See how high your purpose in life ranks and then take a few simple steps to improve it.

Go for the goal: Life with a purpose may protected you from dementia.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Do you think the best days of your life are behind you, or that your day-to-day activities have little to no meaning? You could be at higher risk for developing Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

THE DETAILS: The researchers recruited 951 older adults with an average age of 80 from 40 retirement communities and senior housing facilities around Chicago. Each adult underwent initial psychological tests to determine if he or she had Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment, a precursor to Alzheimer's disease. Each also filled out questionnaires related to "purpose in life," defined as the ability to derive meaning from life's experiences and to possess a sense of intentionality and goals that drive behavior. For example, positive responses to the statements "I feel good when I think of what I have done in the past and what I hope to do in the future" and "I enjoy making plans for the future and working them to a reality" indicate having a strong purpose in life, whereas positive responses to the statements "I live life one day at a time and do not really think about the future" and "I sometimes feel as if I have done all there is to do in life" indicate not having a purpose in life.

The adults were followed for seven years, during which 16 percent of them developed Alzheimer's disease—and those who did develop the disease had reported lower purpose in life than the people who didn't. In fact, people with high purpose of life score were 2.4 times less likely to develop Alzheimer's than people with low scores. And even after adjusting for factors like previous depressive symptoms, the size of an individual's social network, and chronic medical conditions, having a purpose in life was strongly associated with a decreased risk of Alzheimer's disease.

The same held true for people with mild cognitive impairment. The researchers tested a sub-sample of 698 adults who were free of mild cognitive impairment at the start of the study and in that group, 285 developed the condition over the seven-year period. People having high purpose in life scores were 1.5 times less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment than people with low scores.

Read on to learn how to create more meaning and purpose in life.