Successful aging is a psychological feat. Fear for death, for example, may sometimes oppress you.__1__
even when this is successfully overcome, there is still something for you to deal with-loneliness.
Loneliness can speed your demise no matter conscientiously you care for your body. __2__
“We go through life surrounded by protective convoys of others,” says Robert Kahn,
a psychologist of the University of Michigan who studied the health effects of companionship. __3__
“People who manage to maintain a network of social support do best.” One study of elderly
heart-attack patients found that those with two or more close associations enjoyed twice __4__
the one-year survival rate of those who were completely alone.Companionship aside,
healthy oldsters seem to share a knack for managing stress, poison that contributesmeasurably to heart disease, __5__
cancer and accidents. Researchers have also been kinked successful aging to mental stimulation.__6__
An idle brain will deteriorate just as sure as an unused leg, __7__
notes Dr. Gene Cohen, Head of the gerontology center at George ashington University.
But just as exercise can prevent muscle atrophy, mental challenges seem to preserve __8__
both the mind and the immune system. But what most impresses researchers
who study the oldest old is his simple drive and resilience. “People who reach 100 are not quitters,”__9__
says Adler of the National Centenarian Awareness Project. “They share a remarkable
ability to renegotiate life in every turn, to accept the inevitable losses And move on.” __10__