People Who Care for Others Live Longer

Older people who help and support others live longer. These are the findings of a study published in the journal?Evolution and Human Behavior, conducted by researchers from the University of Basel, Edith Cowan University, the University of Western Australia, the Humboldt University of Berlin, and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.

Older people who help and support others are also doing themselves a favor. An international research team has found that grandparents who care for their grandchildren, on average, live longer than grandparents who do not. The researchers conducted survival analyses of over 500 people aged between 70 and 103, drawing on data from the Berlin Aging Study.

In contrast to most previous studies on the topic, the researchers deliberately did not include grandparents who were primary or custodial caregivers. Instead, they compared grandparents who provided occasional childcare with grandparents who did not and older adults who did not have children or grandchildren but provided care for others in their social network.

Emotional Support

The results of their analyses show that this kind of caregiving can have a positive effect on the mortality of the carers. Half of the grandparents who took care of their grandchildren were still alive about ten years after the first interview in 1990. The same applied to participants who did not have grandchildren, but who supported their children -- for example, by helping with housework. In contrast, about half of those who did not help others died within five years.

Furthermore, the researchers discovered that the positive effect of caregiving on mortality is not confined to familial help. The data analysis revealed that childless older adults who provided emotional support to others also reaped the benefits. This finding underscores the importance of emotional support in our lives, showing that those who give it live longer. Half of these helpers lived for another seven years, a significantly longer time than non-helpers who, on average, lived for only another four years.

Too Much Caregiving Can Increase Stress

"But helping shouldn't be misunderstood as a panacea for a longer life," says Ralph Hertwig, Director of the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. "A moderate level of caregiving involvement does seem to affect health positively. But previous studies have shown that more intense involvement causes stress, negatively affecting physical and mental health," says Hertwig. As it is not customary for grandparents in Germany and Switzerland to take custodial care of their grandchildren, primary and custodial caregivers were not included in the analyses.

The researchers think that prosocial behavior was originally rooted in the family. "It seems plausible that the development of parents' and grandparents' prosocial behavior toward their kin left its imprint on the human body in terms of a neural and hormonal system that subsequently laid the foundation for the evolution of cooperation and altruistic behavior towards non-kin," says first author Sonja Hilbrand.

The research echoes many other studies which emphasize how ?altruistic, kind, compassionate and empathetic behavior can be a great benefit to the giver.

You can read more on the benefits of giving in the chapter on prosocial behavior in my new book, The Journey to Self-Mastery: Unlocking the Secrets to Personal Transformation.

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