Non-doomers live longer - Research-based evidence

Heineken

[quote="uNkNowN ElEmEnt]Besides if a good positive attitude makes you live longer, why aren't all the old people running around happy?[/quote]

Excellent point. I have observed this many times.

I come from a branch of Pennsylvania Dutch-Germans, easily among the gloomiest people on Earth. Most of her adult life, my paternal grandmother was always talking about death, particularly her own impending one. She lived to be 96. Her husband was an antisocial crabapple; I think I saw him smile exactly once. He lived to be 94. Both were traumatized by the Depression, which left them depressed themselves, and negative in outlook, for the rest of their lives.

My own parents have already survived into their early 80s despite being extremely negative, antisocial, psychologically scarred people. My dad has had PTSD, a disease process that is a veritable fount of negativity and antisociality, since being traumatized by his experiences as a soldier during WWII. My mother was severely abused as a child and adolescent and has spent a lifetime feeling bitter and nursing her wounds.

These are only anecdotes, but similar ones abound!

I think that longevity is mostly a matter of genetics, and a heap of evidence supports that.
No one argues that a positive outlook on life FEELS better. It's definitely the way to go. But whether it produces per se a significant increase in lifespan seems doubtful to me.

Even regular physical exercise extends the average lifespan by only 2 years or so.
_________________
"Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog

"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother

Lumpy

Heineken

Some doomers do react personally in a negative way (the most extreme example of such a reaction being suicide, which I'm sure has happened, alas). Others do everything they can to prepare for a difficult future (even while suspecting that such preparations may be futile). And do what they can, locally, to try to ameliorate the damage our species is wreaking.

Anyway, I think you've come to the right place, Lumpy. We've had many, many threads that examine from every possible angle the issues you're raising here. Explore! And welcome to PO.com. Sorry again if you and I got off on the wrong foot. My fault entirely.
_________________
"Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog

"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother

efarmer · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 17, 2006 Posts: 445

When I veer Doomer, time crawls, when I drift toward the Tickletush opposite pole, time screams past. I think perceived time is about equal for both roles, but the Tickletush gets more calendar time and is most probably blissfully unaware anyhow.

Narz

Lumpy

Shannymara · Master Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5094 Location: Oklahoma

I've found righteous anger useful only to the point that it's actually possible to make a change. If you're powerless to do so regardless of your energy level, the anger only serves to hurt you rather than provide needed energy. Often surrender is the better path. Be like water.

Serenity now! Serenity now! Mad

_________________
"Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young

uNkNowN ElEmEnt

I always thought that when you were infused with righteous anger, it was the acid flowing through peoples systems that would keep them alive longer by killing off any potential invading bacteria.

Hence, my view that it is active and not passive types who live longer. You can be an active pessimist, or active angry type. but the passive positive people or passive bitter people who kick the bucket.

Lumpy

uNkNowN ElEmEnt

Lumpy

uNkNowN ElEmEnt

I've seen a lot of people on the edge. I've seen all manner of things people do to others. And mostly I've seen people floundering for something of meaning in their lives after it had been ripped apart. (I've needed to do the same thing at times too)

I think we've gone astray in society and to a much smaller extent we are all looking for something for our lives to be about. We've been programmed by TV and religion to think that our lives are supposed to have some grand design and meaning.

Which is extrememly sad because I think we overlook the only things that could make any meaning in our lives. I think we become ungrounded and washed away in the oil slick of society. We are all going to be rediscovering these things as the crash/peak oil/ or what ever other disaster happens, happens.

I think might be one of the things that we reclaim and what does bind us together here on peak oil (as much as that is possible for such totally different groups all over the world, with different beliefs and cultures, and ideologies).

In a sad way its going to be the greatest experiment of adaptive behaviours ever seen. I am going to be watching/experiencing with fascination, let me tell you.

threadbear · Expert Joined: Jan 22, 2005 Posts: 7110

Seems like the terms passive, rather than pessimistic, and pro-active, rather than optimistic would be better descriptors.

According to the nun study I looked at several years ago, there should be plenty of "happy" little cabbages with Alzheimer's, as well as gloomy Gusses. It's not so much what you feel as how you think, that determines whether this illness manifests in it's most devastating form. Autopsies of elderly nuns showed that there was almost as much damage, (amyloid plaques and neurofibbrilary tangles) in the brains of apparently unaffected nuns, as those with severe Alzheimers. The conclusions some scientists came to, after reading the correspondences of these nuns, from their childhood into adulthood, was that those at highest risk for experiencing negative impact from the disease were the nuns who were mundane thinkers. The scientists seemed to think that those who simply thought a lot, and as a kind of hobby, had brains that were able to think around the areas of damage.

Clinical depression, in that it may rob the person of the ability or motivation to think as a kind of recreational activity, or as a purpose for being, could, in this case, be an earmark of later development of the kind of state of being we think of as Alzheimerish. In fact, we may ALL have it, to some degree in extreme old age, particularly after the age of 80.

People who lack the sensation of and philosophy of hope are at higher risk of accident causing death, alcoholism, etc...

It would seem purely on an intuitive level, if the immune system is somehow connected to the mind, that true despair (not just negativity) is as active a killer as any viral or bacterial toxin.

How best can others deal with this kind of black hole of being? Can a person be helped by others, or can a change of world conditions and events, outer circumstances change the mind set of this kind of person? That is a big "maybe", isn't it? It's probably best to avoid prejudging using the "proving ground" of our own personal experiences.

uNkNowN ElEmEnt