“Of note, having a strong sense of life purpose has long been postulated to be an important dimension of life, providing people with a sense of vitality motivation and resilience.
Nevertheless, the medical implications of living with a high or low sense of life purpose have only recently caught the attention of investigators.
The current findings are important because they may open up new potential interventions for helping people to promote their health and sense of well-being.”
No matter what your age, then, it’s worth thinking about what gives your life meaning.”
- “A 2009 study of 1,238 elderly people found that those with a sense of purpose lived longer.
- A 2010 study of 900 older adults found that those with a greater sense of purpose were much less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.
- Survey data often links a sense of purpose in life with increased happiness.
Read More:
Find out what kinds of things people say give their lives meaning.
Here’s an exercise for increasing meaningfulness
And a study finding that feeling you belong increases the sense of meaning.
The study was published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine (Cohen et al., 2015).
A sense of purpose in life
Link: http://www.spring.org.uk/2015/12/here-is-why-a-sense-of-purpose-in-life-is-important-for-health
“Of note, having a strong sense of life purpose has long been postulated to be an important dimension of life, providing people with a sense of vitality, motivation and resilience.
Nevertheless, the medical implications of living with a high or low sense of life purpose have only recently caught the attention of investigators.
The current findings are important because they may open up new potential interventions for helping people to promote their health and sense of well-being.”
"No matter what your age, then, it’s worth thinking about what gives your life meaning.”
- “A 2009 study of 1,238 elderly people found that those with a sense of purpose lived longer.
- A 2010 study of 900 older adults found that those with a greater sense of purpose were much less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.
- Survey data often links a sense of purpose in life with increased happiness.
Read More:
Find out what kinds of things people say give their lives meaning.
Here’s an exercise for increasing meaningfulness
And a study finding that feeling you belong increases the sense of meaning.
The study was published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine (Cohen et al., 2015).
Link: http://www.spring.org.uk/2015/12/here-is-why-a-sense-of-purpose-in-life-is-important-for-health
Let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
Today’s most heartwarming story is brought to you from a beach in Brazil.It’s the story of a South American Magellanic penguin who swims 5,000 miles each year to be reunited with the man who saved his life.Retired bricklayer and part time fisherman Joao Pereira de Souza, 71, who lives in an island village just outside Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, found the tiny penguin, covered in oil and close to death, lying on rocks on his local beach in 2011.Joao cleaned the oil off the penguin’s feathers and fed him a daily diet of fish to build his strength. He named him Dindim.After a week, he tried to release the penguin back into the sea. But, the bird wouldn’t leave. ‘He stayed with me for 11 months and then, just after he changed his coat with new feathers, he disappeared,’ Joao recalls.And, just a few months later, Dindim was back. He spotted the fisherman on the beach one day and followed him home.For the past five years, Dindim has spent eight months of the year with Joao and is believed to spend the rest of the time breeding off the coast of Argentina and Chile.It’s thought he swims up to 5,000 miles each year to be reunited with the man who saved his life.‘I love the penguin like it’s my own child and I believe the penguin loves me,’ Joao told Globo TV. ‘No one else is allowed to touch him. He pecks them if they do. He lays on my lap, lets me give him showers, allows me to feed him sardines and to pick him up.It’s thought Dindim believes the fisherman is also a penguin (Picture: TV Globo)‘Everyone said he wouldn’t return but he has been coming back to visit me for the past four years. He arrives in June and leaves to go home in February and every year he becomes more affectionate as he appears even happier to see me.’Biologist Professor Krajewski, who interviewed the fisherman for Globo TV, told The Independent: ‘I have never seen anything like this before. I think the penguin believes Joao is part of his family and probably a penguin as well.‘When he sees him he wags his tail like a dog and honks with delight.And, just like that, the world seems a kinder place again.
