Love life, live long
People who love their life are three times more likely to live longer and have less chance of disability and poor health than those who aren’t happy, according to UK research. Researchers from University College London studied and interviewed 10,000 English people aged 50 to 100 years.
People who love their life are three times more likely to live longer and have less chance of disability and poor health than those who aren’t happy, according to UK research.
AAP reports researchers from University College London studied 10,000 English people aged 50 to 100. They interviewed them three times between 2002 and 2011, asking about their happiness and psychological state.
The people who were most satisfied with their life were more likely to be alive at the end of the nineyear study than those who hated life.
“The difference between those who enjoyed life the most and those who enjoyed life the least was marked, with nearly three times more people dying in the lower than greater enjoyment group,” the study authors wrote.
“What we found is that out of those people in the highest third of people with the most enjoyment, 9.9% died. Of people in the lowest third of enjoyment 28.8% of them died,” researcher Professor Andrew Steptoe said in a media release.
“This was the case even when factors such as age were taken into account, we still find this protective effect of enjoyment.”
Professor Steptoe said the results were probably because people who are happy are more likely to look after their health and are less likely to be stressed.
He also hypothesised that strong social networks could be contributing to their longevity –– and that wealthier people were 50 percent less likely to become socially isolated.
