Improved Lives

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Through the grapevine I heard about this wonderful book (I haven’t read it yet, but it sounds very good) that came out recently on aging well, which showed that living the kind of happy, fulfilled life that I talk about here at Improved Lives will, in combination with a few other things, predict health and longevity 30 or more years in to the future.

The book, which is called Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development, is based on a research study done at Harvard that recruited 800 participants as teenagers and followed them for their entire lives!

They, found, amazingly enough, that aging well is NOT predicted by:

• Your gene pool
• Your cholesterol level
• Your stress level
• Your parents’ social class, marriage success, IQ, etc.
• Your childhood temperament
• Your degree of positive affect and social ease

Instead, aging well is predicted by a mixture of 6 lifestyle qualities and 4 personality traits. The 6 lifestyle qualities are:

• Never smoking or stopping young
• Adaptive coping (turning lemons into lemonade)
• No alcohol abuse
• A stable marriage
• 12+ years of education
• Not being overweight and getting some regular exercise

Pretty easy right? There’s nothing drastically hard on that list and I think a lot of us are probably already living that lifestyle. The only one I’m missing is the marriage, ladies……?

The 4 personality traits that predict aging well are:

• Hope and Optimism – A future orientation and the ability to plan positively
• Gratitude and Forgiveness – The capacity for both
• Empathy - The ability to see the world through the eyes of another
• Kindness and Social Intelligence – The desire to do things with and for other people

Again, these aren’t personality traits that are drastically hard to achieve and maintain. I would say that in my personal growth ‘career’ I’ve made a great deal of progress in all 4 of these areas, and I’m betting a lot of you could say that too.

If you want to see a few exercises you can do in your daily life to help promote these personality traits, take a look at this post.

I think the biggest thing you can do though is to be mindful of yourself and what you’re doing and actively try to embrace these traits in your daily life. Remember that to truly adopt these traits means making them a part of who you are, whether they’re convenient in the moment or not.

Further Reading:
- The Happy-Well: Positive Psychology Tips for Living Well and Longer by Sherri Fisher – This is a great article and has convinced me to give this book a try.

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