Be more outgoing to live a longer life: Study

(Representational image)

New Delhi: Want to add years to your life? Simple! Just be more social and outgoing, a study has suggested.

The study conducted on community-dwelling individuals aged 70 to 90 years who were participating in the Jerusalem Longitudinal Study, showed that leaving the house daily was linked with a lower risk of dying over an extended follow-up period, independent of social, functional, or medical factors.

Individuals who go out of the house on a regular basis invite more opportunities to engage with the outside world and may facilitate exposure to a variety of beneficial experiences.

"What is interesting is that the improved survival associated with getting out of the house frequently was also observed among people with low levels of physical activity, and even those with impaired mobility," said lead author Jeremy Jacobs, of the Hadassah Hebrew-University Medical Center, in Jerusalem. "Resilient individuals remain engaged, irrespective of their physical limitations."

The study appears in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

(With ANI inputs)