New research finds taking a vacation could help you live longer

Zameena Mejia | @ZamTheWriter

8:00 AM ET Thu, 30 Aug 2018

Vladimir Vladimirov | Getty Images

Thinking about skipping those vacation days? Don't. One of the longest follow-up studies in the world finds vacations can actually prolong your life.
And if you think your spin classes and kombucha habit will make up for postponing that dream cruise and save you from your jam-packed, hard driving life, think again. An improved, healthier lifestyle will not compensate for working too hard and not taking your holidays, University of Helsinki professor Timo Strandberg said Tuesday at the annual European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress. "Vacations can be a good way to relieve stress."
The new findings are a follow-up to the Helsinki Businessmen Study, research that for decades has followed 1,222 male executives born between 1919 and 1934. Each had at least one risk factor for heart disease (for example, the men smoked, were overweight, or had high blood pressure or high cholesterol).
The research, which began in the 1960s, evolved into a longitudinal study in the 1970s to better understand cardiovascular diseases. The work was extended through 2014 as a longitudinal study, focusing in part on how mid-life risk factors can impact quality of life and well-being in old age.

For the study, the men were randomly split into two groups. In one, a control, men lived their lives as they always did and did not meet with the study's investigators. Men in the other group, an intervention group, were given advice on how to improve their health. These men were asked to exercise, improve their diets, reach a healthy weight or stop smoking.

Strandberg found that the men who improved their lifestyles had a higher mortality rate if they shortchanged their vacations. At the study's 15-year check-in, those in the intervention group had higher mortality rates than those in the control group. The culprit? Working too hard, not sleeping enough and not taking enough vacation.
In fact, those in the intervention group, the ones with improved and healthier lifestyles, had a 37 percent higher chance of dying between 1974 and 2004 if they'd taken vacations lasting less than three weeks when compared to those who took vacations lasting three weeks or more.
After 2004, mortality rates for men in both groups were the same. (By then, the men had reached their 80s and 90s.)
While dramatic, this new research won't likely impact most Americans' vacation habits. Most American workers don't get that many paid days to begin with. Younger workers might not have the work experience to hit the magic three weeks of vacation noted in the study. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the average worker has logged 20 years of experience before earning 20 paid days or more in some positions.
Even if they do have the time, many workers feel they can't take it. Americans have put off vacation because they feel they have too much work to do and too many family obligations. Many feel a vacation is simply a luxury they can't afford.
Given that experts find that vacation can help you be more productive when you return to work, maybe it's time to put in that request for a few days off.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/30/new-study-finds-taking-your-vacation-could-help-you-live-longer.html

Going to church could help you live longer, study says

Going to church could help you live longer, study says

By Carina Storrs, Special to CNN

Updated 1712 GMT (0112 HKT) May 16, 2016

(CNN)Many Americans say they attend church because it helps them stay grounded and gives them spiritual guidance. A new study suggests that regular attendance may also help increase their lifespan.

Researchers looked at data on nearly 75,000 middle-age female nurses in the United States as part of the Nurses' Health Study. The participants answered questions about whether they attended religious services regularly every four years between 1992 and 2012, and about other aspects of their lives over the years.

The researchers found that women who went to church more than once a week had a 33% lower risk of dying during the study period compared with those who said they never went. Less-frequent attendance was also associated with a lower risk of death, as women who attended once a week or less than weekly had 26% and 13% lower risk of death, respectively.

Women who regularly attended religious services also had higher rates of social support and optimism, had lower rates of depression and were less likely to smoke. However, the researchers took into account these differences between churchgoers and non-churchgoers when they calculated the decrease in death rates of 13% to 33%.

Going to church could have a number of additional benefits that could, in turn, improve longevity, but the researchers were not able to examine them with the available data. Attendance could promote self-discipline and a sense of meaning and purpose in life, or it could provide an experience of the transcendent, said Tyler J. VanderWeele, professor of epidemiology in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. VanderWeele led the new research, which was published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

"Our study suggests that for health, the benefits outweigh the potentially negative effects," such as guilt, anxiety or intolerance, VanderWeele said.

Most of the women in the study were Protestant or Catholic, so it is not clear whether a similar association would be found between religious service attendance and longevity for people of other Christian religions, Judaism or Islam.

The study also did not explore the association in men. Previous research suggests that male churchgoers also benefit, though their decrease in death rate is not as large as among women, VanderWeele said.

"There have been literally thousands of studies" looking at whether religion is good for your health, said Dr. Dan German Blazer II, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical Center. The findings have been mixed about whether aspects of religious devotion such as prayer and spirituality -- such as reading the Bible or other religious literature -- improve longevity.

"The one (aspect) that is significantly more predictive of good health is about religious service attendance," said Blazer, who wrote an editorial about the new study in the same issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.

Most people report that they are spiritual, and it is possible that actually attending religious services is good for their health because they are taking actions that are in line with their beliefs, Blazer said. "You have a more integrated life in this sense." However, this explanation is purely speculative, and studies have not explored this theory, he added.

The suggestion that attending religious services regularly could boost longevity has met with some criticism in the field. Other researchers have pointed out that the relationship could be due to other factors, such as the possibility that healthier people are more likely to go to church, perhaps because they are more mobile.

The main strength of the current study is that the researchers were able to look at whether participants reported attending religious services at several points over many years, making it easier to find out which came first, religious activity or disease and health outcomes, Blazer said.

Nevertheless, Blazer warns that it is important not to make too much of the new findings. "This study does not suggest that clinicians prescribe attending religious services as a way to be more healthy," he said. It was not meant to assess going to church as an actual medical intervention.

On the other hand, the study does suggest that "clinicians who know their patients well and follow them over a period of time, like primary care doctors, inquire when it is appropriate about their religious beliefs and practices," Blazer said. That way, if patients say that attending religious services is important to them, the doctor can help ensure that they maintain a good relationship with their church, temple or mosque.

This attitude about the place of religion in medical care is becoming more common among health care professionals and has been introduced into the curriculum of more and more medical schools, Blazer said.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/16/health/religion-lifespan-health/index.html (18/05/2018)