Optimism Key to Exceptional Longevity

Research shows that the key to making healthy life choices might depend on an optimistic mindset.

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The way you perceive the world can significantly impact your life. Embracing a positive outlook may not only enhance your well-being but could also add years to your life. As Theodore Roosevelt wisely observed, “Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.”

Exceptional Longevity

An analysis of data from more than 69,000 women in the Nurses’ Health Study and more than 1,400 men in the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study found that optimism is specifically related to an 11 to 15 percent longer lifespan. The female participants in these studies had been monitored since 1976, and the men had been monitored since 1986.

Optimism seems to increase the odds of living to the age of 85 or beyond—which is defined as exceptional longevity. These findings were independent of other health conditions and behaviors, such as diet, smoking, and alcohol use as well as mental health conditions and financial means.

Benefits of Optimism

Optimism, as defined by the study published in PNAS in 2019, is “a psychological attribute characterized as the general expectation that good things will happen, or the belief that the future will be favorable because one can control important outcomes.”