It seems very exciting to start a book that will undercover habits and patterns of living which helps attain a greater longevity. Personally, I don’t have a strong wish to live as long as possible because,\u00a0for me, it’s meaningless to live with a weak body or serious diseases. So, when I read that the author’s study focuses first on longevity instead of participants’ self-report about their health, I\u00a0was doubtful about the meaning of the study. Fortunately, it has been clarified later in the introduction that, in their study, those who live longer are also generally healthier throughout their lives. It’s also mentioned that the study uncovered some dead-end myths.<\/p>\n
After learning critical reading in another class recently, I also started this book while evaluating and challenging the content. For example, I was doubtful when the researchers concluded that lists of specific health rules nowadays are unnecessary because the Terman men and women were born decades before running shoes and designer spas. I wondered since the environment and all external factors have changed nowadays, are factors helped Terman people acquire a greater longevity still going to do the same thing to us. Nevertheless, later in the Introduction, it’s mentioned that the researchers have conducted comparison studies using contemporary measures from contemporary samples of young people to validate old scales and measures. Therefore, I’m more confident that reading this book would not be a tedious assignment but a life-long rewarding experience.<\/p>\n
In Chapter 1, it’s interesting to know that after modern medicine began to flourish, susceptibility to illness began to focus on bacterial invaders instead of the individual. However, the longevity project found that a focus on personality, family, work and social relations, yielded insights and understanding in health and long life, which modern medical professionals will do no help.\u00a0It’s probably widespread that despite some variability, there is a substantial degree of order and constancy in people’s personality. However, new research in psychology undercovers how people’s personality could slowly change with substantial factors. With this news, people with a personality not favored by longevity would not be hopeless. At the end of this Chapter, the researchers threw out some hypotheses, mostly come from conventional wisdom, that they later found only sometimes are true.<\/p>\n
Overall, I like how the longevity project actively challenged\u00a0some conventional wisdom about health and longevity. Instead, because the study itself is not a conventional one, we should critically evaluate the procedure as well as the results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It seems very exciting to start a book that will undercover habits and patterns of living which helps attain a greater longevity. Personally, I don’t have a strong wish to live as long as possible because,\u00a0for me, it’s meaningless to … Continue reading