Can a longevity coach help you live better, longer?
Fact checked by Ros Lederman
Darren Morris has had a personal interest in longevity for two decades. He even started a business to coach people on aging well.
But only in the past three years, as interest in longevity has boomed, has he made longevity coaching and healthy aging consulting his full-time career.
For Morris, longevity coaching isn’t about helping people extend their lifespan “to stay alive for as long as possible.” Rather, it’s about helping people “live better in the years that they have,” he says. He consults with clients worldwide through his United Kingdom-based company, inochi.
“Just because you are chronologically aging doesn’t mean that you have to then just succumb to decline,” he says. “When people believe it is too late to start, I’m clear that it is never too late. There is no reason that with years of consistency, someone can’t be fitter and stronger at 60 or 70 than they were 20 to 30 years earlier if they were approaching [life] from a sedentary base.”
He attributes the increased interest in longevity — and people’s willingness to pay for customized coaching — in part to technology, including wearables that let people track their steps, fitness, heart rate, sleep, and overall health.
Longevity coaching has also entered the public consciousness alongside a growing focus on healthspan, a concept that Peter Attia, MD, popularized in his 2023 book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, which focuses on the cognitive, emotional, and physical quality of life rather than the sheer number of years lived.
Longevity coaching is part of the broader professional coaching industry, which generated an estimated $5.34 billion in annual revenue in 2025, nearly double its 2023 revenue, according to the International Coaching Federation’s 2025 Global Coaching Study.
Longevity guidance can come from physicians or nonmedical coaches, whose training and qualifications can vary widely. Unlike physicians, coaches cannot provide medical care unless they hold the appropriate medical credentials. Consumers should review a coach’s education, credentials, and experience when choosing one.
Gary Schaffel, MD, an internal medicine specialist with the North Shore-based practice Forward Focus Concierge Medicine, says the hour or more he spends during visits with members of his concierge practice enables him to focus more on longevity and healthspan.
“We have time to peel the onion on what’s going on in their life and what their barriers are to eating correctly, getting some exercise, getting to bed,” Schaffel says. “We even have time to get into a little bit of the spiritual, how to control stress, meditation, and being in the moment.”
Some longevity coaches try to sell people expensive testing, but Schaffel says the true work of longevity is in implementation: eating healthfully, exercising, limiting stress, getting adequate sleep, maintaining good relationships, and having a purpose in life. “Living better really comes from sitting with people and doing the hard work of understanding where their barriers are,” he says.
Sean Cahill, MD, agrees. Cahill has practiced pediatrics and internal medicine for decades, at times caring for about 3,000 patients a year. But in 2024, he launched his own concierge practice in downtown Chicago, reducing his patient panel to about 300 and making longevity care a pillar of his practice.
An effective longevity coach, Cahill says, should help people identify what motivates them to eat better, exercise more, sleep well, and maintain strong relationships.
Schaffel lists priorities with patients to help them implement changes. He may find that someone eats out seven days a week and suggest cutting back to five days. He once brought in a whole family, including a mom who cooked heavy Italian dishes every evening, to discuss nutrition.
“Everybody’s got a unique story about why their habits are what they are,” he says.
Morris offers several longevity coaching formats, from self-guided and small-group programs to yearlong, one-on-one virtual coaching. “The biggest reason anybody needs a coach is accountability, to be able to actually get on the phone every week or every couple of weeks and check in and ask the hard questions about, ‘Why have you not done this? What’s gotten in the way?’” Morris says.
“Working with a longevity coach,” he adds, “you’re actually making your life, your health, the No. 1 priority.”
Originally published in the Fall 2026/Winter 2027 print issue.
Erin Chan Ding is a Chicago-area journalist and editor who writes about travel, fitness, trends, tech, and the intersection of race and identity.
