If you were to seek advice from a doctor about extending life into your nineties, what would you expect to hear?

Most physicians, I suspect, would respond by urging ongoing care of your blood pressure and maintaining strict control of your cholesterol. The most savvy among them would almost emphasize the benefits of physical exercise. And presumably they would want you to have physical check-ups at regular intervals.

Because a friend was in town celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of his graduation from Harvard College, I went to a symposium, this June, in which panelists spoke about various health issues. Most of the speakers were physician classmates reporting on their research. I listened without avid attention until the last presenter took the stand.

He, George Vaillant, is a psychiatrist who serves as a professor at Harvard Medical School. More important, he is director of the university’s long-time study of human development, a role on which he drew for his valuable 2002 book Aging Well.

In his brief remarks Dr. Vaillant shared with members of the class of 1955 his formula for those among them interested in returning for their 75th reunion. His two-fold agenda for longevity must have astonished anyone expecting the conventional wisdom.

What this veteran researcher recommends is, first, taking good vacations. He finds solid therapeutic values in getting away from one’s home ground for extended periods. Pursuing one’s interests and avocations in other places strikes him as an excellent way of adding to a person’s years as well as to the enjoyment of them.

The second piece of advice Vaillant gave to the alums was “take care of your marriage.” He considers the quality of one’s personal relationships to have a strong impact upon longevity. For those who are married, solid harmonious relationships with their spouses have a central place in their lives or─ at least, ought to─if well-being is to be assured.

So the members of the class of 1955 went away from this talk with advice that must have seemed fresh and new. Many of them, I suspect, were amazed to be given such a simple prescription for living longer. “Is that all I have to do?” some must have asked themselves.

On examination, however, the double-barreled advice may not prove all that simple. Many of the people to whom it was addressed have probably become masters at ignoring one or both pieces of this counsel.

The hard-driving, Type A personalities among them may be workaholics who have never developed habits of leisure. Their neglect of taking time off from work may be ingrained by now so deeply that even retirement will not free them of its effects. Powerful cultural forces in American life have enshrined unrelenting work as the supreme value.

These same people and others may have failed to cherish their marriages, and suffered from the fall-out that so often results. Being a caring husband or wife requires priority-setting that goes against conventional notions of success.

Retirement, however, does give many people an opportunity to set out anew toward a life that is more fully human. It can offer the chance for living with a set of values capable of rendering us more relaxed and, perhaps, more loving.

The beauty of this change may be, as Vaillant suggests, the lengthening of one’s years because of a growth in life satisfaction. To me, it also signifies a recognition of the importance that spirit plays in both physical and mental well-being. Ultimately, we prove to be more than our body; the soul, too, needs nurturing.

Vaillant has not pulled this advice about marriage out of thin air. In his book referred to above, he grounds this recommendation in the decades-long research project which he directs. Here is what he writes about one of the findings: “A good marriage at age 50 predicted positive aging at 80. But, surprisingly, low cholesterol levels did not.”

For fear the two pieces of advice seem elitist, meant only for affluent marrieds who graduated from a notoriously privileged college, let me apply this counsel more broadly.

Not everyone can take vacations like those that show up in the travel section of newspapers. By reason of disability some of us cannot endure the rigors of certain forms of transport. And others of us lack the funds necessary for wide-ranging trips.

However, even people not able to travel can adopt the spirit of the first recommendation. This we might accomplish by building change into our lives. By learning something new, for instance, we might discover the moral equivalent of travel.

The advice about taking care of one’s marriage can also apply to those who do not have a spouse. The quality of our human relationships in general surely conduces to our overall well-being. By making sure that our friendships flourish we help to build our own self-worth and find our positive feelings about ourselves reinforced.

Richard Griffin