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Back in the 1930s some young Catholic nuns were asked to write short, personal essays about their lives. They described edifying events in their childhood, the schools they attended, their religious experiences and the in fluences that led them to the convent. Although the essays may have been ini tially used to assess each nun's career path, the documents were eventually archived and largely forgotten. More than 60 years later the nuns' writings surfaced again when three psycholo gists at the University of Kentucky re viewed the essays as part of a larger study on aging and Alzheimer's dis ease. Deborah Danner, David Snowdon and Wallace Friesen read the nun's bio graphical sketches and scored them for positive emotional content, recording instances of happiness, interest, love and hope. What they found was re markable: The nuns who expressed the most positive emotions lived up to 10 years longer than …