NPR

What's Your Purpose? Finding A Sense Of Meaning In Life Is Linked To Health

Researchers found that people who did not have a strong life purpose were more likely to die than those who did, and specifically more likely to die of cardiovascular diseases.
Having a purpose in life, whether building guitars or swimming or volunteer work, affects your health, researchers found. It even appeared to be more important for decreasing risk of death than exercising regularly.

Having a purpose in life may decrease your risk of dying early, according to a study published Friday.

Researchers analyzed data from nearly 7,000 American adults between the ages of 51 and 61 who filled out psychological questionnaires on the relationship between mortality and life purpose.

What they found shocked them, according to Celeste Leigh Pearce, one of the authors of the study published in JAMA Current Open.

People who didn't have a strong life purpose — which

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