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One Key Secret to a Longer Life: Live a More Hopeful Life! (Here’s Why & How)
by www.Sedona.com
Babies born in 2005 in the United States can expect to live for nearly 78 years, which represents the longest average lifespan ever in the United States. In reality, however, you could expect to live much longer than that because no one really knows what the upper limit is on human lifespan -- or if there is one, at that.
The record for the world’s longest life belongs to Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122. She said that “God must have forgotten about her” when asked what her secret to longevity was.
One day, however, living to 122 may be commonplace.
"When it comes to maximum longevity, everything is speculation," says Jerry Shay at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Muse. "Jeanne Calment lived to 122, so it wouldn't surprise me if someone alive today reaches 130 or 135."
What can YOU do to live a longer, happier life? One key secret that you may already inherently know is to adopt a positive, hopeful emotional state.
The Nun Study: How Hope Can Help You Live Longer
In 1930, 180 nuns who were around 22 years old wrote brief autobiographies. Each nun was asked, upon taking her final vows, to:
“Write a short sketch of [her] life. This account should not contain more than two to three hundred words and should be written on a single sheet of paper . . . include place of birth, parentage, interesting and edifying events of childhood, schools attended, influences that led to the convent, religious life, and outstanding events.”
They had no way of knowing that over 70 years later in 2001 their words would be able to predict their lifespan.
Psychologist Deborah D. Danner of the University of Kentucky in Lexington and her colleagues analyzed the nuns’ letters for positive emotional content, then related them to the nuns’ survival between the ages of 75 to 95.
Their study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, revealed that the nuns whose autobiographies contained the most sentences expressing positive emotions lived an average of seven years longer than nuns whose stories contained the fewest.
Further, lifespan increased by 9.5 years for nuns whose autobiographies contained the most words referring to positive emotions, and by 10.5 years for nuns who used the greatest variety of positive-emotion words.
"Our results should spur research into the poorly understood link between positive emotions and longevity," said study coauthor Wallace V. Friesen, also of the University of Kentucky, when the study was released. "I never would have guessed this association is so strong."
A Hopeful Attitude and Letting Go of Negativity are Key
In their paper, “Positive Emotions in Early Life and Longevity:
Findings from the Nun Study,” Danner and colleagues discussed something very interesting about your emotions, and how important it is to be able to return to calm quickly after being upset.
If you regularly have “sustained negative emotional arousal” with a “slow return to tranquil baseline,” it will prompt “cardiovascular activity that accelerates disease mechanisms such as atherosclerosis [hardening of your arteries].”
The researchers pointed to previous studies that found an ability early in life to “balance and attenuate multiple sources of conflict predicted enhanced physical and mental health 20 years later.”
This premise is exactly what The Sedona Method teaches you how to do: release negative emotions quickly, so that you can return to your naturally calm, peaceful state, and have a lasting positive mental attitude.
Now, both hopeful thoughts and letting go of negative emotions have been found to improve longevity. But there is something even better than hoping, according to Hale Dwsokin, CEO and director of training of Sedona Training Associates.
“Hope is much better than despair because if you allow yourself to stay in despair you tend to spiral downward,” he says. “However, hope still has a catch. When you say you hope something is going to happen there is still much doubt in you. This is why it’s better to simply have a positive attitude or a confident attitude than a hopeful one.”
If you are stuck in a place where negativity is controlling you, and would like to find your inner happiness and confidence, you owe it to yourself to give The Sedona Method a try.
“When you have a positive, confident attitude you can see positive outcomes and are more likely to take positive actions,” Dwoskin says. “You also feel a lot better about yourself and whatever you do. The best way to move from despair to hope -- and from hope to confidence -- is by letting go using The Sedona Method.”
Sources
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2001, Vol. 80, No. 5, 804-813
ScienceNews.com Week of May 26, 2001; Vol. 159, No. 21 , p. 324
Muse February 2004
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