[Nasional-e] Don't worry - be happy!

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Don't worry - be happy!
 Mary Duenwald The New York Times  Thursday, November 21, 2002

Optimism and positive thinking may lead to longer life

NEW YORK Do happy people live longer? A growing body of evidence suggests
they may. Recent studies have correlated long life with optimism, with
positive thinking, and with a lack of hostility, anxiety and depression.
.
One thing that remains unclear, however, is whether happiness can actually
cause longevity. Perhaps happy people live longer because they practice
healthy behaviors, or for some other unknown reason.
.
"It is definitely the case that certain people who are psychologically
healthier live longer," said Howard Friedman of the University of California
at Riverside, a psychologist who has studied personality traits that
correlate with longevity. "But the explanations are usually complicated."
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The second open question is: What, if anything, can unhappy people do about
it?
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The most recent study of personality and longevity was conducted among a
group of 660 people over 50 in Oxford, Ohio, who, in 1975, had answered
questions having to do with, among other things, attitudes about aging. They
had been asked whether they agreed or disagreed with such statements as
"Things keep getting worse as I get older," "I have as much pep as I did
last year" and "I am as happy now as I was when I was younger."
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Researchers checked to see which participants were still alive in 1998, and
they noted when the others had died. It turned out that those who viewed
aging as a positive experience lived, on average, 7.5 years longer than
those who took a darker view.
.
That is an advantage far greater, the researchers point out, than what can
be gained from lowering blood pressure or reducing cholesterol, each of
which has been found to lengthen life about four years. It also beats
exercise, not smoking and maintaining a healthy weight, strategies that add
one to three years.
.
The researchers who conducted the study have been careful not to suggest tha
t views of aging are more important for one's health than exercise,
nutrition and not smoking. "I think they are all important in predicting
survival," said Becca Levy, a social psychologist at Yale. But, Levy said,
it is surprising to find that a psychological characteristic could also be
such a strong predictor of life span.
.
In analyzing the data, Levy and her colleagues took into account race, sex,
socioeconomic status, self-reported health, overall morale and loneliness -
all factors that might have clouded the picture. But even after
statistically controlling for such characteristics, views of aging were
highly correlated with long life.
.
Optimism was linked to longevity in a study reported two years ago by
researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Toshihiko Maruta, a
psychiatrist, reviewed psychological tests that had been given to more than
800 people in the early 1960s, and based on the people's responses, he
classified 197 of them as pessimistic. He then checked to see how long they
lived.
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Maruta found that the pessimists had a risk of death for any given year that
was 19 percent greater than average.
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Other studies have drawn connections between longevity and the degree of
control people feel over their lives and between longevity and mindfulness,
defined as an awareness of one's environment and one's reactions to it. Some
research has shown that people who are relatively more depressed, hostile or
anxious are unlikely to live as long as others.
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Carolyn Aldwin, a professor of human and community development at the
University of California at Davis, has reviewed many such studies and
examined another group of people who took psychological tests in the 1960s.
She found that those who seemed to be relatively stable emotionally had
lived longer.
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"You're better off if you are less likely to go to extremes emotionally,"
Aldwin said, "if you keep on an even keel and don't let yourself get too
upset."
.
But many psychologists question whether it is possible for people to change
their personalities and thus improve their survival. "Personality is
stable," Maruta said. "There might be fluctuations now and then, but I'm not
sure we can really change."