Last year, we delved into the psychology of New Year’s resolutions, describing what little research has been done on why and how people make New Year’s resolutions.
So here’s the good …
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interesting interpretation of facts– to postpone death temporarily may help us prolong life indefinitely.
well i don’t know how to understand this yet. could be correct about someone’s capacity to set goals and keep them– a very western more.
might also be a form of bargaining with death, which if one believes K-R is a step toward accepting death. so i just don’t know the answer.
the cancer example cited might be very cogent. but there is a self fulfilling aspect to choosing a cancer example because those who undergo chemotherapy successfully are not very weak to begin with. an oncologist will not put a patient through something so grueling if she doesn’t believe the patient is up to the task. otherwise it is just about strengthening the immune system and trying to keep a quality of life acceptable for as long as possible.
the heart disease example is more speculative, i think, because there are so many predictors of heart disease that just won’t go away. i rather think medicine’s success here has less to do with patient compliance as a psychosomatic facet of therapy and more to do with the discovery and exploitation of statins having their effect on the current generation of coronary diseased individuals.
there are also religious cultural biases of patients to consider. i remember how shocked i was to read a profile in the new york times of president george w. bush’s second medical advisor. according to the times article, the physician in question– a devout catholic– believed that life had a natural course and that the desire to extend and prolong life indefinitely was skewed by the effect of jewish doctors on medical values. when i read this, i asked my most sophisticated and educated catholic friends about his position and on reflection a few agreed with him. i really did not see that coming but i guess there are so many nuanced views about life and continuing life that a statistical generalization about holidays just might not cut it.
a simpler explanation might be that we cannot perform superhuman acts which postpone life indefinitely and after some important event our guard drops and our capacity to prolong life expires as some of us do. i mean most people under most circumstances would never volunteer to die under any circumstances (nor should they ).
to say that some one who just ran a marathon could somehow run another transcends my own optimism for human capacities.
How the brain and mind work is fascinating.
I wonder if there is a correlation to why some people live long in spite of illness/illnesses. The love of life on any level and ability to live in the moment may mean the person doesn’t entertain (conciously or otherwise) ideas about dying and/or when they will die.
Years ago I read that deaths increase after a major holiday. It must have been when this was first noticed, but not researched yet. I did notice the obituary page of the local newspaper certainly reflects this. The volume of obits increased dramatically after the beginning of the new year.
Fascinating stuff. Thanks!
I definitely think the will to live is an important factor in prolonging life. I noticed this when I was a nurse; for example one elderly lady was at death’s door for a couple of weeks, but held out until early on 26th December.
I have met this in my own family, too: my father was terminally ill but managed to wait to meet his newborn grandaughter before passing away. I have 2 family members battling cancer at the moment – one is elderly and has multiple pathologies. But her determined attitude has astounded the doctors – she is almost 2 years post-op/chemo and so far doing very well. Then there is my cousin who has a young family – and an agressive and incurable cancer. He endures a lot of treatment, just to buy himself time… but he has incredible inner strength, and has been living with this for several years now.
What this article has brought home to me is how this can be applied to improving health in general, and not just at the end or when facing a potentially devastating diagnosis. I shall reflect upon this and see where I can apply it in my own life.
I firmly believe that this is a special “human condition” and is probably unique only to the human race. Like salomeuk, I have also witnessed a few instances where a family member has managed to delay the ‘grim reapers’ visit just so they could see a newborn child or as in my own experience, my Grandma. She was very much like a mother to me when I was a child and we stayed close until I moved myself and family to Hawaii. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I must have broken her heart by doing that. She waited for me to return to her home state of Minnesota for 6 years and then called me and told me she was gravely ill. I panicked and boarded a plane immediately, only to find upon arrival that she was as healthy as she had been in a long time! Or so it seemed…she passed away within a couple of months after my visit.
Being only 54 years old, I am fascinated by this phenomenon and probably will not be able to even begin to comprehend how we humans can prolong life like this. Not that I’m eager to die, however, I am anxious to (hopefully) experience this capability sometime in my later life. This just might be something that Science won’t be able to put down in black and white. Some things cannot be studied scientifically and this is one of them.