By Patti Neighmond, National Public Radio, September 1, 2019
Good news for the cheery: A Boston study published this month suggests people who tend to be optimistic are likelier than others to live to be 85 years old or more.
That finding was independent of other factors thought to influence life's length — such as "socioeconomic status, health conditions, depression, social integration, and health behaviors," the researchers from Boston University School of Medicine and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health say. Their work appears in a recent issue of the science journal PNAS.
"We wanted to consider, in the current issue, benefits of psychological resources like optimism as possible new targets for promoting healthy aging," says Lewina Lee, who headed the study. She's a clinical research psychologist at Boston University. "The more we know about ways to promote healthy aging the better."
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