The short version
My name is Susan Hartley. I am a retired registered nurse, 65 years old, living outside Charlotte, North Carolina. I spent 34 years in hospital nursing — 22 years in cardiology, and the last 12 in patient education. I retired in 2022 and started writing this publication to help other adults over 50 think more clearly about aging, supplements, sleep, and the slow decisions that add up over a lifetime.
The Wellness Journal is not a media company. It is one person writing carefully about things I have personally researched, most of which I am living through myself. If you find me useful, I'm glad. If you don't, there is no shortage of other things to read.
Who I am and how I got here
I was born in 1960 in Asheville, North Carolina. I earned my Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1983 and spent my entire working life as an RN. The first half of my career was spent on cardiology floors — coronary care, step-down, and eventually supervising a cardiac nursing team at a regional hospital in Charlotte. The second half I spent in patient education, which meant working one-on-one with patients being discharged with new diagnoses, new medications, or new lifestyle recommendations. My job was to translate their doctors into plain English.
I learned, doing that work, that a lot of good medical information never actually reaches the people who need it. Not because doctors are careless — most are excellent — but because a 15-minute appointment is not enough time to explain a complicated diagnosis, and written discharge instructions are rarely read. A surprising amount of what people believe about their own health is based on whatever they managed to absorb during the most stressful five minutes of their week.
That experience is most of why this publication exists.
Why I started writing
I started having joint issues around age 57 — first my knees, then my hips. By the time I retired at 62, I had been through the usual sequence: glucosamine, turmeric, physical therapy, a cortisone injection. Some of it helped a little. None of it addressed what was actually bothering me.
When I started reading the clinical literature for myself, I realized how much of what gets told to patients is a simplified version of what the research actually says. I wrote an essay about what I found. A few friends asked me to write more. Eventually I started this site.
I do not have a degree in nutrition. I do not have a PhD. I am not a practicing medical professional. I am a retired nurse who is willing to spend the time reading studies that most readers do not have the time or training to read, and who is committed to writing what I find in plain language.
What this publication covers
Three broad topics:
Aging and longevity. What actually changes in the body after 50, and which of those changes are reversible, treatable, or worth addressing. This is the biggest category.
Supplements and nutrition. Most supplement recommendations are either too cautious to be useful or too aggressive to be honest. I try to find the middle. I write about individual ingredients, specific products when I have an opinion, and broader categories when the research is mixed.
What the medical system misses. Not because I think doctors are the enemy — my father was a doctor — but because the system is optimized for acute care and not for the slower, murkier concerns of people in the second half of their lives.
What I will and will not do
I will recommend specific products when I have an honest opinion about them. When I do, I will disclose any affiliate relationship I have with the company. I will not accept paid reviews, sponsored content, or any arrangement where a company pays me to say nice things.
I will share my own experience with supplements and treatments. I will not present my individual experience as proof of anything. Three months of me feeling better is not a clinical trial.
I will tell you when the research is uncertain. I will not pretend to have answers I don't have.
I will not tell you to stop any medication your doctor has prescribed. I will not tell you to skip seeing your doctor. Nothing on this site is medical advice — it is one nurse's reading of public research, for people who want to read that research themselves but don't have the time.
About my family
I have been married to my husband Tom, a retired civil engineer, for 38 years. We have two adult children — a daughter who is a school counselor in Raleigh, and a son who works in software in Austin. We have three grandchildren, two in North Carolina and one in Texas. When I mention walking my neighborhood or picking up my grandchildren in articles, I mean this literally.
Contact
If you have questions, corrections, or things you'd like me to research, you can reach me at the email address on my contact page. I read every message. I don't respond to every message — I am one person and I cannot give medical advice through email. But I read everything.
Thank you for being here.
— Susan Hartley
Mooresville, North Carolina
Updated April 2026