'Life Purpose' Helps Reduce Health Care Costs

The monotony of life can have many of us questioning the purpose of life. Furthermore, those who work at an unfulfilling job or find little relief in other areas of their life may be looking for answers.

Now, recent findings published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) show that having a definite purpose in life can help propel individuals into properly taking care of their health--and potentially saving giant healthcare costs. 

The study found that those living for a purpose were motivated to optimize their health and more likely to take advantage of preventive health services, including cancer screenings.

Researchers examined over 7,000 individuals from the Health and Retirement Study--all of whom were over 50 years of age, representing a wide range of diverse groups for a period of six years.
Many with a "life purpose"-otherwise defined as a feeling that life has direction or meaning that's manifested into daily activities--were more likely to take advantage of cholesterol checks and colonoscopies, overall. 

Women with higher life purposes were more likely to request needs for mammograms and pap smears, while men with the same feelings actually spent 17 percent fewer nights in the hospital.

Researchers are hopeful that examining these kind of studies further in the future could save enormous healthcare costs that are paid for by taxes. As the U.S. population increases in age, having a life purpose may help to reduce Medicare costs.