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Mapping Centenarian Consciousness
I have focused most of my professional life on investigating the best evidence I could find for healthy longevity. In my view, healthy centenarians (100 years and older) are the best living examples of what works to sustain healthspan. After many years of searching for patterns that transcend culture, genetics, gender, socioeconomics, location, and life style, four perceptual modes of interpreting the world and four exalted emotions for responding to the world, surfaced in my extensive ethnographic work with centenarians. That was my beginning of mapping centenarian consciousness.
Cententenarians personal histories range from privileged lives to horrendous pasts. What these time outliers have in common, is their capacity to embrace good fortune with humility, and vicissitudes with dignity: powerful anti-aging cultural psychoneuroimmunology.
But rather than prolong your attention with further allures, let me get to their existential essence. The unique four perceptual modes include how they interpret time, aging, health, and self-valuation. Their four most salient emotions in response to their world are gratitude, generosity, curiosity, and admiration.
To the best of my knowledge, the centenarian mapping of their meaning-making I discovered, is a missing link in the longevity research community. While they correctly concentrate on…
