{"id":14601,"date":"2013-07-08T22:59:42","date_gmt":"2013-07-09T06:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/?p=14601"},"modified":"2013-07-08T22:59:42","modified_gmt":"2013-07-09T06:59:42","slug":"how-to-live-longer-be-positive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/how-to-live-longer-be-positive\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Live Longer: Be Positive"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p><\/p>\n<p>Want to live longer? Use positive words!<\/p>\n<p>As a Personal Trainer I often scour through the latest studies for the up-to-date research on exercise and nutrition.<\/p>\n<p>On one such recent &#8216;hunt&#8217; I came across a very interesting study suggesting that the words we use could possibly predict how long we are going to live.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah Pressman, of the University of Kansas, and Sheldon Cohen, of Carnegie Mellon University, published an analysis [1] on 88 autobiographies in &#8216;A History of Psychology in Autobiography&#8217; in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>The researches studied the autobiographies and looked for the following type of words:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8216;High activated positive affect&#8217;<\/strong>: words like happy, active, energetic, lively, enthusiastic.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8216;Unactivated positive affect&#8217;<\/strong>: such as calm, relaxed and content.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8216;High activated negative affect&#8217;<\/strong>: such as worried, jittery, distressed and upset.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8216;Unactivated negative affect&#8217;<\/strong>: such as sad, lonely, downhearted and hopeless.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>They performed the analysis by counting the words for each category and comparing them to how long the psychologists lived.<\/p>\n<p>The result:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;After controlling for sex, year of publication, health (based on disclosed illness in autobiography), native language, and year of birth, the use of more activated positive emotional words (e.g., lively, vigorous, attentive, humorous) was associated with increased longevity.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>How much increased longevity?<\/p>\n<p>Those who used words with high activated positive affect <strong>lived an average of 5-6 years longer<\/strong> than those who didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>Does a positive attitude increase longevity? Or are people that have a physiology that ages slower just naturally happier? Could the causal arrow perhaps shoot both ways?<\/p>\n<p>Other studies suggest that forgiveness [2] and optimism [3] are also associated with longevity, too.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know for sure, But the take home message for me is: Be Positive. There could be a really big payoff.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p><em>Mark blogs at MuscleHack where you can discover the truth about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.musclehack.com\/how-to-build-muscle-mass-fast-complete-guide\/\">how to gain muscle<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.musclehack.com\/how-to-lose-fat\/\">lose fat<\/a> with his powerful THT <a href=\"http:\/\/www.musclehack.com\/targeted-hypertrophy-training-tht\/\">weight training program<\/a> and growth fueling <a href=\"http:\/\/www.musclehack.com\/the-new-bodybuilding-diet-glad\/\">bodybuilding diet<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>References<br \/>\n[1] <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/21928902\">Positive emotion word use and longevity in famous deceased psychologists.<\/a><br \/>\n[2] <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/21706213\">Forgive to live: forgiveness, health, and longevity.<\/a><br \/>\n[3] <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/15520360\">Dispositional optimism and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in a prospective cohort of elderly dutch men and women.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a Personal Trainer I often scour through the latest studies for the up-to-date research on exercise and nutrition.<\/p>\n<p>On one such recent &#8216;hunt&#8217; I came across a very interesting study suggesting that the words we use could possibly predict how long we are going to live. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/how-to-live-longer-be-positive\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12163,"featured_media":14656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[32,21,6],"tags":[704,4641,2242,2241,595,387,4629],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How To Live Longer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Want to live longer? 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Here is some scientific research that shows how a longer life may be possible; and there&#039;s no drugs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/how-to-live-longer-be-positive\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pickthebrain\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-07-09T06:59:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Screen-shot-2013-07-08-at-3.15.43-PM.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"499\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"315\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@pickthebrain\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@pickthebrain\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Erin Falconer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/how-to-live-longer-be-positive\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Screen-shot-2013-07-08-at-3.15.43-PM.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Screen-shot-2013-07-08-at-3.15.43-PM.png\",\"width\":499,\"height\":315},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/how-to-live-longer-be-positive\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/how-to-live-longer-be-positive\/\",\"name\":\"How To Live Longer\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/how-to-live-longer-be-positive\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-07-09T06:59:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-07-09T06:59:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2da8ae162c097bdb749ab098472b4cc5\"},\"description\":\"Want to live longer? 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