TOUGH old folk live longer, according to a study.
Experts from Sun Yat-Sen University in China found emotional resilience can halve your risk of an early death.
They said people who roll with life’s punches and cope well during hard times or after losing loved ones tend to have better physical health.
Emotional toughness can help to stave off depression and loneliness, which are known to shorten your lifespan.
Study author Dr Yiqiang Zhan said: “Positive emotions may mitigate the negative impact of accumulated adversity on people’s mental health.”
The research, in the journal BMJ Mental Health, used data from 10,569 over-50s in the USA.
It used a questionnaire to score people’s psychological resilience then compared it to their physical health.
Dr Zhan said there was a “significant association” and higher scorers lived longer.
The least resilient people were 53 per cent less likely to survive for another 10 years than the most resilient.
Dr Zhan said a strong mindset reduced the self-rated impact of disability or illness on people’s lives and appeared to slow the ageing process.
Studies regularly find links between good mental health and longer life.
A Canadian study in 2017 found depression knocked years off someone’s life expectancy.
A 2023 paper showed lonely people were a third more likely to die young.
Dr Zhan said someone’s toughness can be affected by their sex, genetics and hormones and can change over time.
He added: “Various factors including meaning in life, positive emotions, self-rated health and satisfaction with social support, are potential influences on psychological resilience.
“Our findings underscore the potential effectiveness of promoting resilience.”
Other key ways science shows us to live longer include eating healthily and exercising, as well as staying socially active and connected to loved ones.
FIVE 'Blue Zones' around the world are famous for having such long-lived residents, with unusual numbers of locals living to the ripe old age of 100 and beyond.
The official zones are in Sardinia (Italy), Ikaria (Greece), Nicoya (Costa Rica), Loma Linda (California, USA) and Okinawa (Japan).
Scientists study them closely to work out just why people are living so long, and they have found nine key health-boosting habits which could help us all.
In brief, they are:
