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Worrying is a Good Thing

What if I told you that there was something simple you could do to extend your life by a few years?  You’d do it, right?  Like if I told you that gum chewing could extend your life by two years, you’d be chomping down on pack after pack of Trident.  Or if I told you that avoiding cucumbers would help you live an extra four years, I get a strong feeling that you’d be consuming your salads sans gourds.  (Did you know that a cucumber is a gourd?  Well, now you know.)

Things get a little more complicated when I ask you to take up something you don’t really love or give up something you enjoy.  Like if I told you that crawling around on your knees would extend your life by two years, you may crawl around for a while but then decide that the strain on your knees isn’t worth the extra time on earth.  Likewise, if I told you to give up chocolate, you may make a case for why losing a few precious moments of life is worth it for a good bar of Cadbury.

Well, guess what?  Worrying is going to make me live an extra thousand years.

Okay, maybe not one thousand years (I didn’t find an actual number in the article), but it is going to make me live longer.  Because I am an exceptional worrier.  So if worrying itself is life-extending, then my brand of worrying which amps up regular worrying to astronomical levels is going to net me decades if not centuries.

According to the article, “researchers found that higher scores on the worried-vulnerable questions were ‘associated with a significantly reduced risk of death from all causes’.”  Worried-vulnerable neurotics were “identified by their response to such questions as ‘Do you worry too long after an embarrassing experience?’ and ‘Are your feelings easily hurt’?”  Yes and yes.  And whatever the next question is, yes to that, too.

Worriers unite!

9 comments

1 Mali { 08.22.17 at 8:08 am }

Hmmmmm. The oldest woman I know well who is 94 lives her life in blissful denial. My mother in the other hand could have worried for an Olympic medal, but died in her early 80s. So I am not confident that my worrying is going to help extend my life. But if it does, I’ll be worrying about whether I can afford the extra years of life!

2 Beth { 08.22.17 at 8:18 am }

Well this wins the Internet for me today. I’m a champion worrier.

3 Noemi { 08.22.17 at 9:36 am }

I am guessing it has to do with worriers being more likely to seek out medical care and therefore more likely to catch a possible sickness when it can still be treated effectively. Because worrying causes stress and we all know stress does not extend ones life.

Whenever I hear about a study like this I think of Woody Allen’s movie Sleeper.

4 Suzannacatherine { 08.22.17 at 11:06 am }

Count me among the worriers. Drives my family crazy! I’m one of those people who think if something can go wrong, it will.

After a battery of tests, my therapist told me I was risk-averse. I could have told him that without all the tests! I’ve thought about this a lot. I’m a confessed control freak. It’s the reason I don’t like to fly (I can’t control the plane) and why I always want to be in the driver’s seat.

If it adds years to my life, I’ll take it!

5 Ana { 08.22.17 at 12:26 pm }

If this is true I will be immortal. But then I worry, would I really want to live that long? Would I outlive my kids? ooops, there are another few years tacked on…

6 chris { 08.22.17 at 1:55 pm }

Oooh! Finally there’s an upside to all my worrying…and here my husband is always telling me it’s going to kill me. LOL

7 dubliner in deutschland { 08.23.17 at 11:41 am }

Well as a fellow worrying, that’s good to know! It could be just that people who worry a lot tend to also get paranoid about their health and go to the doctor more often though?

8 Lori Lavender Luz { 08.24.17 at 5:21 pm }

I worry that I don’t worry enough!

9 katherinea12 { 08.27.17 at 9:50 pm }

Well, if this is true, I’m going to live forever. Like you (and several others here), I am a champion worrier and prone to major anxiety. Here I was thinking that worrying would eventually drag me down.

And with that, I’m off to work on extending my life by several more years 🙂 !

(c) 2006 Melissa S. Ford
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