Member-only story
What People Who Live Long — and Through Pandemics, War, and More — Have in Common
It may be a combination of genetics, lifestyle, attitude, and a yearning to keep on going
During the Second World War, an American woman named Shelley Smith Mydans reported on the conflict for Life magazine. Along with her husband, the photographer Carl Mydans, Shelley documented WWII in both Europe and the Pacific.
Midway through the war, the Mydans were captured in the Philippines. The Japanese held them in POW camps in Manilla and Shanghai. But despite spending two years as prisoners of war, both Mydans survived and went on to live long and productive lives. Shelley lived to 86, while Carl made it all the way to 97.
Many who survived the war were not so fortunate. A U.S. serviceman named Philip was also in the Pacific Theater during WWII. Even before the war, Philip was prone to anxiety and “catastrophizing” — to always predicting the worst. After he returned home, these traits intensified. Philip drank heavily and separated from his wife. Although he saw that there were positive aspects of his wartime experience, he was also frustrated and resentful about his time overseas; he felt it had hurt his marriage and disrupted his life. As the years passed, his drinking escalated. He tended not to exercise, and he was occasionally depressed. He died at age 64 of a heart attack.
Philip’s story is recounted in The Longevity Project, a book that summarizes a 20-year study based on interviews and health data collected from approximately 1,500 people — each followed from youth until death. “Our study wasn’t designed to look specifically at people who lived through hard times, but of course many did,” says Leslie Martin, PhD, a professor of psychology at California’s La Sierra University. “We found that many people who lived through hard times went on to live long lives — even though their lives were not stress-free, by any means.”
Unlike Philip, for whom the war seemed to push life onto a difficult and self-destructive path, Martin says that the Mydans appeared to turn their WWII experience into a source of motivation. “They didn’t see their stress as meaningless — it seemed to fuel them,” she says. “And this ability to think about the…
