[Fwd: UW-Madison News Release--Happiness and health]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

8/12/2004
CONTACT: Carol Ryff, (608) 262-1818, cryff@wisc.edu

WELL-BEING STUDY: GOOD HEALTH GOES BEYOND DIET, EXERCISE AND MANAGING STRESS

MADISON - While pleasurable experiences may lift your spirits, the ones
that leave you with a sense of purpose and meaningful relationships may
do even more: protect the body against ill health.

When researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Princeton
University interviewed a group of older women and assessed their
emotional and physical well-being, or levels of optimal health, they
found that the people who were purposefully engaged in life tended to
have better levels of physical functioning.

The findings are described in the September issue of Philosophical
Transactions: Biological Sciences, a journal of the Royal Society of
London.

"There's nothing new about a study that shows links between psychology
and biology," says Carol Ryff, UW-Madison psychology professor and lead
author of the paper. "What's novel about this one is that it looks at
varieties of positive human functioning and how they relate to physical
health."

As she explains, most researchers have looked for connections between
emotional dysfunction, such as stress or loneliness, and physical
illness, such as high blood pressure. But, she adds, ill-being is not
simply the flip side of well-being, nor is well-being simply the absence
of ill-being. In other words, studying one won't explain much about the
other.

To begin to understand the role of good mental health on physical
functioning, Ryff, along with Burt Singer at Princeton University and
Gayle Love at UW-Madison, looked for links between two forms of
well-being and health, specifically biological markers for stress,
cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

For the study, the researchers asked 135 women between the ages of 61 to
91 to rate their levels of two different types of positive emotional
functioning: hedonic well-being, such as joy or happiness resulting from
pleasurable experiences; and eudaimonic well-being, which results from
purposeful life engagement, continued personal growth, positive
relationships with others, positive self-regard and the sense that one
can master the surrounding environment.

"The hedonic is about happiness, feeling good, pleasure and
gratification," explains Ryff. "The eudaimonic has a different
philosophical tradition - it's not so much about feeling good, but about
being actively engaged in life and making the most of your talents and
capacities, regardless of how old you are."

When the researchers compared the participants' reported levels of both
types of good emotional health to their physical charts, the results
surprised them. They had expected that people who had higher levels of
hedonic and eudaimonic well-being would be in better health. But, this
connection was only evident in the women who reported high levels of
eudaimonic well-being.

For example, people who reported high levels of purpose in life had
lower levels of stress hormones throughout the day; lower levels of
inflammatory cytokines, which can result in arthritis, hardening of the
arteries and diabetes; higher levels of "good" HDL cholesterol and
weighed less. Similarly, people with higher levels of environmental
mastery and self-acceptance had lower levels of sugar in the blood, and
those with environmental mastery and positive relationships tended to
sleep better and longer.

Hedonic well-being, on the other hand, showed its positive health
effects only in terms of higher levels of HDL cholesterol.

"These preliminary findings tells us that we can achieve good health and
well-being by not just eating right, exercising and managing stress, but
by living purposeful and meaningful lives," says Ryff. "Life enrichment
may be part of what helps keep older people better regulated."

Because the study focused only on older women and measured levels of
emotional and physical health at only one point in their lives, Ryff
says the findings at this point cannot be generalized to any other
group. But she suspects that high levels of eudaimonic well-being may
protect the physical health of most individuals, particularly those who
appear to defy social expectations that they should be unhealthy.

If the preliminary findings hold up in additional studies, Ryff asks,
"Does this mean that people who do not have eudaimonic well-being are
sentenced to live a life with poor biological well-being?" Her answer:
"Well-being is something that everyone has the capacity and potential to
experience - it's within the reach of anyone."

She adds that research on "well-being therapy," which could promote
purposeful life engagement among those who most need it, such as the
chronically depressed, is already under way.
###

- Emily Carlson, 608-262-9772, emilycarlson@wisc.edu





****************************************************
For questions or comments about UW-Madison's email
news release system, please send an email to:
releases@news.wisc.edu

For more UW-Madison news, please visit:
http://www.news.wisc.edu/

University Communications
University of Wisconsin-Madison
27 Bascom Hall
500 Lincoln Drive
Madison, WI 53706

Phone: (608) 262-3571
Fax: (608) 262-2331

.


--
-------------------------

All of my currently available poetry books can be purchased at:
http://www.lulu.com/Daniel-Stafford
------
The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

Submit your Great Lakes area renewable energy stories today! See the
G.L. Zephyr main page for details...
or just...SUBMIT A STORY
------