Ancient, Active, and Alive

Who said life as an old person was boring and miserable? Running, dancing, karate, and lifting? If they want to, they can.

During my first week researching, I ran across some of these images of centenarians engaging in quite physically demanding activities. There is one Okinawan centenarian working her field of purple yams, another centenarian man running on the track, and another Japanese woman lifting weights with a group of other elderly women. These images defy our preconceived notions of what elderly people can and cannot do. When I first think of 80 or 90 year old people, I imagine them to be hunched over on their walking aides taking trembling strides every 10 seconds. Centenarians, on the other hand, stay active and carry themselves with confidence and power.

Take a second and see what pops into your head first when you think of the elderly.

Centenarians are a special group of people and they maintain this youthful lifestyle of staying active through also keeping a youthful personality. They are extroverts, optimists, and conscientious as Margaret Kern and Howard Friedman explain in their study about the relationship between conscientious individuals and longevity. Kern and Fiedman conclude that personality does in fact affect individual's longevity as for those who stay positive and upbeat exert themselves into social and physical activities which in turn keep their mental stability positive.