The secrets of Swedish longevity – and how we’re all ageing now

Annabel and I went to Stockholm last weekend. What a beautiful city! It was a long-planned trip to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the book group we belong to. 20 years is a lot of books – and a lot of talking! Six of us met up in Stockholm (one of our number is Swedish). It was a soul-nourishing weekend.

Of course, it didn’t escape our notice that the Swedes have a fantastically age-well lifestyle and a greater life expectancy than us here in the UK (although only by a year). The Nordic diet of foods traditionally eaten in Scandinavia plays a role in this: whole grains, fish and game. I brought some smoked reindeer meat home with me, not sure I would recommend. Vegetables, berries, ferments, oily fish and sea food are all longevity superfoods – we ate some incredible lumpfish roe and oysters while we were there. And Annabel had one of her favourites, nettle soup, not once but twice. She wrote about the age-well benefits of nettles, and her own soup recipe, a couple of weeks ago.

Coffee and clean air

Sweden is also among the countries with the highest consumption of coffee per capita in the world. Scandinavian countries all score highly on this – perhaps it’s the long, cold, dark winters? Stockholm certainly has some very stylish coffee shops and the best cardamom buns I’ve ever tasted. It seems Sweden’s coffee culture is closely linked to one of the key drivers of healthy longevity – social connection. I read about a Swedish concept called ‘fika’ – apparently a daily ritual of coffee and pastries. Our Swedish friend Nina said, ‘it’s just a coffee break!’ But the act of having a coffee break, a moment in the day to pause and spend time with others, is a powerful age-well action.

We were struck by the clean air, quietness and calm of Stockholm, despite it being a capital city. It was 48 hours before we heard a police siren – we hear them almost constantly in our busy corner of inner London! We put some of this sense calm down to the constant presence of water. I hadn’t realised until I open my map (paper, of course) that Stockholm is built on 24 islands. Annabel’s written about the health-inducing properties of walking by water before, and it’s certainly hard to miss the water in Stockholm. We walked by it, looked at it, boated on it. And although it was a bit chilly to swim, the water is so clean that apparently people swim right by City Hall.

Moderation and balance

Another Swedish concept we came across is that of ‘lagom’ – a sense of moderation and balance in all things. Lagom is rooted in the idea of ‘enough to go round’ and explains a lifestyle based on social awareness, moderation and sustainability. Sweden has also long enjoyed democracy and equality – which has resulted in access to education and healthcare, which in turn play a huge role in the wellbeing of its citizens. This may help explain Sweden’s global top spot in the 2025 Quality of Life Index, for the third year running. No wonder its citizens are ageing well!

Before you think we’re decamping to Sweden any day now, I must draw your attention to a study published earlier this year that revealed that women in the UK are in better health as they age than previous generations. It’s easy to look back at the lifestyle of our foremothers and think that all the spartan meals and domestic labour kept them healthy. But, in reality, we have benefited hugely from improvements in education, healthcare and nutrition since the Second World War. The research, based on the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and published in Nature Aging, didn’t just look at absence of disease, but also assessed individuals’ functional abilities, including cognitive, locomotor, psychological, and sensory capacities.

70 is the new 60

It found that older adults today have better physical and mental functioning than their counterparts of earlier generations at the same age. So someone born in 1950 had a similar capacity at 68 to a 62-year-old born a decade earlier and those born in 1940 had better functioning than those born in 1930 or 1920. This led the lead researcher to comment, ‘for many people, 70 really is the new 60’.

So no need to move to Stockholm just yet! Do let us know your favourite age-well cities in the comments below.

Susan