keys to happiness

Sometimes when I find something really neat I will take notes about that thing. I just stumbled across some notes I took from an Atlantic Monthly article from last year or so. The article was about factors that help people live longer. The study profiled followed college age men from just after WWII to today.

Factors that help you Live Longer:
1. Mature psychological adaptations
2. Stable Marriage
3. Education
4. Not Smoking
5. Not Abusing Alcohol
6. Some Exercise
7. Healthy Weight

Factors that don’t matter:
1. Your cholesterol at age 50.
2. The Importance of Social Ease Decreases with Age
3. The importance of your childhood temperament goes down with age.

Exercise in college equates to better late in life mental health.

People who are depressed die earlier. Pessimists suffer physically more than optimists.

The bottom line of the study was:
The only things that really matter in life are your relationships to other people.

If these are the factors that lead to a long life, how are you doing? Can you change something in your life to increase your odds?