Enjoy life to live longer....

Today's Post:  Friday, 10-26-2012

Doing things you enjoy lowers your likely death rate & extends your life!

A study that was in the news last Monday, 10-22 that was done in the UK had striking results.

In a study of what were apparently middle aged people or a bit older, the people who said or tested to be enjoying life during the 10 year period, only 9.9 percent died but in the group in the lowest third of enjoyment 28.8 percent of them died.  (The average for the whole group was 20 %.)

That’s a huge difference.

Clearly part of the reason for that was that the people who kept the best health were most likely to enjoy life and stay alive and the people in the very worst health had less ability to enjoy life and were less likely to stay alive.

But this post is because there is some evidence that it works the other way around.

That means you can add to your years of healthy life and enjoy them by things you can do to make that happen.

Many of those things were in my recent post:  Feel better, have more energy, and stay mentally sharp.... Thursday, 10-18-2012.

Each of the things you can do in that post either make you feel better, make you more mentally healthy and capable, or help keep you healthy, or all three.

Three that stand out are:

1.  If you take a very scientific and analytical and careful approach when things go wrong, you often see that the causes are specific and temporary and even can be fixed in many cases.  And, if you are optimistic that many good things are permanent and that actions you take will help even if the odds don’t look to others as very promising, as long as the actions you take are prudent, you are far more likely to try to improve things and such people often succeed.

It’s already been studied.  If your are like that or learn to become like that, you WILL enjoy life more, you WILL take more actions to protect your health, and you’ll have more friends and better relationships, better health, and over your lifetime you will even make more money than people who aren’t like that.

2.  In everyone’s life there are good and bad events.  People who notice consciously when good things happen and focus on them a bit and even make an effort to recall them a few times a week will enjoy life more than the people with almost identical lives who do not do so.

3.  The supplements found to repair nerve and brain cells make it much easier to feel better and keep your mental sharpness.  AND, one of these, citicoline, has reports that people who begin taking it find their mood improves and they have more energy.

But there are three other ways to add to your enjoyment of life.

a) Regularly schedule things you enjoy doing from re-reading a favorite book for a few minutes a week to making time for your family to taking vacations. 

Yes you have other demands on your time; but if you schedule these things just like you do doctor’s appointments or meetings for your job and manage not to overdo it, you will enjoy life far more.

Better yet, there is solid evidence these things protect your health and rejuvenate you. 

For example people who do knowledge work and concentrate and make an effort to do it well for several hours, begin to experience a kind of mental fatigue and at some point become less able to continue.  A recent study found that re-reading a favorite fiction book or watching a favorite TV re-run works as an antidote to this effect.  Reading a new book by a favorite author or watching a new episode in a series you like is also enjoyable but not quite so restorative this study found.

b)  Notice and associate with people who enjoy life and are fun to be with.  Note who they are and do what you can to see them a bit more often and enjoy them.

c)  Build the number of words that you know that are positive and begin using them more.

Great!  Precisely so.  I agree.  I see what you mean.  Good luck to you. I’m pleased that worked so well for you.  Enjoy your weekend.

(It helps to find reasons to like people, notice what they are good at, and forgive them for being grouchy or tired at times or bad at other things.)

This set of words and others like them makes you easier to like and communicate with.

Delicious.  Delightful.  Outstanding.  Smooth.  Just right. Soothing. Interesting.  Wow!

Energizing, exciting, fun.  Refreshing.

Amused.  Pleased.  Stimulated.

The more you practice saying or noticing these things, the easier it gets to notice and remember or even create good things in your life.

And the more you will enjoy your life.