What I learned from a study of the lives of 724 men spanning more than 75 years
Lessons from the longest study on happiness- TED Talk by Robert Waldinger
Tens of thousands of pages of medical records, interview forms, videotapes, audio recordings, personal accounts, and questionnaires later, the longest study ever conducted in human history by generations of researchers reveals this about what it means to live a good life.
RELATIONSHIPS
- Relationships. Matter. The more socially isolated you are, the more unhappy you’re likely to be. The more connected you are with your family, friends, and community, the longer you’re likely to live.
- Being in high-conflict relationships such as with your spouse or parents or siblings is highly dangerous to your health, both physical and mental. It’s not just the quantity of your social connections that matters, but also their quality.
- 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 really feel 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 earlier memory decline.
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 we can get that’ll 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.
What can you do, to extend a step towards a better life?
What might leaning in to 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.
