Credits: Social Media
Risk of death decreases with age if you can adapt to your new elderly life
A new piece of research published this week has suggested that old people need to practice resilience and adaptation if they want to reduce the risk of death.
Despite death being a normal part of the human experience, we are constantly on the lookout for ways to increase our life expectancy. Some turn to the�anti-aging properties�of foods like berries, while others switch it up with cosmetic procedures that shake off the years.
Mental resilience is influenced by a range of factors
With a lower life expectancy compared to other English-speaking countries, America is leading the charge against biological aging and reducing the risk of death. As such, they might be interested to learn of a new study in the BMJ Mental Health this week.
It has long been understood that the ability to bounce back after an elderly injury is associated with slower aging and the risk of death. To better understand the role mental resilience plays, scientists dug into the US Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a long-term nationally representative study of US adults aged at least 50.
Through 10,569 data sets, most of which were women aged around 66, the researchers were able to assess resilience through the presence of traits like perseverance, calmness, a sense of purpose, self-reliance, and the recognition that certain experiences have to be faced alone. Scoring responses 0 to 12, they found an average score of 9.18.
Over a 12-year period, which saw 3489 study participants die, researchers saw an almost linear association between death and resilience: the higher the score, the lower the risk of death.
There were some limits to the study
As the first exploration into the link between mental resilience and life expectancy, there are still some areas that the study didn’t account for.
Though they did take into consideration health factors and lifestyle, with both showing decreased life expectancy, the study didn’t acknowledge genetic, hormonal, and childhood factors.
Various factors, including but not limited to, meaning in life, positive emotions, self-rated health and satisfaction with social support, have been identified as potential influences on psychological resilience, the study’s authors explained. Triggering these positive emotions may enhance the protective effects of psychological resilience and mitigate the negative impact of accumulated adversity on mental health in adults.
The findings underscore the potential effectiveness of interventions aimed at promoting psychological resilience in order to mitigate mortality risks,” they added.
