How a sense of purpose can help us live a longer, happier life. (Free resources included).

Research briefLongevity
Written By Jihane Farrell

I like to spend January laying some foundations for a solid rest of the year. Along with a paleo reset to get my full energy tank back, I work on a vision for what I want to accomplish. This year I am also bringing fasting back into my life with a spiritual practice.
As part of the foundations, I decided to look into how purpose supports longevity. Purpose has been described as a critical element of success aging.

Purpose can be defined as having something you want to achieve in life which leads to organizing goals and resources to see it through. What I have learned in preparing for this article is that it also organizes behaviors, which means that it takes less effort for purpose-driven people to maintain healthy lifestyles. People with a stronger sense of purpose have greater physical and mental health, live longer lives and are more likely to build resources.

Here is my review of the current available evidence showing that purpose helps us live longer.

 
“He who has a Why can bear almost any how.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

Table of content:

  • How purpose drove me out of the pit after a burnout.

  • People with a stronger sense of purpose experience less stress.

  • Sense of purpose associated with longevity.

  • Purpose moderates cognitive decline.

  • Purpose influences how we use resources.

  • Signs you might not be connected with a sense of purpose.

  • How to discover your purpose.

  • Free resources.

How purpose drove me out of the pit after burnout.

On a personal level, I woke up to living more intentionally when I lost, not just a job, but a whole career in research, due to burnout: everything I had worked for to this point.
For the first 6 months after the end of my post-doc, I went through a period of depression: battling with a feeling of worthlessness, feeling used and incapable. I was completely depleted and didn’t have it in me to get back to research. Additionally, I wasn’t able to work because of immigration status.
For someone like me, high in conscientiousness, that’s the worst possible scenario.

Supporting my health with a longevity lifestyle that included a lot of fasting, starting a mindfulness practice and taking my exercise outdoors, I got out of this rough patch by pursuing more meaning in my life.

It would have been easy in my situation to sink in bitterness and resentment. Instead, I held on the idea that life is a precious gift and I wanted a life worth living for. I found some purpose.
I reconnected with what brought me to Cancer research in the first place, which was to contribute in reducing the deaths from chronic disease. I reconnected with my core values. I chose meaning over money or status and I went to work, developing myself and my ideas.

In my memory, the 2 years after losing a career – as well as an identity - and comfortable revenue, were the most fulfilling I had in a long time. I was broke but intensely happy. My future was the most uncertain but I had an unshakeable faith. It was the least secure time of my life but I felt strong and unstoppable.
Of course quitting sugar, going keto, fasting, my mindfulness practice, and spending more time outside had a lot to do with the fact that I wasn’t suffering from the same anxiety I used to, that I was feeling a lot calmer, experiencing greater focus, and that I could now handle stress without snapping at people.
But it wasn’t just these lifestyle changes that brought me a feeling of deep confidence and positivity. It was a renewed sense of purpose in my life.
As soon as I became more intentional and connected with living a purposeful life, nothing could get to me anymore. I was content no matter what my life circumstances looked like.

Figure 1: Daily positive and negative affects.

People with a stronger sense of purpose experience less stress.

This immunity to life difficulties is not just anecdotal evidence: research by Dr. Patrick Hills shows that people who have a stronger sense of purpose experience higher daily positive affects, lower daily negative affects (see Figure 1), and fewer daily physical symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, cough, etc (1).
They are also less reactive when something stressful occurs: a strong sense of purpose protects against the damaging impact of stress.

This has some very broad implication on our health and longevity. Indeed, 24% of the DNA methylation sites that constitute our epigenetic age are related to stress (2), which means that stress represents one quarter of all the factors that influence how fast we age.
Recent evidence confirms that psychological stress can accelerate epigenetic aging (3).
We can’t overstate the importance of stress management when it comes to living a longer fuller life.

The good news is that the effects of stress on our health are mainly mediated by our perception. Purposeful individuals report less perceived stress in general.
We can’t avoid stress, but our emotional reactivity to stressful events is greatly under our control, through stress management practices and mindset.
This is very important because our emotional reactivity predicts:
- levels of inflammation (chronic inflammation is associated with every chronic disease) (4)
- chronic health conditions (5)
- even mortality risk (6)

If you were to add every day of someone’s life who is feeling more positive and being less likely to react to small stressors, it compounds to a dramatic difference in health outcomes. A greater sense of purpose protects against the effects of stress long term. As Patrick Hill says: “When considering who is less likely to “sweat the small stuff,” it may be those individuals with bigger things in mind for their future.”.

Science is giving evidence for something long known by Philosophy. Nietszch declared “He who has a why can bear almost any how”, a quote also cited by Viktor Frankl in regards to his experience in concentration camp. The “how” becomes a lot more tolerable to those who have the big picture of life in mind and feel invested in a mission.

Sense of purpose associated with longevity.

Similarly, it makes intuitive sense that those who have a reason to live would experience greater longevity. This concept was popularized with the Japanese word Ikigai, and publications on the topic.

It has been shown that a stronger sense of purpose in life is associated with a lower mortality risk in older adults. This effect on mortality seems indirect, through greater health. Indeed, purposeful individual have better physical and mental health, and health, in turn, influences the odds of dying (7).

These findings were extended to show that purposeful individuals also live longer than their counterparts and this effect is not conditional on older age (8). Finding purpose is beneficial at any age.

Ikigai: purpose is to be found at the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs and what you can get paid for.

Purpose moderates cognitive decline.

Psychological stress has also been shown to be associated with cognitive decline, with several studies finding that high levels of cortisol (stress hormone) in older adults predicted worse memory in healthy individuals and faster decline in those with pre-clinical Alzheimer’s disease (9). Based on these findings, a greater ability to cope with stress supports greater cognitive functioning as we age.

Cognitive performance is measured by skills such as memory, ability to process information, to plan and execute tasks, attention and concentration (10).

Additionally to buffering against stress, having a strong sense of purpose has been shown to moderate cognitive decline, probably because living in purpose requires to accomplish tasks involving higher levels of processing, in parts of the brain (cerebral cortex) that are involved in the skills measured in cognitive performance (11).

Research in older adults has indeed shown a direct association between life purpose and cognitive functioning (12). One study found a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease. In their research, Giyeon Kim and colleagues (13) reported that older adults having a higher purpose in life showed slower trajectories of cognitive decline during the 6-year period and that it is a protective factor for people who are African American.

Purpose influences how we use resources.

According to McKnight et al. (11), having a purpose in life allows individuals a better ability to allocate their resources. Purpose provides principles for efficient resource allocation, whether physical (using energy levels, or balancing periods of rest and activity to replenish and sustain efforts towards goal), neural (attention, focus, planning and executing), or resources such as money and time to progress toward their overarching goals.

Purpose has a sort of unifying property. As it is part of a person’s identity, central to their personality, it helps organize several areas such as behavior, cognition and goals.

McKnight et al. also suggest that an individual becomes a more efficient resource allocator with time and energy through the “magnetic” nature of purpose. Indeed, when it comes to motivation, Psychology defines two driving forces to accomplishing goals that focus on either:
- avoiding harm: the motivator is to avoid a negative or punishing outcome, called avoidance motivation, or,
- moving toward desired outcome: the motivator is to obtain something rewarding, called approach motivation.

Purpose, through what someone wants for their life, helps create approach-motivated goals. This matters because it has implications in how we experience working towards goals and how we use resources. Approach motivation contributes positively to overall well-being.

Approach motivation has actually been shown to be resource-building, while avoidance motivation is resource-depleting (14)
Avoidance motivation has biological basis in survival mechanisms and tends to stimulate the release of stress hormones. Research shows that we are more likely to engage in health behaviors with an approach motivation. Additionally, the brain’s plasticity increases with positive expectations (notably through dopamine systems), producing increased curiosity, trust and learning.

Signs you might not be connected with a sense of purpose.

Back when I lived my life without purpose, things just happened to me. I was at the mercy of other people’s agenda and priorities: my boss, my work, the next big thing in the news. Events determined my reactions and I was being tossed around by life.
If you feel like you’re lacking direction and don’t know where you’re going, it’s a good sign that you’re not connected to your purpose.

I also used to feel a general depressive background to everything due to the idea that life didn’t matter, that whether I existed or not would make little to no difference. That’s what Viktor Frankl called the “existential vacuum”.

Waking up to the idea that each one of us, equipped with unique sets of abilities, talents and interests, does make a difference in the world when properly oriented, has put my life on a whole new trajectory.
Now on a quest to uncover what I may be meant to achieve, who am I to be to others and myself, and develop my potential, I am the master of my own domain. I shape my life rather than I am shaped by it. I feel more accomplished. I use my time with greater consideration and I am very content with the way I manage this scarce resource.

A lack of focus can also be a sign of that you’re not in purpose. Purpose has a way to bring laser-focused attention. It becomes easy to tune things out (such as watching the news or spending time on social media). When driven by purpose, there is no room for distraction.

How to find purpose.

To have a sense of purpose means that we go through life feeling like we’re on a mission. It’s a feeling that there is a reason to our existence. This reason is to be found at the intersection of our personal history and circumstances, our unique strengths, interests and what matters to us, with the epoch we’re part of and what the world needs (see Venn diagram of Ikigai).

For example, I find a strong sense of purpose when being a responsive, positive parent and creating generational wealth. This is because of my personal upbringing. My work is where I am the most mission-driven. I strive to use my ability to research and my fascination for the science of aging to help people live in a way that is more in line with our biology so that we’re less likely to develop chronic diseases.

In my experience, purpose is something to be discovered. It takes time to explore before you could capture it in a statement.

Being in a state of flow and feeling joy, getting energized by what you’re doing, are good indicators that you might be in your purpose.

Resources:

If you are curious to find more purpose, here are resources:

  • this great article from the Greater Good Magazine: How to find purpose in life, is an excellent place to start.

  • I have also compiled for you a few PDFs that I have used in my quest for clarifying purpose that you can download by clicking on the button below.

  • Since purpose is so important for a longer, fuller life, I made purpose discovery step 3 of my Longevity protocol. You can also book a purpose discovery session with me.

Books related to this topic:

Jihane Farrell
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