The year was 2002.
Tobey Maguire was Spiderman, Nickelback's “How You Remind Me” was the biggest single of the year, and researchers at Yale University released a groundbreaking study that showed that older people with more positive beliefs about aging lived an average of 7.5 years longer.
22 years — and many Spidermans — later, that research still holds true.
Recent studies published in The Journals of Gerontology and The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society have added validity and additional context to the notion that optimism is linked to longer living, even across varying racial and ethnic groups.
In a new video produced by CBS Sunday Morning News, activist and actress Jane Fonda joined her friend — and fellow anti-ageism advocate — Ashton Applewhite to get the word out: living with positivity can literally extend your life.
“In the next few minutes, Ashton and I are going to add seven and a half years to your life,” Fonda pledged, in a direct address to the viewer.
“People with more positive age beliefs lived an average of seven and a half years longer than people who equated aging with disease and decline,” Applewhite said, in reference to the study from Yale.
“In other words,” Fonda cut in. “One way to live longer is just to have a good attitude.”
And she’s not saying it’s necessarily easy. As Fonda notes, there are a lot of influential factors at play that make it difficult for most people to feel good about aging.
For example, the beauty industry depends on selling “anti-aging” products that promise to eliminate or hide the natural effects of aging, like wrinkles, laugh lines, and locks of silver hair.
The news, too, is seemingly a never-ending cycle of bad news, which can spur feelings of depression and nihilism.
And many people associate getting older with becoming sickly, or losing their mental fortitude — but social decline and isolation both pose a greater threat to health than aging itself.
Even so, Fonda and Applewhite said that aging is a privilege — and it could be one of the best chapters of one’s life.
In fact, a study in the National Library of Medicine shows that there’s a global “U-curve of happiness” that indicates that people “are happiest at the beginnings and ends of their lives.”
But how do people set positive intentions to age with enthusiasm?
The answer, Fonda says, lies in aging with other people.
There’s a lot of different ways to expand and fortify your community, but Fonda narrowed them down to one actionable goal in particular: join an art class.
“We know that being in a community is good for us,” Applewhite said. “We know that having a purpose is good for us. But the health benefits of being in an art class, [specifically] it turns out, are fascinating.”
“Art classes are a great way to build community,” Fonda agreed, citing a study from the National Endowment for the Arts. “Art classes for older adults increased mental engagement, increased physical activity. They found new — or stronger — relationships.”
“They visit the doctor less often,” Applewhite added. “They are less likely to fall.”
Both women noted that that includes art in all forms: it can be singing, theater, dance, flower arranging — even graffiti. But the key is sharing one’s art with other people, and forming new relationships over time.
Above all else, Fonda and Applewhite want people to know that there’s a lot to look forward to.
“So much of your life gets better as you age,” Fonda emphasized. “We get less stressed. We become kinder to ourselves and braver. We’re less judgmental. And best of all — we stop caring so much about what other people think of us.”
“Which believe me,” Fonda laughs, “saves a lot of time.”
“Aging is the one universal human experience,” Applewhite added. “It is a process of growth and self knowledge that is a joy.”
Header image via Pexels
