The Secret to a Happy Life - Dr. Robert Waldinger

[Music] thank you what keeps us healthy  and happy as we go through life   if you are going to invest now in your future best  self where would you put your time and your energy   there was a recent survey of Millennials asking  them what their most important life goals were   and over 80 percent said that a major life  goal for them was to get rich and another 50   percent of those same young adults said that  another major life goal was to become famous   and were constantly told to lean into work to  push harder and achieve more we're given the   impression that these are the things that we  need to go after in order to have a good life   pictures of entire lives of the choices that  people make and how those choices work out for   them those pictures are almost impossible to  get most of what we know about human life we   know from asking people to remember the past  and as we know hindsight is anything but 2020.   we forget vast amounts of what happens to us in  life and sometimes memory is downright creative   but what if we could watch entire  lives as they unfold Through Time   what if we could study people from the time that  they were teenagers all the way into old age to   see what really keeps people happy and healthy we  did that the Harvard study of adult development   may be the longest study of adult life that's  ever been done for 85 years we've tracked the   lives of 724 men year after year asking about  their work their home lives their health and of   course asking all along the way without knowing  how their life stories were going to turn out   studies like this are exceedingly rare almost  all projects of this kind fall apart within a   decade because too many people drop out of the  study or funding for the research dries up or   the researchers get distracted or they die and  nobody moves the ball further down the field   but through a combination of luck and  the Persistence of several generations   of researchers this study has survived about 40  of our original 724 men are still alive still   participating in the study most of them in their  late 90s or early 100s and we are now beginning   to study the more than 2 000 children of these  men and I'm the fourth director of the study   since 1938 we've tracked the lives of two groups  of men the first group started in the study when   they were sophomores at Harvard College they all  finished College during World War II and then most   went off to serve in the war and the second group  that we followed was a group of boys from Boston's   poorest neighborhoods boys who were chosen for the  study specifically because they were from some of   the most troubled and disadvantaged families in  Boston of the 1930s most lived in tenements many   without hot and cold running water when they  entered the study all of these teenagers were   interviewed they were given medical exams we went  to their homes and we interviewed their parents   and then these teenagers grew up into adults  who entered all walks of life they became   Factory workers and lawyers and bricklayers  and doctors one president of the United States   some developed alcoholism a few developed  schizophrenia some climbed the social ladder   from the bottom all the way to the very top and  some made that journey in the opposite direction   the founders of this study would never in their  wildest dreams have imagined that I would be here   today 85 years later telling you that the study  still continues every two years our patient and   dedicated research staff calls up our men and  asks them if we can send them yet one more set   of questions about their lives many of the inner  city Boston men ask us why do you keep wanting to   study me my life just isn't that interesting  the Harvard men never asked that question   to get the clearest picture of these lives  we don't just send them questionnaires   we interview them in their living rooms we get  their medical records from their doctors we draw   their blood scan their brains we talk to their  children we videotape them talking with their   wives about their deepest concerns and when  about 20 years ago we finally asked the wives   if they would join us as members of the study  many of the women said you know it's about time   so what have we learned what are the lessons  that come from the tens of thousands of pages of   information that we've generated on these lives  well the lessons aren't about wealth or fame or   working harder and harder the clearest message  that we get from this 85-year study is this   good relationships keep us happier and healthier  period we've learned three big lessons about   relationships the first is that social connections  are really good for us and that loneliness kills   it turns out that people who are more socially  connected to family to friends to community are   happier they're physically healthier and they live  longer than people who are less well connected   and the experience of loneliness turns out to  be toxic people who are more isolated than they   want to be from others find that they're less  happy their health declines earlier in midlife   their brain functioning declines sooner and they  live shorter lives than people who are not lonely   and the sad fact is that at any given time more  than one in three Americans and as many as two   out of three young adults will report that they  are lonely and we know that you can be lonely in   a crowd and you can be lonely in a marriage so the  second big lesson that we learned is that it's not   just the number of friends you have and it's not  whether or not you're in a committed relationship   but it's the quality of your close relationships  that matters it turns out that living in the midst   of conflict is really bad for our health high  conflict marriages for example without much   affection turn out to be very bad for our  health perhaps worse than getting divorced   and living in the midst of good warm relationships  is protective once we had followed our men all the   way into their 80s we wanted to look back at them  at midlife and to see if we could predict who was   going to grow into a happy healthy octogenarian  and who wasn't and when we gathered together   everything we knew about them at age 50. it  wasn't their middle age cholesterol levels   that predicted how they were going to grow old it  was how satisfied they were in their relationships   the people who were the most satisfied in their  relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age   80. and good close relationships seem to buffer us  from some of the slings and arrows of getting old   our most happily partnered men and women reported  in their 80s that on the days when they had more   physical pain their mood stayed just as happy  but the people who were in unhappy relationships   on the days when they reported more physical  pain it was magnified by more emotional pain   and the third big lesson that we learned about  relationships and our health is that good   relationships don't just protect our bodies they  protect our brains it turns out that being in a   securely attached relationship to another person  in your 80s is protective that the people who   are in relationships where they feel that they  can count on the other person in times of need   those people's memories stay sharper longer and  the people in relationships where they feel they   really can't count on the other one those are  the people who experience early memory decline   and those good relationships they  don't have to be smooth all the time   some of our octogenarian couples could  bicker with each other day in and day   out but as long as they felt that they  could really count on the other when   the going got tough those arguments  didn't take a toll on their memories   so this message that good close relationships  are good for our health and well-being   this is wisdom that's as old as the Hills why  is this so hard to get and so easy to ignore   well we're human what we'd really like is a quick  fix something that we can get that will make our   lives good and keep them that way relationships  are messy and they're complicated and the hard   work of tending to family and friends it's not  sexy or glamorous it's also lifelong it never ends   the people in our 85 year study who were the  happiest in retirement were the people who had   actively worked to replace workmates with new  Playmates just like the Millennials in that   recent survey many of our men when they were  starting out as young adults really believed   that Fame and wealth and high achievement were  what they needed to go after to have a good life   but over and over over these 85 years our study  has shown that the people who feared the best were   the people who leaned into relationships  with family with Friends with Community   so what about you let's say you're 25 or  you're 40 or you're 60 what might leaning   into relationships even look like well  the possibilities are practically endless   it might be something as simple as replacing  screen time with people time or livening up a   stale relationship by doing something new together  long walks or date nights or reaching out to that   family member who you haven't spoken to in years  because those all too common family feuds take a   terrible toll on the people who hold the grudges  I'd like to close with a quote from Mark Twain   more than a century ago he was looking  back on his life and he wrote this   there isn't time so brief is life for bickerings  apologies heart burnings callings to account   there is only time for loving and  but an instant so to speak for that   the good life is built with good relationships  thank you for tuning in to this episode of after   skool I'm Robert waldinger professor of Psychiatry  at Harvard Medical School and the director of the   Harvard study of adult development if you'd  like to learn more about my research and books   please check out my new book The Good  Life and my website robertwaldinger.com I hope this talk helps you think about  what's most important to you in your life [Music]

Channel: After Skool

Views: 365,772

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Id: IULhd1UuicA

Length: 12min 39sec (759 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 25 2023