Geroscience. 2026 Jun 16. doi: 10.1007/s11357-026-02339-z. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
The growing burden of aging-related disease and functional decline across Europe underscores the urgent need to optimize aging trajectories rather than simply extend lifespan. Achieving this goal requires identifying modifiable determinants that shape biological, psychological, and functional aging across the life course. Satisfaction with life (SWL) is emerging as one such integrative factor, linking adaptive capacity, resilience, and long-term healthspan outcomes. In this conceptual and translational paper, we integrate evidence from geroscience, psychology, and occupational health to position SWL as both a marker and a potentially modifiable determinant of healthspan. We review biological, psychological, and social mechanisms linking SWL to aging processes, including cardiovascular and inflammatory regulation, neural and affective processing, psychological resilience and reserve, and social integration and generativity. Collectively, these pathways suggest that SWL reflects the functional integrity of adaptive systems that shape vulnerability to age-related functional decline. We further argue that occupational settings represent a uniquely powerful and scalable context for targeting SWL, given their sustained influence on behavior, stress exposure, social roles, and meaning across adulthood. Building on this framework, we discuss the Semmelweis Study, a large prospective workplace-based cohort, together with the Semmelweis-EUniWell Workplace Health Promotion Program, as an integrated model for translating geroscience-informed insights into structured interventions. Such workplace health promotion programs can target core psychological capacities-including savoring, self-regulation, creative and executive efficiency, and resilience-that are closely linked to adaptive capacity and aging-related outcomes. Finally, we discuss implications for geroscience, public health, and policy, highlighting how embedding SWL as a strategic target within workplace systems may contribute to extending healthspan, strengthening workforce sustainability, and reducing the societal burden of population aging. Conceptualizing satisfaction with life not merely as a subjective outcome but as a dimension of biological aging and adaptive resilience opens new avenues for intervention at the interface of geroscience and real-world systems.
PMID:42301612 | DOI:10.1007/s11357-026-02339-z