The secret of longevity
There
is a common notion that if you are unhappy, it could lead to higher
stress levels that could literally shorten your lifespan.Yes, happiness
can indeed lower your stress and you're your life easier. But can being
happy necessarily prolong your time on Earth ? The latest research
suggests that this may not necessarily be true. In other words,
unhappiness is just not enough to kill you, in the common sense of the
word.
Oxford University scientists claim that previous research has mixed
up cause and effect, meaning that stress and misery do not in themselves
shorten one's lifespan. 'Illness makes you unhappy, but unhappiness
itself doesn't make you ill,' says Dr Bette Liu from the University of
New South Wales, who worked on the study. "We found no direct effect of
unhappiness or stress on mortality."
Discounting
The British and Australian teams looked at data from the Million
Women Study, which has tracked British women since 1996. After
discounting those who were ill at the beginning of the study - published
in the Lancet medical journal - they were left with 720,000 women with
an average age of 59. The participants were then asked a series of
questions about how often they felt happy or stressed, before being
tracked for a decade - in which time 30,000 died.
Researchers initially found a significant link between those who said
they were unhappy and those who passed away. But when they took into
account smoking, lifestyle, and socio-economic factors such as wealth,
they found the link disappeared. They argue that emotions such as
unhappiness or stress can cause people to take on unhealthy habits -
such as smoking or drinking too much alcohol - rather than directly
affecting lifespan.
Even if there could be no direct link between unhappiness and
mortality, it pays to be happy and stress-free as much as you can. As
one of the researchers said, being happy is not a magical cure for heart
disease and cancer but you are still less likely to get some diseases if
you are happy. Happiness might not add many years to your life but it
can certainly add some life to your later years.
Risk
Meanwhile, other researchers have developed a new lifestyle score
that determines your risk for death, based on your bad habits. For
example, we know that sitting for a long period in one location is not
good for health, but we don't think that it has a connection with
longevity. Apparently, it does. A group of Australian researchers say
previously unconsidered risk factors like sitting for long periods of
time should be included when estimating a person's mortality risk. In
this new study published in the journal PLOS Medicine, researchers
looked a group of 231,048 Australian adults age 45 and up who were
followed for six years. The researchers then scored the participants on
six behaviour measures: smoking, alcohol use, dietary behavior, physical
inactivity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep. When added together, they
found that the people who had higher scores in these combined measures
had a higher risk of death.
Loneliness is a killer. You should fight it off with a tight
social circle.
pic. footage.framepool.com |
The researchers used the measurement "person-years lost," which is
the number of years lost due to a person in the study dying before the
study ended. Based on their findings, the researchers calculated that if
none of the men and women had any of the risk factors, a third of the
person-years lost from death would have been avoided.
Wine
Accordingly, short sleep duration had less of an effect on mortality
risk than sleeping for a long time. It is possible that long sleep
duration indicates underlying disease, fatigue or depression. The
researchers also found that the combination of long bouts of sitting and
a lack of exercise had a stronger effect. The good news is that by
understanding how these different behaviors impact our ability to have a
long life, we can make modifications for better health.
Both these studies do not really alter what we know - everyone knows
that exercise is good for health and a sedentary lifestyle is bad. Food
habits are also important but there are new discoveries every day which
suggests that food item A is good for health or food item B is bad. For
example, some researchers say that copious amounts of coffee is good for
health while others caution against drinking too much of it. A
110-year-old man was recently quoted as saying that his secret to long
life was having a little bit of wine every day, while many scientists
warn against the consumption of alcohol. Such contradictory claims are
often very confusing for the consumers who look for healthy alternatives
to their day to day foods and drinks.
Longevity is one of the most researched subjects in science and
technology. Companies are spending billions of dollars on Research and
Development that could prolong your life or at least make you look
younger on the outside. However, with current advances in health care
and medicine, it is widely believed that the person who will live to be
150 has already been born somewhere in the world. This is without
considering the addition of any bionic implants, some of which are
already available. These could really make you younger and add many
years to your life, theoretically at least. However, there are those who
say that your lifespan is written in your genes, not to mention more
spiritual concepts such as fate, which are widespread especially in
Asia.
Online
There are other factors that can make you healthy well into your old
age. Having friends - no, not online friends, but real people you can
meet physically and interact with. Loneliness is a killer. You should
fight it off with a tight social circle.
This reduces stress, improves the cardiovascular system and fights
off disease, however improbable it may seem. It is said that to be a
good way to unload stress, especially for men, who tend to be more
emotionally closed-off than women.
There really is no one way to improve your chances of having a longer
life. While the studies outlined above have shown that various
techniques or habits may improve your chances, it is really all about
living your best life possible. |