, recognise their strengths and see how they have overcome challenges before.”
Her framework centres on three pillars: awareness, action and accountability.
“Most people have awareness. They know they need to change something,” she says. “Action is the next step. But the real magic is accountability, having someone check in and help you stay on track.”
Pearce aims to help people reframe midlife as a period of opportunity rather than decline.
For her, healthy aging is less about resisting the years and more about embracing them with purpose and confidence.
