Japan's 'ikigai' has no single English translation, but the simple idea of having a reason to get up each morning was linked, in a 2008 study that tracked 43,000 Japanese adults for seven years, to measurably lower mortality

Japan's 'ikigai' has no single English translation, but the simple idea of having a reason to get up each morning was linked, in a 2008 study that tracked 43,000 Japanese adults for seven years, to measurably lower mortality

Research suggests that Japanese adults who report having ikigai — a sense of purpose or reason for living — show measurably lower mortality rates over time compared to those who do not. The word itself, untranslatable in a clean one-to-one English swap, became one of the most cited cultural exports from the Japanese archipelago in recent decades. The closest English gloss is something like “a reason to get up in the morning,” but even that flatt…