“The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today.” – Seneca.
You may be wondering:
“What’s the point of taking a life expectancy quiz?” Or…
“Do I want to know my estimated life expectancy?”
You’re not alone. These questions are common, even natural, responses when first considering whether or not to look into your life expectancy.
Here’s the thing:
There are plenty of logical, prudent reasons to take a life expectancy quiz, and this article will lay out five of them on which you can chew.
Confront Unique Circumstances with Curiosity Instead of Fear
Have you heard of the term eustress? It refers to “positive stress,” or stress taken on voluntarily, as opposed to pressure thrust onto us against our will.
Challenging yourself with an intense workout or leaving your job to pursue the dream career you’ve always pined after falls into the eustress category. In contrast, a sudden illness or unexpected financial problem is often stressful.
In both scenarios, your body releases Cortisol, the fight-or-flight hormone, to energize your efforts and focus resources toward a resolution. However, the simple distinction lies in whether you voluntarily approach stress head-on or feel powerless against it, leading to different outcomes.
Angus Fletcher explores this distinction in his book Wonderworks, stating that “the science of eustress seems almost too good to be true. And that science only improves: psychology studies have revealed that the root difference between good and bad is our brain’s perception of whether the stress is voluntary.”
So, circling back to a life expectancy quiz, your results may elicit various potentially stressful responses, sending you into a flight-or-fight tailspin.
Keeping the dichotomy of stress and eustress in mind, approaching your approximated life expectancy voluntarily, regardless of what you may find, empowers you to live a fuller, healthier, more mindful existence.
In short, willingly confronting potential stressors transforms them into opportunities for growth, catalyzing a more meaningful life.
Collect Insight for Meaningful Lifestyle Changes
On the subject of living more meaningful, healthy lives, life expectancy quizzes and calculators are a treasure trove of insight for intentional lifestyle shifts.
Using life tables and an array of inputs about your habits, lifestyle, family background, medical history, and much more, life expectancy calculators reveal areas of improvement to mitigate risk factors.
Examples include:
- Increasing the length and quality of your sleep
- Improving your diet and limiting sugar and fast food
- Exercising more regularly
- Spending more time with loved ones
- Scheduling screenings for genetic susceptibilities or medical predispositions
The list goes on and on, but the point is that there’s an immense amount of life expectancy data that factors into your forecast, allowing you to identify areas of concern and improvement.
The awareness life expectancy calculators provide alone makes them well worth the price of admission.
Prioritize Potential Risk Factors
In addition to collecting insights for meaningful lifestyle changes, prioritizing risk factors is another essential takeaway from a life expectancy quiz or calculator.
Everyone’s life expectancy risk profile is unique – genetics, family medical history, socioeconomic status, propensity for risk-taking, and lifestyle play their part.
But just how big of a part does each piece play exactly?
Well, that’s where a life expectancy calculator can help by triaging risk factors in urgency, severity, or importance. While your results are based on sprawling sets of data and broad-stroked assumptions, they still offer clarity around which life expectancy factors to prioritize moving forward.
Prepare for the Future to Live in the Present
Contrary to popular belief, life expectancy calculators aren’t all about living in the future and worrying about how long you have left to live.
Quite the opposite.
You see, understanding your life expectancy factors can help you accept or change them, allowing for the integration of new habits and healthy focal points. Once you have this information in hand, it’s much easier to put the rumination to rest and make the most of each moment.
By understanding your areas of improvement and pressing risk factors, you put yourself back into the driver’s seat of your own life. Knowledge is power, and the most excellent form of it is self-knowledge.
Understand What’s In and Out of Your Control
Another great reason to take a life expectancy quiz is to separate your results into two primary categories: factors in your control and factors out of your control.
Lifestyle habits, medical screening, and levels of risk-taking all fall within your control. You can alter these areas to support a longer, healthier, and happier life.
Medical history, genetics, where you were born, and birth-assigned sex are all out of your control, forcing you to work these stationary aspects of your life to support longevity as best you can.
Are you ready to lean into life expectancy?
That’s great to hear! Our team at Life Expectancy Calculator is committed to using the latest research and data to ensure our models are as accurate and reliable as possible.
So, try our calculator the next time you’re curious about how long you might live. We promise it’s more empowering than unsettling.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more posts on life expectancy and its many interesting rabbit holes.
