Wellbeing
Joie de Vivre, the Joy of Living
Joie de Vivre, the Joy of Living
Boosting your joie de vivre may help you live longer, as a sustained sense of joie de vivre, or the joy of living has linked to increased longevity.
A new study from the University College London (UCL) suggests that the more you are able to enjoy life, the longer you’ll live. In fact, the researchers found a dose-response association between feeling a sustained sense of satisfaction and life enjoyment over the course of several years was linked to a reduction in all causes of mortality. The December 2016 findings from UCL were published online in The BMJ.
In recent months, there’s been a groundswell of reports linking subjective well-being as marked by a sense of joie de vivre, the joy of living, having a positive outlook about the future, and a lack of chronic pessimism with lower morbidity and greater longevity.
As an example, last week researchers at Harvard University reported that people who are optimistic and believe that ‘good things will happen in the future’ tend to live longer than their less-optimistic counterparts. This study appeared online Dec. 7, 2016, in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
The More You’re Able to Enjoy Life, The Longer You May Live
Based on growing evidence in recent years that there is a correlation between having a positive outlook on life and longevity, the UCL researchers tested 9,365 men and women aged 50 and older (average age 63) who were taking part in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). Each study participant was asked to self-assess his or her levels of life enjoyment at two-year intervals between 2002 and 2006. The associations with mortality were analyzed through 2013.
For the record: While analysing the data, the researchers adjusted for a wide range of factors that could inherently make someone’s life more or less enjoyable such as underlying health conditions, wealth, levels of education, clinical depression, etc. Obviously, if you’re living in poverty or with an illness, it’s more difficult to feel upbeat and positive about your life circumstances.
Based on various responses to four questions about self-reported life enjoyment, the participants were graded on a continuum between ‘never or rarely’ experiencing any joie de vivre to experiencing life enjoyment ‘sometimes or often.’
After analysing the data, the researchers found that a total of 2,264 (24%) reported zero high levels of enjoyment in life, 1,833 (20%) reported one episode of high enjoyment, 2,063 (22%) reported having two, and 3,205 (34%) reported having three episodes of high enjoyment.
In the discussion of their paper, the authors write, “A graded effect was apparent, with progressively higher mortality among people with fewer reports of high enjoyment. In the fully adjusted model, the hazard was reduced by 17% among people giving two reports of high enjoyment of life, and by 24% in those giving three reports.” The researchers conclude that a sustained level of life enjoyment over a four-year period was systematically related to a lower risk of death.
Again, the authors stress that this is an observational study. So, it’s impossible to draw causal conclusions. Nonetheless, they believe these results “add a new dimension to understanding the significance of subjective well-being for physical health outcomes by documenting a dose-response association with sustained well-being.”
Harvard Researchers Link Optimism with Increased Life Expectancy
The new report linking joie de vivre and longevity from UCL corroborates the findings of the recent study on optimism and longevity conducted by Eric S. Kim and colleagues at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health mentioned earlier. In an abstract for their December 2016 study, Kim et al. said –
Growing evidence has linked positive psychological attributes like optimism to a lower risk of poor health outcomes, especially cardiovascular disease. It has been demonstrated in randomised trials that optimism can be learned. If associations between optimism and broader health outcomes are established, it may lead to novel interventions that improve public health and longevity.
Kim and his team analysed data from 70,000 women between 2004-2012. The researchers focused primarily on each participant’s levels of optimism. They also looked at other factors that might play a role in how optimism might affect someone’s odds of dying prematurely based on factors such as high blood pressure, diet, and physical activity. In a discussion of the findings, the researchers state –
Optimists appear to differ on numerous processes that are critically important to a broad spectrum of health outcomes. It has been shown in several studies that optimism is associated with a healthier lipid profile, lower levels of inflammatory markers, higher levels of serum antioxidants, and as noted above, better immune responsiveness.
Other investigations have suggested a slower rate of telomere shortening over time, healthier autonomic function, and higher levels of heart rate variability. Indeed, results from these reports of associations between optimism and a wide array of health factors are consistent with our finding that optimism is associated with multiple causes of death.”
Kim and colleagues found that the most optimistic women had a 38 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease; 39 percent lower risk of dying from stroke; 38 percent lower risk of dying from respiratory disease; 16 percent lower risk of dying from cancer; and a 52 percent lower risk of dying from infection.
Even Optimists Have Moments of Intense Pessimism
Another valuable study on optimism and pessimism was published by researchers from the University of California, Riverside (UCR). This research offers a valuable window into the thin line between being a “Pollyanna” (who sugar-coats everything and never takes off his or her ‘rose-tinted glasses’) and someone who is pragmatic when assessing the reality of terrible situations in life.
Interestingly, the UCR researchers found no differences between optimists and pessimists when it comes to the initial feelings of dread that creep in when someone braces for potentially bad news. The December 2016 study, “Even Optimists Get the Blues: Inter-Individual Consistency in the Tendency to Brace for the Worst,” was published in the Journal of Personality.
In a statement to University of California, co-author Kate Sweeny, psychology professor at UCR, described the findings of her study,
“Although this tendency to brace oneself for potentially bad news is common, intuition might suggest that some people are more likely to brace than others—in particular, happy-go-lucky optimists would seem immune to the anxiety and second-guessing that typically arise as the decisive moment draws near.
[But] counter to intuition, optimists were not immune to feeling a rise in pessimism at the moment of truth. In fact, not a single study showed a difference between optimists and pessimists in their tendency to brace for the worst. Fortunately, it seems that even the most ardent optimists can temper their positive outlook when it pays to do so.”
Quotations to Help Boost Your Joie de Vivre and Pragmatic Optimism
All the scientific data on the benefits of having a positive attitude, enjoying life, and being optimistic is useless if you can’t put this empirical evidence into action by increasing your own levels of daily joie de vivre. The good news is that making a conscious decision to see the glass as half-full and looking for a silver lining (even in the worst of times) is usually in the locus of your control.
The very joyful thing about seeing ourselves and life from a place of gratitude instead of entitlement is that this way of breathing allows us to be forgiving of difficult circumstances in life and of those people who delivered such difficult circumstances to us.
Gratitude allows us second chances at joy; not with the same circumstances or those same people; but it alleviates the burden of bitterness that comes with not receiving what one believes he/she was entitled to have.
We can instead look forward into life and see that there will be many good things and we will be grateful for them.
― C. JoyBell C.
