Most grandparents love spending time around their grandchildren. But it turns out that being around them can be seriously good for a grandparent’s long term health.

The American comedian and TV personality Sam Levenson once said that grandparents and grandchildren get along so well because “they have a common enemy.” But it turns out there’s a much more important reason for this family alliance than just resentment.

The Berlin Aging Study (BASE) has discovered that grandparents that babysit their grandchildren live longer than those who don’t (and those with no grandchildren.)

In fact, the study stated that grandparents who babysit their grandchildren experience a 37% lower risk of mortality than those who do no babysitting.

And this study was exhaustive. It involved studying the lives of over 500 people in Berlin who were aged 70 or older.

But it isn’t just grandchildren that can help extend the life of someone aged 70 plus. People in this age group who support their adult children or others in their family/social groups also enjoy better health and life expectancy.

So if you’re annoyed that your adult child won’t move out, just remember that their presence is probably making you healthier!

There are a number of suspected reasons why babysitting grandchildren/supporting adult children can boost life expectancy.

The researchers believe that doing these activities helps older people maintain a sense of purpose in the world. They also think that these activities naturally make older people more physically and mentally active.

However, the study did not prove the reasons for this increased life expectancy. So there’s ample room for more research!

Luckily, the data that the researchers compiled can be trusted. The Berlin Aging Study was carried out via a collaboration between several renowned colleges. These were the University of Basel, the University of Western Australia and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.

The study also first appeared in a medical journal named Evolution and Human Behavior.

However, a follow-up study is likely to take a long time to surface.

The data for this study came from research conducted between the years 1990 and 2009. Over this almost 20 year span of time, the researchers met up with the participants once every two years. The meetings involved researchers interviewing and conducting medical tests on the participants.

Overall, the participants formed three different groups of people. These were grandparents who babysat their grandchildren, grandparents who didn’t babysit their grandchildren and non-grandparents. The babysitting grandparents had a 37% lower risk of dying than both the non-babysitting grandparents and the non-grandparents.

Most people can use this study to extend their lives.

The message is obvious: spend more time with your grandchildren! It’ll be good for your kids and even better for you. In fact, it might just be the thing that lets you reach the age of 100!

Of course, many young people complain that their parents are pressuring them to have grandchildren ASAP. And this data is likely to only make the pressure worse.

But at least those parents that really want grandchildren now have a strong piece of evidence for why they are being so insistent!

On the other hand, parents can experience the exact same benefits of grandchildren by keeping their own kids in the home. So that means the children of 70 plus-year-olds have a clear choice. For the sake of your parents, either stay home forever or make some grandkids already!

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Source: NHS