Making healthier choices may be easier for people with strong life purpose

Many studies have sought to understand the correlation between purpose in life and health outcomes. Blue Zones researchers determined that individuals with a strong sense of purpose—a reason to get out of the bed in the morning—can live up to four good years longer than those without.

 

Increasingly, new research is published supporting the power of purpose.

According to a study published in the Journal of Health Psychology, people who have a sense of purpose in their life tend to make healthier lifestyle choices and report feeling better about their own health status.

 

The study set out to identify behaviors that might explain how a sense of purpose contributes to better health. The analysis uses data from the long-running Hawaii Longitudinal Study of Personality and Health, including new surveys of a diverse group of 749 people with an average age of 60.

 

“Our analysis found that participants’ sense of purpose was positively associated with their reports of both vigorous and moderate activity, vegetable intake, flossing, and sleep quality,” says the study’s lead author Patrick Hill, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University at St. Louis.

 

In a separate study published by the University of Pennsylvania, which evaluated 220 adults with a sedentary lifestyle, those with a strong sense of purpose, or set of goals derived from their core values, showed reduced risk of chronic conditions such as cognitive impairment, stroke, cardiovascular events, better physical and biologic functioning, and reduced risk of mortality. Researchers also concluded that the health benefits of having a stronger purpose in life may contribute to focused attention to and engagement in healthier behaviors.

 

Celeste Leigh Pearce, Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and co-author of a related study published in JAMA Network Open, told Newsweek: "The association between life purpose and health outcomes is becoming increasingly clear. Life purpose may be derived from family, community, work, religion or other domains, and so it is accessible to everyone. Our view is that life purpose can change over time. There is research to suggest that activities such as volunteering may have a positive impact on life purpose."

 

When we look to the original blue zones regions of the world, we can find inspiration in Okinawans’ “ikigai” or residents of the Nicoya Peninsula’s “plan de vida.” No matter what gets you out of bed in the morning or motivates you to share your gifts with the world, continuing to define (and refine) your sense of purpose over time can lead to a longer, healthier life.

 

 

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