While Stanford University psychologist Dr. Lewis Terman may not be a household name, we certainly all know him as the "Stanford" in the Stanford-Binet IQ test. Since Terman was interested in tracking intelligence and its effect on life success, he started a study in 1921 where he had San Francisco teachers identify 1500 gifted students (an interesting bunch - cholesterol expert Ancel Keys, atomic physicist Norris Bradbury, and I Love Lucy writer Jess Oppenheimer are just a few) for him to follow throughout their lives to see if it was really possible to predict intellectual leadership. In the '90s Drs. Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin of the University of California at Riverside decided to follow up on Terman's study participants to see who lived the longest and what their secrets might have been, and thereby was born The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study.
While we tend to believe that good education, less stress, and happiness lead to a long life, it's just not the case. And that is what I found most interesting about this book; most of the things we assume will help us live longer (like early education, early retirement marriage, and lots of laughter) really do not and many of the things we wish we could live without (job stress, deadlines, and unhappiness) seem to go along with a longer life span.
For instance, we tend to think of divorce as a negative but necessary in some cases option. Interestingly enough, men who divorced without remarrying tended to die earlier while women in the same situation lived longer, leading the authors to speculate that staying single or divorced as opposed to sticking it out in a bad marriage may be healthier for women. Even more surprising, women who outlived their husbands tended to go on to lead long lives, while in most cases men who outlived their wives died shortly after their wives' passing.
Article comments
1 - Howard Friedman
For more information about The Longevity Project and to read the Introduction (free), go to : The Longevity Project
There is also a Facebook page with lots of discussion about The Longevity Project.
2 - Lynda Lippin
Thank you Dr. Friedman for reading and commenting. I did link to your site in the review as well.
3 - Howard Friedman
Thank YOU Lynda. But you have the wrong link in the review. Can you still correct it?
4 - Christopher Rose
I'm not surprised that "productivity and the sense of goal accomplishment is what keeps us going". There are many documented cases of people reaching retirement age and dying just a few years later.
Personally I plan to work 'til I die or go senile!
5 - Lynda Lippin
Howard, I put in a request. I had so many sites related to your work open while writing the review...
Christopher, I agree! Work and new challenges definitely keep me going, even if I complain about the stress at times.