Grandma had bounce. She repeatedly rallied to dig deep and overcome despair after losing a young child; mourning the death of another who died in his prime; and outliving her husband by nearly four decades.
In the 1970s, after crippling rheumatoid arthritis made it impossible for her to play the piano, she cured herself by eating only natural foods—decades before that became popular. In her 90s at a family wedding, she busted moves on the dance floor that some of us in our 30s and 40s had difficulty matching.
Experts in longevity say emotional resilience is an enigmatic X factor that plays a key, if not fully understood, role in how long we live. It’s helped Holocaust survivors go on to reclaim their lives, and those who’ve overcome earthquakes or even physical and emotional abuse to rebuild theirs.
Laura Carstensen, Ph.D., director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, led a study that examined the well-being of older people during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The scourge, of course, exacted a terrible toll on the elderly—far and away its most frequent and numerous victims.
Even so, “we found that older people reported fewer negative emotions in their lives, and more positive emotions, than younger people did,” Carstensen told NPR’s On Point.
