Designing Longevity
Where the Science of Longevity Meets the Art of Living
- 4-5 days in Santa Fe or 5 days in Baja | Groups capped at 28
- From $2,800 | Partial scholarships available
Your labs can tell you how long you might live. They can’t tell you how to flourish.
You may have access to more health information than ever before: bloodwork, wearables, screenings, expert advice, and an endless stream of longevity protocols. But data alone can’t tell you what kind of life you want your health to make possible.
Because longevity isn’t only about extending your lifespan. It’s about building the energy, resilience, purpose, and connection to make those years worth living.
You need both. Most programs give you one or the other.
Over [x days at location], you’ll capture a complete biological baseline and build the Longevity Lifeplan™ that turns insight into a personalized path forward.
You’ll leave with clearer data, practical next steps, and a life plan designed to help you flourish.
- As seen in:
The Experience
Co-created and led by gerontologist Barbara Waxman and MEA CEO Derek Gehl, this five-day workshop in [location] brings together the science of longevity and the art of living well – along with the physician-led clinical insight of Humanaut Health.
It starts with a simple premise: you are a study of one. Your biology, lifestyle, goals, and definition of a life well-lived are unlike anyone else’s. No generic protocol will be the right answer.
With Barbara, you’ll build your Longevity Lifeplan™ using her Seven Lifestyle Levers Assessment™. This practical framework looks at Movement, Nourishment, Renewal, Relationships, Cognition, Purpose, and Stress Management.
With Derek, you’ll learn to make better sense of the longevity landscape – using your health data, modern tools including AI, and sharper questions to become a more informed participant in conversations with your healthcare providers.
Through MEA’s partnership with Humanaut Health, you’ll also complete a comprehensive biological baseline during the workshop. Afterward, a Humanaut longevity physician will review your results with you in a dedicated one-on-one virtual consultation, helping you identify the clinical priorities most relevant to you.
You’ll leave [location] with a clearer picture of where you are, what matters most, and a personalized plan for the years ahead.
The Locations
The Power of Friendship workshop covers the same curriculum. What changes is the setting and how much time you give it.
Baja California Sur, Mexico
El Pescadero Resort | 5 days
Our beachfront resort on Baja's Pacific coast, developed by MEA founder and renowned hotelier Chip Conley. Walk the beach at sunrise or go for a dip in one of our three pools. Watch whales breach offshore or the sun drop into the Pacific from the outdoor dining patio. End the day with a conversation on the beach or a soak in one of our hot tubs, then retreat to your room for a good night's sleep.
Five days leaves real time between sessions to walk, swim, read, or sit with what came up that morning. Monday through Friday, depart Saturday.
Upcoming Baja Workshops:
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Rising Circle Ranch | 4 or 5 days
Our 2,600-acre ranch in the New Mexico high desert, 25 minutes from Santa Fe, designed by MEA founder and renowned hotelier Chip Conley. Hike the winding arroyos at sunrise or ride across the range on horseback to stone ruins dating back to the 1800s. Climb to a ridge marked with ancient petroglyphs, where the view runs for miles in every direction. End the day in the sauna or around the fire under a sky thick with stars, then retreat to your room for a good night's sleep.
Offered in both lengths. Five days runs at the same unhurried pace as Baja, Monday through Friday. Four days covers the same ground with less downtime, Monday through Thursday, for calendars that can't spare a full week.
Upcoming Santa Fe Workshops:
What You’ll Leave With
- Your Longevity Lifeplan™. A working first draft built page by page with Barbara across the five days: your Trophy Years© Vision, your Study of One© Profile, your Seven Lifestyle Levers Assessment™ results, your Fulfillment Wheel, your Wellbeing Team Map, your Quick Win, your High-Impact Shift, and your North Star Statement. A living plan designed to evolve as you do.
- A complete biological baseline. DEXA, CIMT, VO2 max estimation, strength and movement analysis, and a full blood panel, collected on-site and sent to Humanaut Health for expert clinical review. The third lens of your map, alongside the quantitative and qualitative work you'll do with us.
- A one-on-one consultation with Humanaut's longevity physicians. After the workshop, they'll review your complete results and provide a clear clinical assessment with specific priorities.
- The ability to advocate for your own health. You’ll learn to use modern tools, including AI, to organize your health data, prepare sharper questions, and have more informed conversations with your healthcare providers.
- A clear sense of where to focus. Not a 47-step protocol, but a concise list of the actions most likely to make a difference – grounded in your biology, values, circumstances, and the life you want to live.
- A peer community asking the same questions. The people in this room tend to become part of each other’s lives well beyond the workshop. That isn’t incidental. Social connection is one of the most well-documented contributors to a longer, healthier life.
Grounded in Science
Designing Longevity isn’t one metric – and it isn’t one discipline. It’s shaped by what happens in your body, how you spend your time, the quality of your relationships, and whether your life gives you reasons to stay engaged in it.
Barbara Waxman brings the research on the social and psychological conditions linked to a longer, healthier life. Derek Gehl brings a practical, clear-eyed perspective on the fast-moving world of longevity science, health data, and emerging technology. Humanaut Health contributes the clinical lens: physician-led diagnostics that show what is happening beneath the surface.
Together, these perspectives help you move beyond both generic wellness advice and isolated test results. You’ll see the full picture, and make choices that reflect not only the years you want to add, but what you want those years to hold.
Led by Experts Who See the Whole Picture
Barbara Waxman
Gerontologist, executive coach, MEA faculty member
Barbara Waxman has spent more than 20 years advancing an idea the longevity mainstream is only beginning to accept: how you think about aging shapes how you live—and even how you age. She works with adults in midlife and beyond not to fight time, but to design toward it with intention, vitality, and the expectation of getting better.
A gerontologist by training, credentialed coach by practice, and countercultural voice by conviction, Barbara brings together rigorous science, deep coaching, and an unapologetically pro-aging perspective.
She serves as an advisor to the Stanford Center on Longevity and Stanford Lifestyle Medicine and is an advisor and master faculty member at MEA. Her work has appeared on CBS This Morning and Thrive Global, and her books, including The Middlescence Manifesto, have helped reshape the conversation about midlife.
In Designing Longevity, Barbara leads the life-design work: helping you clarify what you want your health to make possible, identify the factors shaping how long and well you live, and build your personalized Longevity Lifeplan™.
Derek Gehl
CEO, Modern Elder Academy For 25 years,
For 25 years, Derek Gehl lived the biohacker life: tracking, measuring, testing, and trying to optimize nearly everything. His search for better health began after his own health challenges in his twenties left him frustrated by a medical system that seemed focused on treating symptoms rather than helping him understand their cause.
That search eventually led him to build and lead natural-health supplement companies focused on anti-aging and longevity. It also made him increasingly skeptical of an industry that profits when health becomes complicated, overwhelming, and dependent on someone else’s protocol.
Today, as CEO of MEA, Derek brings an insider’s perspective to longevity. He has spent years studying diagnostic tools, biomarkers, emerging science, and the rapidly evolving role of AI in personal health – and learning how to distinguish what genuinely helps from what simply creates more noise.
Physician-led longevity medicine
Humanaut Health is a physician-led longevity medicine practice designed to bridge the gap between traditional reactive healthcare and proactive, data-informed health optimization. Its approach starts with a deeper picture of the individual: advanced biomarker testing, imaging, and functional assessments that help identify the patterns behind how you feel and where your greatest opportunities may lie.
Through MEA’s partnership with Humanaut Health, Designing Longevity participants complete a comprehensive biological baseline during the workshop. Assessments include body composition and bone-density testing, cardiovascular-risk screening, cardiorespiratory-fitness estimation, strength and movement analysis, and a comprehensive blood panel.
After the workshop, Humanaut’s clinical team reviews your complete results in a dedicated one-on-one virtual consultation. The goal is not to hand you a generic protocol, but to help you understand your data, identify the clinical priorities most relevant to you, and bring greater precision to the Longevity Lifeplan™ you create with Barbara and Derek.
The Diagnostic Pathway: Your Longevity Bio-Profile
In partnership with Humanaut Health, every participant receives a comprehensive set of clinical assessments: your biological baseline and the physiological lens of your Longevity Lifeplan™.
During the Workshop
DEXA Scan — Full body composition analysis including bone density, lean muscle mass, and visceral fat levels.
CIMT Scan — Carotid intima-media thickness, a non-invasive assessment of cardiovascular risk that can detect issues years before symptoms appear.
Strength, Power & Movement Assessment — A clinical-grade dynamometer measures how much force your hands and forearms can produce. It sounds simple, but grip strength is one of the most well-researched predictors of longevity, and it tracks closely with your overall strength.
VO2 Max Estimation — VO2 max is widely considered the single most powerful predictor of cardiovascular health and all-cause mortality. We use a validated, submaximal protocol specifically selected for safety and accuracy.
Blood Panel and Biomarker Analysis — A comprehensive blood draw completed on-site, then sent to the lab for full analysis.
After the Workshop
Your complete results — every scan, every marker — are sent to Humanaut Health. You'll then schedule a dedicated virtual consultation with their longevity physicians. This isn't a surface-level review. They'll walk you through your full picture, provide a clear clinical assessment of where you stand, and identify your top priorities for action.
It's a pathway: collect the data, learn to navigate it, then receive expert clinical interpretation from physicians who specialize in exactly this.
What People Are Saying
May have saved my life.
Bob, Designing Longevity Participant
Barbara and Derek brought a rare combination of rigor and humanity. The clinical work with Humanaut gave the whole experience a grounding I didn’t expect. Real data, about my real body, informing a real plan.
Meryl, Designing Longevity Participant
A great combination of big ideas, self-discovery, and small steps you can implement right away.
Designing Longevity Participant
Who This Is for
- You're ready to get intentional about how you spend your days, who you spend them with, and what gives your life meaning.
- You want a personalized plan built around your actual life, not another list of generic advice.
- You want real data about your body and a framework that tells you what to do with it.
- You value evidence over hype and are willing to look honestly at where you stand.
- You're ready to invest five days in building something you'll use for decades.
- You’re between 45 and 75 and are moving through a transition or sensing that it’s time to become more intentional about the years ahead.
Who This Isn’t for
- You’re looking for a quick fix, a generic anti-aging protocol, or a list of supplements someone else says you should take.
- You’re not interested in building a personalized plan around your own body, values, circumstances, and goals.
- You’re unwilling to look honestly at your current habits, health data, relationships, and the choices shaping how you spend your days.
- You want to optimize your biomarkers but have little interest in the purpose, connection, meaning, and daily life that make added years worth living.
- You can’t commit to following through on the practical changes and ongoing reflection that make a Longevity Lifeplan useful over time.
Eat, Rest, Explore
Every part of your stay is held to a standard you won't find at other retreats. Meals are cooked from scratch with organic ingredients, much of it from our own garden. The rooms are beautiful and spacious, with a hotelier’s attention to detail. And if you’re looking for adventure, you’ll find plenty of it in the beautiful natural setting around campus.
What makes this experience unique
- A life plan and biological baseline—designed to work together. Most longevity programs focus on either clinical data or lifestyle change. This one connects both.
- Built for your Study of One©. Your biology, history, circumstances, values, and goals are unlike anyone else’s. Rather than hand you another generic protocol, Barbara’s methodology helps you identify the changes most likely to matter in your actual life.
- Barbara’s wayfinding sequence gives the work a clear structure. Through Get Your Bearings, Map Your Wellbeing, and Chart Your Course, you’ll build a practical personal plan, then refine it using your clinical data.
- Physician interpretation of your results. Some diagnostic results are available during the workshop, while others return after lab analysis. Once your complete profile is ready, you’ll meet one-on-one with a Humanaut Health physician for a dedicated virtual consultation focused on your clinical picture and top priorities for action.
- MEA’s hospitality makes room for the work. The setting, chef-prepared meals, accommodations, land, and staff support are designed to remove the logistics from your plate. You can focus on the questions that matter, alongside a cohort of people equally serious about designing the years ahead.
More Kind Words
An excellent investment of both time and money — strong content, meaningful personal reflection, valuable diagnostics, and excellent facilitation. I'd recommend it without hesitation to anyone who wants to be more intentional about how they age, live, and continue to flourish.
Ivan Levi, Designing Longevity Participant
Barbara’s workshop helped to solidify my plan for a more vibrant and focused future. It really helped me think about my life and how it is made up of several distinct segments, the fulfillment wheel, and what I need to do to build up the areas I believe are lacking.
Carol Pouchie, Designing Longevity Participant
What’s Included
- ## nights at [Rising Circle Ranch, Santa Fe / our Baja campus], with all meals cooked from scratch, plus snacks and drinks
- Daily sessions and exercises that help you clarify what makes you feel alive, and how to organize more of your life around it
- Mindfulness and somatic practices that settle your nervous system, so you can do the harder thinking
- Daily movement to keep your body in it: yoga, hiking, breathwork
- Time with a cohort of accomplished people asking the same questions you are, most of whom stay in touch long after
- Evening gatherings and rituals that mark where you've been and where you're headed
- Time on the land: hiking or biking the arroyos, visiting the horses, a wagon ride across the range
Explore Upcoming Workshops
Frequently Asked Questions
Most people considering Designing Longevity are asking some version of the same thing: Is this right for where I am right now? Here’s what we hear most often.
I’m managing health challenges. Will this still work for me?
Yes. The Lifeplan is built around your actual circumstances, not an idealized starting point, and the clinical assessments give you and your own physicians better information to work with.
Designing Longevity provides education, assessment, and planning support; it does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease. If you have health concerns, please consult your physician.
Should I attend solo or with a partner?
Both work. Solo participants tend to go deeper into their own design; couples leave with a shared vocabulary and complementary plans.
I’m in my 40s and 50s. Is now too early?
It’s the ideal time. The earlier you establish your baseline and design your trajectory, the more compounding you capture. It’s never too early or too late to start designing toward the years ahead.
I’m already deep into biohacking. Will this still challenge me?
Yes. You’ll get clinical-grade diagnostics and physician interpretation, and something most optimizers have never done: a rigorous, structured assessment of the qualitative factors (purpose, connection, fulfillment) that the mortality research says matter as much as your biomarkers. If you’ve optimized the engine, this is where you decide where the car is going.
I don’t know much about longevity science. Will I be out of my depth?
Not at all. You do not need a fitness routine, meditation practice, supplement stack, or prior knowledge of longevity science. This experience is designed for people who are ready to learn more about their own biology and get intentional about the years ahead.
Who else will be there?
Around 20 people, generally ages 45 to 75, from a wide mix of careers, backgrounds, and countries. Most come on their own. What everyone has in common is a willingness to look honestly at where they are, get intentional about the years ahead, and build a more personal path forward.
What clinical assessments are included?
Through MEA’s partnership with Humanaut Health, participants complete a comprehensive set of assessments that includes body composition, cardiovascular-risk assessment, VO2 max estimation, strength and movement analysis, and a full blood panel. Some results are available during the retreat; others require lab analysis and arrive in the following weeks.
What’s included in the tuition?
All workshop sessions, five nights of accommodations, chef-prepared meals, snacks, beverages, and full use of the campus are included. Tuition also covers the clinical assessments and a post-workshop consultation with a Humanaut Health physician. The only additional costs are travel and personal expenses.
How do I know if I qualify for a scholarship?
MEA offers scholarships on a needs-aware basis. If cost is a barrier, we encourage you to apply. Our goal is to make this accessible to the people who would benefit most.
What if I’m not sure this is right for me?
Book a call with one of our advisors. They’re all MEA alumni who’ve been through the programs themselves, and they’ll tell you honestly if Designing Longevity isn’t the right fit for where you are.
What Makes This Experience Unique
Our online concierge is standing by to help.
Want to Speak with a Person?
Schedule a call with our advisors. Our Advisors are all MEA alumni who can offer genuine insights into our programs. They’re passionate about helping you finding the right fit to make your next chapter the best one.
Book A Call