People, Work and God are Good for Your Health

Be sure to see a related essay at the end of this post

   

 

Last week, the oldest person in the world died.  Maria Branyas Morera, a US-born Spaniard, passed away at age 117.   Her passing leaves 116-year-old Japanese Tomiko Itooka, as the oldest person on Earth. 

Maria, who lived the last twenty years in a nursing home, posted on Twitter that she felt “weak.” “The time is near. Don’t cry, I don’t like tears. And above all, don’t suffer for me. Wherever I go, I will be happy,”

Asked about the secret of long-life she said, “Never, ever, become a bitter person no matter what,” and “stay away from toxic people.” For the most part, centenarians can’t explain their longevity, but Maria’s explanation exemplifies genuine wisdom.

 In Greeley, Colorado in 1997, 101-year-old C.O. Plumb died.   Plumb was a World War I veteran. For many years he led the city’s July Fourth parade, by walking the whole route.  When asked the secret of longevity, he suggested keeping away from tobacco, alcohol, caffeine and cards.  (As a coffee drinker and poker player, I hope he’s wrong.) He must have had a twinkle in his eyes when he added, “never go outside barefoot in the spring until you can see the butterflies flying.”

Butterflies notwithstanding, studies of these hundred-year-olds have yielded some interesting commonalities.

· Farming - The vast majority worked hard at farming.  They liked their work and never truly retired. The physical nature of their work enhanced their health.  They generally felt productive and happy and had few regrets.  C.O. Plumb was a farmer.

· Marriage and Family – A study of death rates in sixteen countries covering the last fifty years of the twentieth century, found that married people live longer than singles, divorced or widowed.  Investigators were struck by the similarity of results in Denmark, Austria, Wales, Portugal, Taiwan, and other countries.  Mr. Plumb had been married for seventy-three years and had six daughters.

· Community – Centenarians tended to remain in the same small communities their entire lives.  The familiarity of the surroundings and the concomitant sense of belonging, creates a certainty about life and a reassuring comfort level.  Continuity of community makes for stable norms and values that are life-enhancing.  Plumb graduated from Greeley High School (now Greeley Central) in 1912 and remained there his entire life.

· Religion – Religious people who are active in churches tend to live longer.   Faith provides an orderliness to Creation and a belief that each individual has a place in that order.  A recent study found that the life enhancing powers of religion is not due to theology, but to the social connection provided by church communities.  I don’t know about Plumb’s religious feelings.  The local paper implied he had a strict Methodist outlook.

· Invisible People - One researcher describes centenarians as “invisible people,” because although they work hard, they have little interest in “the trappings of success.”  In the eyes of the world, they lack status, avoid conflict and anxiety, (as Maria Branyas Morera advised) and usually work by themselves and for themselves. They have few aspirations and low expectations.  They have few regrets or unrealized hopes.  As researcher Osborne Segerberg, Jr. wrote, “They do not wonder, as did the young poet, Robert Frost, about the road not taken…The centenarians accepted their one and only life cycle as something that had to be.”

· Job Satisfaction - They do not think in terms of “job satisfaction” or job “fulfillment.”  Centenarians have nothing to prove – to themselves or to the rest of the world.  They do not think of themselves as successes or failures.  Satisfaction and a lack of rancor characterize their mental make-up.

· Free of Affectations - People who reach the century mark are invariably free of the ego demons that haunt the rest of us.  They are free of affectations; they are not self-absorbed.  They accept who they are without reservations.  Their contentment derives from an orderly, simple, familiar and secure life.

James Baxter, a 100-year-old turpentine worker, exemplifies the centenarian outlook.

It was hard work in all kinds of weather, but I liked it. Me and some of them big old rattlesnakes out in the piney woods growed old together.

 I wrote a book on how psychological factors affect one’s health and longevity. My research led me to this formula for a long and healthy life.

§  Love your parents

§  Love your spouse

§  Love your children

§  Love your work

§  Love your friends

§  Love your community

§  And Love God

Amen

The common thread in this formula is human contact.  Those who are positively linked to people and to God, live the longest.  An eighty-year-old participant in one of my longevity classes nursed her husband for the last ten years of his life. “Everyone told me to put him in a nursing home, but I couldn’t do that to him.” Now ten years after his death, she is doing just fine. “I can’t imagine,” she said, “how anyone could get through something like that without faith.”

Drs. Robert Ornstein and David Sobel summarized much of the research when they wrote, “Social connectedness is so basic to human health that it effects blood pressure, the incidence of heart disease, and the intimate workings of the immune system.”

Those who lack social connection should actively look for it: play on a team, become active in your church or synagogue, sing in a choir, take a class at the rec center, join a book club, take cooking lessons, play pool with the guys at the senior center, coach, join a civic organization, (I’m president of the local Optimist Club), volunteer at the hospital, work for a political party. And be a woman.

Be a woman?

Women live longer than men because of social connection. When women lose their husbands, they do reasonably well; when men lose their wives, they do not reach out to friends and relatives; they deteriorate and fall into disarray.  Ninety-five percent of participants in my health and longevity classes were women.   

Some might be disappointed with above formula.  It lacks the exotic: no eucalyptus leaves to eat or mantras to chant.  Sucking on yogurt bars, getting in touch with your inner self or practicing meditation won’t get you there either. The evidence is strikingly clear. 

People, work and God are good for your health.

This little girl went on to become the oldest living person in the world

On March 14th of this year, I published the piece below, elaborating on the extraordinary characteristics of people like Maria Branyas Morera.

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