With everything that’s going on in the world, the last thing anyone would expect you to be would be to be cheerful.
2020 has been a tough year for the world.
Considering we began the year with hopes of finally taking critical steps to achieve our dreams, not only did the COVID outbreak put a huge pause to it, in this same year we had to constantly and consistently fight for the right of black people to not get shot by the police.
An exhausting year. And honestly, there is little to no incentive for us to put on a positive outlook.
But, this new study published by the Association For Psychological Science has given us a reason to always be cheerful and maintain an enthusiastic outlook.
We all cherish the amazing moments we experience and we’d do anything to make them last forever, but physical and mental factors inhibit our abilities to keep all of these beautiful memories alive in us. The good news is, this study gives us hope in these findings, which showed that people who feel lively have a lower chance of experiencing age-related memory loss.
A team of researchers analyzed the correlation between positive affect and memory decline, putting into consideration factors such as gender, age, education, gender, depression, negative affect, and extraversion.
They did this by evaluating data of 991 middle-aged and older US adults who took part in a national study conducted over a three-time interval between 1995 and 1996, 2004 and 2006, and 2013 and 2014.
The results showed that although memory declines with age, individuals with higher levels of positive affect had a less vertical decline over the period of almost a decade.
Keeping your memories alive may not be your utmost desire, but it’s definitely an ability you’ll cherish as you approach old age.
This should be enough reason to be a cheerful person in a world that seems to always find new ways to dim your happiness.