Resilience and Longevity: Thriving for the Long Haul

Authors: Tyler Phillips (Research Psychologist & Research and Content Consultant) and Dr Etienne van der Walt (neurologist and CEO & founder of Neurozone^®)

A big part of resilience is successful survival. The more resilient you are, the greater your chances of surviving – and thriving despite adversity. Intuitively, resilience may enable our lives to be longer and more successful. Scientifically, recent research confirms this. Resilience significantly contributes to how long we live and how well we age.

Resilience Extends Life

A recent study investigated how psychological resilience affects the risk of all-cause mortality. The researchers followed over 10,000 adults in the U.S., averaging 67 years old, for nearly 12 years. They assessed these adults’ psychological resilience and tracked how many participants passed away during the study period. The findings were striking: those with the highest levels of resilience had a 38% lower risk of death than those with the lowest resilience.

This protective effect persisted even when accounting for factors like age, sex, race, pre-existing health conditions, and lifestyle habits such as smoking and physical activity. Interestingly, greater psychological resilience also correlated with better cardiovascular health, suggesting that having positive perceptions of yourself and life changes might bolster physical health, even later in life.

How Resilience Affects Aging

Resilience doesn’t just add years to your life—it also helps make those years more fulfilling. A comprehensive review of research on aging identified a clear and significant link between resilience and successful aging. Older adults with higher resilience are consistently better able to maintain their well-being and navigate the challenges of aging, continuing to thrive despite them.  

The researchers broke down the features of successful aging into four key domains:

• Psychological Well-being: Feeling fulfilled, satisfied, and at peace with life.
• Physical Health: Maintaining fitness, energy, and functionality.
• Social Connections: Staying actively engaged with others and nurturing meaningful relationships.
• Lifestyle Choices: Practicing autonomy, making healthy choices, and adapting to life’s changes.

Resilience weaves through all these areas. For instance, optimism and gratitude—a hallmark of psychological resilience—promote psychological well-being. Resilience is also associated with better physical health, as seen in the longevity study. Supportive social connections enhance resilience, as does having a sense of control and agency supported by conscious lifestyle choices. 

The Role of Perception

A key insight from the review is the power of how we view aging itself. Positive beliefs about aging—such as seeing it as a time of growth, wisdom, and continued contribution—enhance resilience. Conversely, negative stereotypes about aging can sap resilience, leading to disengagement and a sense of worthlessness.

Changing these perceptions isn’t just feel-good advice; it’s a practical way to boost resilience and improve aging outcomes. Adopting empowering mindsets about aging encourages active engagement with life, which helps sustain psychological and physical health.

Insights from the Neurozone^® System

At Neurozone^®, our resilience-building tools and assessments offer valuable ways to support these findings. For example, the Neurozone^® Personal Assessment measures and recommends factors like healthy routines (“Rhythms”), generative mindsets (“Transformers”), and supportive relationships (“Connectors”), which are essential for resilience and align closely with the domains of successful aging.

The Neurozone^® Resilience Index goes even further, offering a dynamic way to track resilience over time. Unlike the static measurement used in the longevity study, Neurozone^®’s approach captures how resilience changes and adapts to life’s circumstances. It also assesses perceptions of early-life experiences, an aspect of resilience that the study authors identified as important for future research.

The Takeaway

Science supports what many of us intuitively know: resilience is critical not just for weathering life’s storms but for thriving as we age. Cultivating resilience can help us live longer, healthier lives and make the aging process a time of fulfillment rather than frustration.

Whether it’s through fostering positive beliefs about aging, maintaining strong social connections, or leveraging tools like the Neurozone^® Personal Assessment, there are actionable ways to build and sustain resilience. By prioritizing resilience, we’re investing in a life that’s not only longer but also richer, more vibrant, and more aligned with what it means to truly thrive.