Longevity: A Young Person’s Game

Your attitude when you’re young—how you think and feel about yourself and the world—sets the tone for how you live your life when you’re older.

To live a long happy healthy life, kick your appreciation into high gear now. Why? Appreciation of the ordinary experiences of life is the number one attribute that sets those over 100 years of age apart from everyone else; the younger you are, the easier it is to get the appreciation habit going--and going and going. That’s why longevity is truly a young person’s game. Start now.

This can be especially important since the FDA has recently approved clinical trials on a drug that could increase life expectancy to 110 or 120 years. Just imagine if you could live that long in a happy, healthy state as opposed to spending your last 20 or 30 years in miserable, decrepit decline?

Whether you’re 20 or 30 or 40 or older, appreciation is the quickest, easiest way to gratitude, which in turn engenders happiness and fosters optimism. Those four attitudes, appreciation, gratitude, happiness and optimism, are all linked in study after study to better cardiovascular health, less stress-related diseases, and even less risk of Alzheimer’s. All of which add up to a long happy, healthy life.

What you think is what you live. You are in charge of what you think. And what you think impacts how your body responds. Choose thoughts that support positive emotions and you’ll reap the benefits throughout your life, now and tomorrow.