Victor (Vic) Strecher

Thank you very much, Shankar.

Look forward to this.

Sure.

So people with a stronger purpose, direction, intentionality in their lives are

live longer, for one thing, and there are now at least eight, nine, 10 studies showing that very carefully.

There are eight studies now showing that people with strong purpose around the age of retirement are far less likely to develop dementia, which is very intriguing, really.

People with strong purpose have fewer pro-inflammatory cells produced in their body,

Some of my colleagues have found that people with stronger purpose are less likely to develop heart attacks.

If they already are susceptible to heart attack and heart disease, they're less likely to develop stroke.

We found that people are less likely to be abusing drugs and medication.

They're more physically active.

They tend to eat better.

And so maybe this is one of the explanations for why purpose helps you live longer.

It's because you take care of yourself better.

And why do you do that?

It's because there are certain things that really matter a lot to you.

And you think I better take care of myself.

I think when Julia went through her second heart transplant, she was conscious enough to understand that she may not live a long life.

And I think as a result, she became far more purposeful.

And I think that's one interesting relationship between salience of death knowledge that you will die at some point in time.