People who have a sense of purpose in their life tend to make healthier lifestyle choices and report feeling better about their own health status, according to a new study.
“Our analysis found that participants’ sense of purpose was positively associated with their reports of both vigorous and moderate activity, vegetable intake, flossing, and sleep quality,” said the study’s lead author Patrick Hill, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University at St. Louis.
The Big 5
One goal of the study was to show that having a purpose in life has positive health effects that are independent of the Big Five personality traits—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.Participants completed measures of sense of purpose, health behaviors, and self-reported health, which were combined with their self-reports on the Big Five personality traits from a survey conducted two years earlier.
Participants responded to a series of health behavior questions, such as how often they ate healthy vegetables, how well they slept, and whether they flossed routinely. They also rated how often in a typical week they engaged in strenuous or moderate exercise.
What Flossing Indicates
As the authors note, some behaviors they examined serve as proxies for broader health variables. For instance, if an individual flosses regularly, they are likely to participate in other healthy activities. Eating vegetables on regular basis signals healthy eating habits. Sleep quality has been associated with reduced stress, Hill said.Researchers examined each behavior independently and in combination with other behaviors and demographic variables, such as personality type. In all scenarios, having a sense of purpose had a significant direct effect on self-rated health and a more modest, indirect effect on individual health behaviors.
“Participants who reported a higher sense of purpose also reported greater strenuous and moderate activity, likelihood to eat vegetables and floss, as well as better quality sleep,” Hill said. “All of these associations held even when controlling for the Big Five personality traits, with the exception of flossing.”
The findings provide further evidence that the health benefits associated with sense of purpose cannot be fully attributable to broad personality traits, such as the Big Five. They suggest that having a purpose in life can be viewed as a multifaceted construct that influences both self-regulatory capacity and specific behaviors, such as physical activity, sleep quality, diet, and self-care.
“The findings support the case that a purpose-driven life may also be a healthier life,” Hill said.