Yet when such patients are asked to write kind letters to people who are awaiting a transplant…—Christine Rini et al., “Harnessing Benefits of Helping Others: A Randomized Controlled Trial Testing Expressive Helping to Address Survivorship Problems After Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant,” Health Psychology 33 (2014): 1541-1551.
“We talked. We knew what was going on there and there was always someone around to help you and to keep you from feeling lonely.” —Bruhn, John G. and Stewart Wolf. The Roseto Story: An Anatomy of Health (University of Oklahoma Press, 1979).
In communities with high social cohesion…—Samson Y. Gebreab et al., “Neighborhood social and physical environments and type 2 diabetes mellitus in African Americans: The Jackson Heart Study,” Health & Place 43 (2017): 128-137.
…low social cohesion can mean an increased risk of dying from a heart attack. —Jan Sundquist et al., “Low linking social capital as a predictor of coronary heart disease in Sweden: A cohort study of 2.8 million people,” Social Science & Medicine 62 (2006): 954-963.
The effects of such spatial stigma can be seen in New York City…—Duncan, Dustin T. and Ichiro Kawachi. Neighborhoods and Health (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2018).
Studies from places as diverse as the US, Malaysia, and Poland itself show that residents of such gated areas report lower sense of belonging. —Georjeanna Wilson-Doenges, “An Exploration of Sense of Community and Fear of Crime in Gated Communities,” Environment and Behavior 32 (2000): 597-611.
“attracted people like moths to a flame.” —Sarah Kobos, “Be a Better Neighbor, Build a Better Neighborhood,” Strong Towns, accessed August 8, 2019, https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/4/12/eight-ways-to-be-a-better-neighbor
“Neighbors walked over to see what was going on. People driving by stopped to hang out and chat. Before long, we had to open more wine and bring out the dining room chairs.” —ibid.
Research shows that people who volunteer for self-oriented reasons…—Sara Konrath et al., “Motives for Volunteering Are Associated with Mortality Risk in Older Adults,” Health Psychology (2011).
A few years back, Lara Aknin’s research assistants walked around the campus of the University of British Columbia…—Lara B. Aknin et al., “Making a difference matters: Impact unlocks the emotional benefits of prosocial spending,” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 88 (2013): 90-95.
…the reward areas of the brain, the ventral striatum and septal areas, activate more…—William T. Harbaugh, Ulrich Mayr and Daniel R. Burghart, “Neural responses to taxation and voluntary giving reveal motives for charitable donations,” Science 316 (2007): 1622–1625.
Kids who are promised something in return for volunteering may do the tasks more eagerly at first…—Felix Warneken and Michael Tomasello, “Extrinsic rewards undermine altruistic tendencies in 20-month-olds,” Developmental Psychology, 44(2008): 1785-1788.
…some studies find top wellness returns for under a hundred hours of volunteering per year, while other claim that number is a mere forty. —Jane Allyn Piliavin and Erica Siegl, “Health Benefits of Volunteering in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 48 (2007): 450-464.
CHAPTER 9: WHY PERSONALITY AND EMOTIONS MATTER FOR LONGEVITY
“God started my life off well by bestowing upon me a grace of inestimable value…” —Deborah Danner, David Snowdon, and Wallace Friesen, “Positive emotions in early life and longevity: Findings from the nun study,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80 (2001).
Many decades after Mother Kostka sent her call for autobiographies, three University of Kentucky researchers…—Deborah Danner, David Snowdon and Wallace Friesen, “Positive emotions in early life and longevity: Findings from the nun study,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80 (2001).
It appears that happiness can add anywhere from four to ten years of life. —Ed Diener and Micaela Y. Chan, “Happy People Live Longer: Subjective Well-Being Contributes to Health and Longevity,” Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being 3 (2011): 1-43.
One particularly well-done British study, in which existential enjoyment was measured every two years for six years in total…—Paola Zaninotto, Jane Wardle and Andrew Steptoe, “Sustained enjoyment of life and mortality at older ages: analysis of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing,” BMJ 355 (2016).
In one study that directly compared hedonic and eudaemonic well-being…—Barbara L. Fredrickson et al., “A functional genomic perspective on human well-being,” PNAS 110 (2013): 13684-13689.
If a ninety-year-old with a clear purpose in life develops Alzheimer’s disease…—Patricia A. Boyle et al., “Effect of Purpose in Life on the Relation Between Alzheimer Disease Pathologic Changes on Cognitive Function in Advanced Age,” Archives of General Psychiatry 69 (2012): 499–505.
…when “the excrement hits the air conditioning”…—Vonnegut, Kurt. Hocus Pocus (New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 1990).
In lab experiments, when purposeful people are made to look at disgusting or disturbing pictures of violence and sickness…—Carien M. van Reekum et al., “Individual Differences in Amygdala and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Activity are Associated with Evaluation Speed and Psychological Well-being,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 19 (2007): 237-248.
Besides, eudaemonic well-being means more grey matter in the insula—the reward-related brain area…—Carol D. Ryff et al., “Purposeful Engagement, Healthy Aging, and the Brain,” Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports 3 (2016): 318-327.
The more people tend to focus on their financial goals, the less happy they become…—Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci, “On Happiness and Human Potentials: A Review of Research on Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being,” Annual Review of Psychology 52 (2001): 141–166.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.” —Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 2 (Boston; James R. Osgood and Company, 1876), 377.
It was nighttime. A single lab rat entered his experimental outdoor pen…—M. Berdoy, J. P. Webster and D. W. Macdonald, “Fatal attraction in rats infected with Toxoplasma gondii,” Proceedings of The Royal Society B 267 (2000): 1591-1594.
…once this tiny parasite makes its home in a person’s body, that person could become more impulsive, sensation-seeking, and aggressive…—Victor Otero Martinez et al., “Toxoplasma gondii infection and behavioral outcomes in humans: a systematic review,” Parasitology Research 117 (2018): 3059-3065.
…(there are even some initial suggestions that T. gondii increases the risk of having traffic accidents)…—Shaban Gohardehi et al., “The potential risk of toxoplasmosis for traffic accidents: A systematic review and meta-analysis,” Experimental Parasitology 191 (2018): 19-24.
Bolder, more aggressive trout have shorter telomeres in their fins…—Bart Adriaenssens et al., “Telomere length covaries with personality in wild brown trout,” Physiology & Behavior 165 (2016): 217-222.
In people, the connection between personality and health is already so well established that some researchers…—Benjamin P. Chapman, Brent Roberts and Paul Duberstein, “Personality and Longevity: Knowns, Unknowns, and Implications for Public Health and Personalized Medicine,” Journal of Aging Research (2011).
The positive effects of being organized and industrious are found all across the planet…—Margaret L. Kern and Howard S. Friedman, “Do Conscientious Individuals Live Longer? A Quantitative Review,” Health Psychology 27 (2008): 505-512.
Conscientiousness measured in childhood can predict longevity even as far as seven decades into the future. —Howard S. Friedman et al., “Does Childhood Personality Predict Longevity?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65 (1993): 176-185.
If the above seems to describe you, you may be in trouble, since being neurotic c
an mean even 33 percent higher risk of mortality. —Robert S. Wilson et al., “Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Mortality in a Defined Population of Older Persons,” Psychosomatic Medicine 67 (2005): 841–845.
In the Netherlands, for instance, the top most neurotic people cost the country over $1.3 billion per year per million inhabitants in health services, out-of-pocket costs, and production losses. —Pim Cuijpers et al., “Economic Costs of Neuroticism: A Population-Based Study,” JAMA Psychiatry (2010).
…the most neurotic countries — that would be Greece, followed by Russia…—Richard Lynn and Terence Martin, “National differences for thirty-seven nations in extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism and economic, demographic and other correlates,” Personality and Individual Differences 19 (1995): 403-406.
In the US, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York have the most neurotic people, while Alaska and Arizona have the least. —Peter Jason Rentfrow, “Statewide Differences in Personality,” American Psychologist 65 (2010): 548-558.
People who worry a lot tend to have fewer natural killer cells—lymphocytes that launch attacks against infections and tumours. —Suzanne C. Segerstrom et al., “Relationship of Worry to Immune Sequelae of the Northridge Earthquake,” Journal of Behavioral Medicine 21 (1998): 433-450.
…worry-prone men who have suffered a myocardial infarction are more likely to get unlucky a second time. —Laura D. Kubzansky et al., “Is worrying bad for your heart? A prospective study of worry and coronary heart disease in the normative aging study,” Circulation 95 (1997): 818–824.
In one study, patients with hernias who fretted about the procedure the most…—Elizabeth Broadbent et al., “Psychological Stress Impairs Early Wound Repair Following Surgery,” Psychosomatic Medicine 65 (2003): 865-869.
…follow-up studies haven’t confirmed the effects of type A personality on heart attacks or clogged arteries. —David R. Ragland and Richard J. Brand, “Type A Behavior and Mortality from Coronary Heart Disease,” The New England Journal of Medicine 318 (1988): 65-60.
In recent years, it came to light that the tobacco industry…—Mark P. Petticrew, Kelley Lee and Martin McKee, “Type A Behavior Pattern and Coronary Heart Disease: Philip Morris’s ‘Crown Jewel,’ American Journal of Public Health 102 (2012): 2018-2025.
It can cause problems with your triglycerides, your glucose levels, and your insulin resistance. —Loren L. Toussaint et al., “Hostility, Forgiveness, and Cognitive Impairment Over 10 Years in a National Sample of American Adults,” Health Psychology 37 (2018): 1102-1106.
…hostility is particularly detrimental to women, messing with the inflammatory processes in their bodies…—Julie Boisclair Demarble et al., “The relation between hostility and concurrent levels of inflammation is sex, age, and measure dependent,” Journal of Psychosomatic Research 76 (2014): 384-393.
They have shorter telomeres, and their inflammatory proteins are as elevated as if they were ten years older than they really are. —D. Schoormans et al., “Leukocyte telomere length and personality: associations with the Big Five and Type D personality traits,” Psychological Medicine 48 (2018): 1008-1019.
Type Ds are also prone to having something called “soft” or “vulnerable” plaque, which is a perfect recipe for a heart attack. —Nina Kupper and Johan Denollet, “Type D Personality as a Risk Factor in Coronary Heart Disease: a Review of Current Evidence,” Current Cardiology Reports 20 (2018).
They are also almost four times more likely to die than other patients with coronary heart disease. —ibid.
Human nature tends to shift with age toward less neurotic, less extroverted, and less open to experience but more agreeable. —William J. Chopik and Shinobu Kitayama, “Personality change across the life span: Insights from a cross-cultural, longitudinal study,” Journal of Personality 86 (2018): 508-521.
One study done on over three hundred spouses living in Florida…—Justin A. Lavner et al., “Personality Change among Newlyweds: Patterns, Predictors, and Associations with Marital Satisfaction over Time,” Developmental Psychology 54 (2018): 1172-1185.
There are some reports that divorce increases extraversion in women…—Paul T. Costa, Jr. et al., “Personality at Midlife: Stability, Intrinsic Maturation, and Response to Life Events,” Assessment 7 (2000): 365-378.
…and joining the military can make you less agreeable. —Joshua J. Jackson et al., “Military training and personality trait development: Does the military make the man, or does the man make the military?” Psychological Science 23 (2012): 270–277.
Some personality dimensions are harder to budge, such as openness to experience. Neuroticism, meanwhile, is the easiest trait to work on…—Brent W. Roberts et al., “A Systematic Review of Personality Trait Change Through Intervention,” Psychological Bulletin (2017).
In one particularly thorough study, close to four hundred students from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Michigan State University…—Nathan W. Hudson et al., “You have to follow through: Attaining behavioral change goals predicts volitional personality change,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2018).
Their active compound, psilocybin, has been shown to shift certain personality dimensions even after a single dose…—Katherine A. MacLean, Matthew W. Johnson and Roland R. Griffiths, “Mystical Experiences Occasioned by the Hallucinogen Psilocybin Lead to Increases in the Personality Domain of Openness,” Journal of Psychopharmacology 25 (2011): 1453–1461.
A study of over a thousand American veterans suggested that Mr. Sulky may be in for trouble…—Daniel K. Mroczek and Avron Spiro, III, “Personality Change Influences Mortality in Older Men,” Psychological Science 18 (2007): 371–376.
Some emerging research is beginning to indicate that helicopter parenting may lead to neuroticism…—Chris Segrin et al., “Parent and Child Traits Associated with Overparenting,” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 32 (2013): 569-595.
CHAPTER 10: HOW MEDITATION AND MINDFULNESS BOOST HEALTH
“The meditation buzz is incredible,” Harrison claimed in one interview. “I get higher than I ever did with drugs.” —David Chiu, “The Beatles in India: 16 Things You Didn’t Know,” Rolling Stone, accessed August 8, 2019, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-beatles-in-india-16-things-you-didnt-know-203601/
In one 2018 experiment, just one month spent at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California…—Quinn A. Conklin et al., “Insight meditation and telomere biology: The effects of intensive retreat and the moderating role of personality, “ Brain, Behavior, and Immunity 70 (2018): 233-245.
Expert Zen meditators who have practiced daily for over ten years…—Marta Alda et al., “Zen meditation, Length of Telomeres, and the Role of Experiential Avoidance and Compassion,” Mindfulness 7 (2016): 651-659.
DNA from the blood cells of long-term meditators show changes suggesting that the more you practise, the more slowly you age. —Raphaëlle Chaix et al., “Epigenetic clock analysis in long-term meditators,” Psychoneuroendocrinology 85 (2017): 210-214.
And even though staying at hippie California retreats may not necessarily rebalance your chakras, it may change your FOXO genes…—E.S. Epel, “Meditation and vacation effects have an impact on disease-associated molecular phenotypes,” Translational Psychiatry 6 (2016).
If you put someone who meditates a lot into a neuroimaging machine…—Yi-Yuan Tang, Britta K. Hölzel and Michael I. Posner, “The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 16 (2015): 213-225.
A typical meditation expert, meanwhile, will have a particularly large hippocampus compared to an average Joe…—B. Rael Cahn et al., “Yoga, Meditation and Mind-Body Health: Increased BDNF, Cortisol Awakening Response, and Altered Inflammatory Marker Expression after a 3-Month Yoga and Meditation Retreat,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (2017).
Volunteers participating in a three-month yoga and med
itation retreat saw their plasma levels of BDNF triple…—B. Rael Cahn et al., “Yoga, Meditation and Mind-Body Health: Increased BDNF, Cortisol Awakening Response, and Altered Inflammatory Marker Expression after a 3-Month Yoga and Meditation Retreat,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (2017).
When a group of students watched the 1974 version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre…—Rubina Mian, Graeme McLaren and David W. Macdonald, “Of Stress, Mice and Men: a Radical Approach to Old Problems,” in Stress and Health: New Research, ed. Kimberly V. Oxington (New York: Nova Science Publications, 2005), 61-79.
Take the one done at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that involved sixty-eight volunteers. —Melissa A. Rosenkranz et al., “Reduced stress and inflammatory responsiveness in experienced meditators compared to a matched healthy control group,” Psychoneuroendocrinology 68 (2016): 117-125.
…even after just a few weeks of meditation, you can see reduced expression of pro-inflammatory genes in white blood cells. —Ivana Buric et al., “What Is the Molecular Signature of Mind–Body Interventions? A Systematic Review of Gene Expression Changes Induced by Meditation and Related Practices,” Frontiers in Immunology (2017).
Experiments with the flu vaccine confirm that this can help produce higher antibody titres…—Bret Stetka, “Changing Our DNA through Mind Control?” Scientific American, accessed August 8, 2019, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/changing-our-dna-through-mind-control/
In one experiment, volunteers had to rate how much it hurt them when researchers applied a pad heated to 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49°C) to their leg…—Fadel Zeidan et al., “Mindfulness Meditation-Based Pain Relief Employs Different Neural Mechanisms Than Placebo and Sham Mindfulness Meditation-Induced Analgesia,” Journal of Neuroscience 35 (2015): 15307-15325.
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