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Why are some people mentally sharp as they reach their late 80s, while others begin to have “senior moments” in their 60s and have a sharp mental decline thereafter? A recent study published in Psychological Science has found that the key component to remaining mentally sharp into advanced age is having a sense of purpose.
The study was led by Dr. Gabrielle Pfund of Auburn University and colleagues from Rush University and Washington University in St. Louis. “I have been interested in the construct of sense of purpose since early in my graduate school experience,” Pfund said, according to PsyPost. “As I continued throughout graduate school, I came across more and more research that highlighted the predictive power of purpose, particularly for healthy aging. Like many, I’ve personally experienced the pain of losing a loved one to dementia.”
Why is it so important to have a sense of purpose?
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Pfund and her team learned the importance of purpose after conducting a study on 1,702 people, 65 years old and older, and asking them about their mental sharpness and levels of well-being for up to 10 years.
“This study focuses on the reciprocal relationship between cognitive function with three domains of well-being: (1) sense of purpose (the extent to which one feels they have personally meaningful goals and activities), (2) eudaimonic well-being (one’s sense of autonomy, personal growth, purpose, and connection to others), and (3) life satisfaction (one’s sense of contentment with their life),” Pfund explained.
The study found that people with a sense of purpose were likely to keep their mental sharpness, and when people experience cognitive decline, it has a greater effect on their sense of purpose than on general life satisfaction. “I expected the findings to be stronger for sense of purpose than life satisfaction, and that ended up being the case,” Pfund said.
What is a sense of purpose?
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Pfund’s study should make many consider whether they have a sense of purpose, especially as they get older and risk cognitive decline. But what type of purpose should we consider?
“Sense of purpose can be understood as the extent to which one feels that they have personally meaningful goals and directions guiding them through life,” Pfund said on The Mental Wellbeing Podcast. “So rather than saying ‘I have a purpose in life’ or ‘I do not,’ it's ‘how purposeful do I feel? ‘How high is my sense of purpose?’”
How do I find my life’s purpose?
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Pfund believes that a top-down approach, which involves thinking of our purpose and organizing our day-to-day lives around it, can be overwhelming. Instead, she recommends a bottom-down approach that starts with examining our daily interactions.
“Think about as you're going throughout your day, where are the moments that you feel purposeful? That short-term momentary experience of purpose. If you feel purposeful when you're spending time with your friends or when you're learning new information, reading a good book, making podcasts,” she told Indi, the show's host. “If you're able to identify moments where you feel purposeful, then, over time, maybe you can use those moments to find similarities and what all of these experiences have and start to figure out … what your purpose in life may be.”
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