If you want to get old, don’t stress about it
April 23, 2010 Leave a Comment
One hundred and one. Only a few people, comparatively speaking, have arrived successfully. Gertrude Matthews is one of them.
After seeing more than a century pass by, outliving her husband and two of her children, the only ailment she deals with is arthritis.
Dr. Thomas Perls, a reasearcher at the Boston Medical Center, studies people like her to find out what the secret spring in this fountain of youth. What he has found has a lot to do with stress management.
He said people like Matthews are better at managing stress, always outgoing, and optimistic, even about aging.
“They don’t dwell on things, they don’t internatlise things that are stressful,” he said. Many of these people also have less “old people diseases.” Some “escapers,” as they’re termed, seem to avoid the diseases altogether.
So there is a way to avoid living the last days sick and in a hospital, and it looks like learning how to manage stress is a large part of that success. People like Matthews show stress might be more of a murderer than he gets credit for.
Perls wanted to find out what Matthews personal secret for long life was, so he asked her.
“You’ve got to behave yourself, ” Matthews said.
Don’t smoke and do everything else in moderation. “Except if you play music, do a lot of it,” she said.
Twice every week she goes to a restaurant in Palm Beach Florida to play the piano for two hours.
She loves parties, likes to drink, and likes to dance.
She said she is a good example of why we should always do what we love.
Without all the scientific technology and medical expertise, people like Matthews have figured out some of life’s most expensive secrets, secrets that have cost millions of lives because they remained buried. Oddly, the people who find the secrets, barely realize they have found them — they’re too enthused with the excitement and wonder of life.
In the long run, they deserve it. They are some of the only ones who enjoy life enough to truly rejoice and find fulfillment in a longer life.
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