Elderly people who feel that they have a purpose in their lives usually live longer.
The phrase "the purpose sanctifies the means" is, and rightfully, morally reprehensible. This particular saying, rather mistakenly attributed to Machiavelli, he had used it in a slightly different sense than it, but in any case it has prevailed to be considered synonymous with cynicism.
The purpose certainly does not "sanctify the means" for any one or anyone who wants to be considered Man. But the existence of a goal in our lives is certainly life-saving, and that is what we say in the literal sense and not only in the sense of salvation of our soul.
Dozens of researches have confirmed that the elderly and the younger who believe their life has a purpose tend to live longer.
A new American scientific research, published in the American medical journal JAMA Network Open, has come to confirm this, showing that elderly people with a purpose in their lives have a reduced risk of developing heart and circulatory and digestive diseases.
In contrast, study data show that those who think their life does not have a particular purpose are more likely to die earlier as they tend to have worse physical and mental health. If, in fact, they are lonely retirees, the findings are even more troubling.
The main author of the study was Professor Lea Pirse of the University of Michigan Public Health School. On the occasion of the publication of the survey, she stressed that "the correlation between the sense of purpose and the reduced mortality has been manifested by surveys."
The researchers collected data from 6,985 people over the age of 50 born between 1931 and 1941. The participants responded to a series of questions about the meaning of purpose in their life, "I like to make plans for the future and work to make them real." The researchers then observed them for a whole decade, that is from 1992 to 2006. In this period, 776 elderly people died in the survey.
As expected, the results showed that participants who had a lower sense of purpose had more than twice the chance of death in the course of the research compared to those who thought their life had a meaning. A similar increase was also seen in the possibility of heart disease, circulatory and digestive disorders. However, the same relationship was not found for cancer and respiratory diseases.
Another finding of the research was that the lower the sense of purpose, the more stressed the levels of stress hormones.
source: ANA-MNA
