It's no surprise that eating healthily and engaging in regular physical activity can help ensure longer lifespans for people. A new study is saying, however, that having a good outlook in life can add more years, most especially for senior citizens.
In fact, according to a study carried out by researchers from University College London, Stony Brook University, and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in Princeton University, senior citizens who live with a sense of purpose are 30 percent less likely to die within the next eight and a half years compared to their more cynical counterparts. That's an average of two years more!
Led by Professor Andrew Steptoe, Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care director at UCL, the study tracked 9,050 individuals, monitoring their attitudes in life, health, and overall state of well-being.
Over the course of eight and a half years, nine percent of the subjects with the highest level of well-being have died, compared to the 29 percent from the group with the lowest level of well-being.
The study's results showed that there is a connection between having a sense of purpose and survival in older people, raising the interesting possibility that a higher level of well-being can lead to better physical health.
Researchers are of the belief that the study yielded such results because feelings of fulfillment and happiness may trigger the release of hormones that can reduce stress and lower levels of blood pressure. Not to mention people are likelier to take care of themselves when they don't dread waking up.
Researchers have also found out that levels of well-being and happiness varied around the world. For those in Eastern European countries and the former Soviet Union, for instance, older individuals have low levels of satisfaction in life compared to younger people from the same areas. The same is true for Caribbean and Latin American countries but the drop in satisfaction was not as severe. In African countries, low life satisfaction was present in all ages.
Angus Deaton, a professor from Princeton University and the study's co-author, adds that economics may have a hand in how people feel at a certain age.
"This is the period at which wage rates typically peak and is the best time to work and earn the most, even at the expense of present well-being, so as to have increased wealth and well-being later in life," he added.
The study came out in the journal The Lancet.
