Cognitive Factoids - Avoid Stressful Relationships And Live Longer!

Three questions! First, suppose you have always been a happy and unstressed soul. Would you think you would be likely to outlive an unrelated, unhappy and stressed person? I think we all would! Second, if our circumstances changed and we chose to live with such a stressed individual, what then? Wouldn’t we be likely to die sooner and perhaps even a lot sooner? Again wouldn’t most of us say, Yes we would! Third and finally, if we had a stressful childhood, would our lives be shortened even if we then managed to achieve a much more peaceful adulthood? If we were Zebra Finches, then we would be absolutely right on all three answers!

Isn’t that really to be treated by humans as a bit of a laugh? The University of Glasgow would say no. Results have now been published in Proceedings of The Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. And clearly Professor Monaghan sees potential comparisons with humans.

In truth, if we had been told it about humans achieving longer lives, wouldn’t we have accepted it?

Zebra Finches form strong bonds with their mates and appear to respond to stress in the same way we do. In fact if they join with stressed partners it seems their life expectancy is four times worse than that of relaxed birds.

This discovery was aided by some chicks being injected with stress hormone for two weeks and monitored against those without, all being kept in a stress free environment.

After they had fledged it was discovered that not only those injected died sooner, so did the mates they had been placed with.

Extrapolation of these results shows how choosing a mate who helps us to avoid stress could help us as well as Finches to achieve longer lives!

But stepping back from the obvious difference between us, can we really be surprised? Already we have heard so much about the damage stress causes humans.

I have never subscribed to the school of thought which believes that all races of humans comprise such superior species and incomparable to all others on the Planet. Learning from animals can teach us so much on how we ourselves may have unknown latent powers.relating not only to our known senses, but like many animals, we may have others so far untried.

Experts are predicting we will be able to talk to dolphins within five years. Elephants and whales may follow suit. I may not live long enough to hear it or even witness it, but I predict we will discover in these animals an astonishing level of spirituality and wisdom compared with our own.

So all this is “not for the birds”! It is research we cannot afford to ignore.

Gerry Neale is an artist, mentor and writer. His first novel, Squaring Circles, has recently been published in Paperback and is already available on leading online sites such as Amazon (co.uk). The theme of the novel is how our spirituality, awareness of Nature and our emotions can dictate our cognitive behaviour. There are reviews and more information on the book’s website at www.squaringcircles.co.uk. 

His mixed media watercolours can be viewed on www.sirgerrynealeartprints.com