Having a purpose in life may decrease your risk of dying early, according to a study published Friday. Researchers analyzed data from nearly 7,000 American adults between the ages of 51 and 61 who filled out psychological questionnaires on the relationship between mortality and life purpose.

What they found shocked them, according to Celeste Leigh Pearce, one of the authors of the study published in JAMA Current Open. People who didn't have a strong life purpose — which was defined as "a self-organizing life aim that stimulates goals" — were more likely to die than those who did, and specifically more likely to die of cardiovascular diseases.

"I approached this with a very skeptical eye," says Pearce, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan. "I just find it so convincing that I'm developing a whole research program around it." People without a strong life purpose were more than twice as likely to die between the study years of 2006 and 2010, compared with those who had one.

This association between a low level of purpose in life and death remained true despite how rich or poor participants were, and regardless of gender, race, or education level. The researchers also found the association to be so powerful that having a life purpose appeared to be more important for decreasing risk of death than drinking, smoking or exercising regularly.

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