Optimism
Could Help You Live Longer
By: Associated Press
New York Times, September 5, 2002
Doctor's orders: Don't worry, be happy.
Keeping a positive attitude about aging can extend
life by seven and half years, which is longer than gains made by not
smoking and exercising regularly, a study finds.
``People's perception of aging predicted the length
of their survival,'' said Dr. Suzanne Kunkel, director of the Scripps
Gerontology Center at Miami University and co-author of the study.
``It illustrates the mind-body connection. Even if we
cannot control what happens to us, we can control how we define it.''
The findings about attitude and survival rates were
made by analyzing and matching data collected since 1975 about 660 people
age 50 or older in Oxford, Ohio, with data from the National Death Index.
Kunkel began the research in the small southwestern
Ohio town as a graduate student and has helped maintain the database for
more than two decades.
Researchers at Miami and Yale universities looked at
how the 338 men and 322 women responded to several questions about aging
in 1975, and then examined how their responses predicted their survival up
to 23 years later.
The study, published in the Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, was funded by the National Institute on Aging.
Researchers found respondents with more positive
views on aging live longer, even after taking into account factors such as
age, gender, socio-economic status, functional health, self-reported
health and loneliness.
``The median survival of those in the more positive
self perceptions of aging group was seven and a half years longer than
those in the more negative perceptions,'' Kunkel said.
The attitudes on aging had a greater impact on life
span than lower body mass index, not smoking and regular exercise -- each
of which extends life by one to three years.
``Our study carries two messages,'' said Dr. Becca
Levy, a researcher at Yale University and the study's lead author. ``The
discouraging one is that negative self perceptions can diminish life
expectancy; the encouraging one is that positive self-perceptions can
prolong life expectancy.''
But Richard Suzman, associate director for behavioral
and social research for the National Institute on Aging, said while a
positive self-perception helps, it should not replace proper health care.
``Any notion that positive thinking is more powerful
than not smoking ... there just isn't evidence of that,'' he said. ``There
is enormous clinical evidence to show the value of not smoking and
exercising.''
The researchers found that the will to live partially
accounts for the relationship between positive self-perceptions of aging
and survival, but does not completely account for difference in longevity.
Levy's earlier research at Yale's Department of
Epidemiology and Public Health has shown cardiovascular response to stress
can be adversely affected when elderly persons are exposed to negative
stereotypes of aging.
The new study said stereotypes about aging are
acquired decades before the person becomes old and are therefore rarely
questioned.
``Once individuals become older, they may lack the
defenses of other groups to ward off the impact of negative stereotypes on
self perceptions,'' the report said.
Kunkel said the study offers a strong message about
life.
``There is nothing we can do about aging,'' she said.
``It's like sitting in traffic when you're late. The natural response is
to get very stressed about the situation. The other choice is to not get
upset and think about how to deal with the consequences of being late.''
The key is learning how to see a situation for what
it is, she said, and to give it no more power than it needs to have.
``We enter later adulthood with our habitual ways of
dealing with stress,'' she added. ``People need to learn new strategies to
deal with it.''
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