Why So Many Presidents Are So Healthy

Ignoring troubling symptoms is not an option for someone who has a doctor following him virtually everywhere he goes; medical teams are steps away at all times. Even when Presidents return to private life, they are shadowed by Secret Service details, albeit smaller ones. Among those agents, an EMT is always on duty. Think of it as a retirement benefit.

At least since the mid-1970s, nearly every President has been devoted to some kind of regular exercise. Ford swam and skied. Carter jogged almost daily. Reagan chopped brush and lifted weights. Bush the younger took to biking when his knees put a halt to running. If some of that recreation was done for public relations purposes, most Presidents have come to rely on it for private sustenance. (Not everyone got the memo: as President, Bill Clinton may have been conspicuously photographed in his jogging shorts, but he typically relaxed in the office by reading, doing crosswords and chewing on cigars, a pattern that probably helped land him in New York–Presbyterian Hospital for bypass surgery in 2004 and another surgery six years later. He is now a part-time vegan.)

We all may know we need to manage our stress, but for a sitting President this is imperative, a consistent part of the advice they give one another. Be sure to rest. Take your vacations. Use Camp David. After the hard-fought 1960 election, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy met in Key Biscayne, Fla., where Nixon made an unsolicited promise. I may criticize your policies, he told Kennedy, but “of one thing I can assure you: I shall never join in any criticism of you, expressed or implied, for taking time off for relaxation. There is nothing more important than that a President be physically, mentally and emotionally in the best possible shape to confront the immensely difficult decisions he has to make.”

For many Presidents, stress acts as a force multiplier. The toll stress takes, research has shown, depends on how it is viewed. What is normally harmful becomes helpful when it is treated as a fact of life or a chance to learn. The more powerful a person is, the more in control, the better the odds he has learned to use stress to his advantage. Clinton aides flaunted his mantra like a bumper sticker: “That which doesn’t kill him only makes him stronger.” For people with that kind of resilience–sometimes called adaptive competence–stress can correlate with a longer life.

And so as 2015 unfolds, it’s important to note that three of the four current ex-Presidents may have something else to live for now. Clinton’s wife Hillary is trying to become the 45th President, and so is Bush son and brother Jeb. Aides to the elder Bush privately admit that the prospect of seeing a second son run for the White House helps keep him going.

And nothing gets the blood pumping like a little competition among friends.