Positive Thinking May Lengthen Life

Want to live longer? Then think positive, researchers advise. A study of 660 volunteers ages 50 and older shows negative stereotypes about aging may have an adverse effect on longevity.

Even if you are not aware of them, subtle associations of the elderly with illness or frailty may be shortening your life by affecting your will to live, the study suggests. In fact, the scientists assert, positive self-perceptions of aging may influence lifespan more than not smoking or exercising, said lead researcher Becca Levy of Yale University's Department of Epidemiology and Public Health.

The study found that older people with more positive self-perceptions of aging, measured up to 23 years earlier, lived 7.5 years longer than those with less positive ones. "The effect of more positive self-perceptions of aging on survival is greater than the physiological measures of low systolic blood pressure and cholesterol, each of which is associated with a longer lifespan of four years or less," the authors wrote in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. "It is also greater than the independent contributions of lower body mass index, no history of smoking and a tendency to exercise; each of these factors has been found to contribute between one and three years of added life."