The Longevity Project Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study

by Friedman, Howard S.; Martin, Leslie R.

• ISBN13: 9781594630750
• ISBN10: 1594630755
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-03-03
• Publisher: Hudson Street Press

Summary

This landmark study-featured in The Tipping Point--upends the advice we have been told about how to live to a healthy old age. We have been told that the key to longevity involves obsessing over what we eat, how much we stress, and how fast we run. Based on the most extensive study of longevity ever conducted, The Longevity Projectexposes what really impacts our lifespan-including friends, family, personality, and work. Gathering new information and using modern statistics to study participants across eight decades, Dr. Howard Friedman and Dr. Leslie Martin bust myths about achieving health and long life. For example, people do not die from working long hours at a challenging job- many who worked the hardest lived the longest. Getting and staying married is not the magic ticket to long life, especially if you're a woman. And it's not the happy-go-lucky ones who thrive-it's the prudent and persistent who flourish through the years. With questionnaires that help you determine where you are heading on the longevity spectrum and advice about how to stay healthy, this book changes the conversation about living a long, healthy life.

Author Biography

Dr. Howard Friedman is Distinguished Professor at the University of California in Riverside. He is the recipient of two major career awards for his health psychology research. In 1999, he received the Outstanding Contributions to Health Psychology Award from the American Psychological Association; and in 2008, he was honored with the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science (APS), an international award and the most prestigious in his field of applied research.

Dr. Leslie Martin is Professor of Psychology at La Sierra University, and Research Psychologist at UC Riverside. She graduated summa cum laude from the California State University and received her Ph.D. from the University of California in Riverside. She has received the Distinguished Researcher Award, and the Anderson Award for Excellence in Teaching, both at La Sierra University. Former department chair, Dr. Martin has also received awards for outstanding advising and for service learning. In addition to her research on pathways to health and longevity, she studies physician-patient communication and its relationship to medical outcomes and has lectured widely on these topics.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Breakthrough Studies of a Lifetime	p. ix
Personality and Long Life: Who Stays Well?	p. 1
Long Live the Prudent and Persistent	p. 9
Friendly and Convivial: Healthy or Trivial?	p. 23
Happiness and Health? A Cheery Conundrum	p. 33
Catastrophic Thinking: The Fates of Chicken Littles	p. 49
Childhood and School Days: Head Start, Early Finish	p. 67
Parental Divorce: Some Were Resilient	p. 79
Running for Their Lives: Jocks vs. Nerds	p. 93
To Sickness or to Health? Love, Marriage, and Divorce	p. 111
Careers, Success, and Satisfaction: Thriving and Surviving	p. 129
Long Life Meets the Afterlife: Religion and Health	p. 149
Confidants, Networks, and the Power of Social Life	p. 159
The Gender Gap in Long Life	p. 169
The Toll of War and Trauma: Why Some Thrive	p. 185
Individual Paths to Health and Long Life (and Why We Won't Take Polypills)	p. 201
Epilogue: Long Life and Public Health: Looking Ahead to What Society Should Do	p. 217
Acknowledgments	p. 223
Research Collaborators	p. 225
Notes	p. 229
Index	p. 243
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