Mobility is strongly associated with quality of life – the ability to move about independently at home and at work, to move about our community, to travel to distant places. Embedded in the concept of mobility is physical fitness across the life course, which is central to the notion of healthy aging.

Maintaining physical fitness is a major focus of SCL’s work, including projects on exercise, reducing sedentary behavior, optimal nutrition, and measurement of fitness through wearable devices.

We continue to work closely with the Stanford Lifestyle Medicine Center.

Center Team

Ken Smith
Marie Conley Smith

New Map of Life

Healthcare & Technology: Andrea Jonas, MD, Fellow | Nirav Shah, MD, Faculty Advisor
Fitness & Lifestyle: Megan Roche, MD, Fellow | Michael Fredericson, MD, Faculty Advisor
Built Environment: Diego Sierra Huertas, Fellow | Rob Jackson, PhD, Faculty Advisor
Environment: Chenghao Wang, PhD, Fellow | Rob Jackson, PhD, Faculty Advisor

Sightlines Project Research Update on Sleep
In a world full of opportunities, stressors, inequalities, and distractions, maintaining a healthy lifestyle can be challenging, and sleep is often the first habit to suffer. Good sleep hygiene is a huge commitment: it takes up about a third of the day, every day, and works best when kept on a consistent schedule. It does not help that the primary short-term symptoms of insufficient sleep can be self-medicated away with caffeine. However, the effects of sleep loss can range from inconvenient to downright dangerous; people have trouble learning and being productive, take risks more readily, and are more likely to get into accidents. These effects also last longer than it takes to get them, as recovering from each night of poor sleep takes multiple days. When it comes to sleep, every night counts. In this update, we will discuss what Stanford researchers have to say about sleep and why we need it, who is getting too little of it, and some of the latest findings that may help us sleep better. Read more