What is the Secret to a Good and Healthy Life?

Dr. Robert Waldinger, a professor of psychoanalysis and psychology at Harvard Medical School and director of one of the longest-running studies on adult growth and development, has recently addressed "what makes life enjoyable and good" based on the results of Harvard's research. This study has been examining the lives of two groups of men in America for over seventy years. What keeps us healthy and happy throughout life? If we are to plan for our future selves, what should we consider and invest energy in achieving? When young people are asked what their life goals are, they often say they want to be rich or famous. We are always told to work harder to achieve more. It has been ingrained in us that to reach our goals and have a good life, we must strive hard. However, when we ask individuals about their lives, many have forgotten significant images from their past and cannot recall which decisions led to what events in their lives. But at Harvard University, we have managed to document the lives of a group of individuals throughout their entire lives. We have monitored the lives of 724 men for 75 years, asking them annually about their jobs, family lives, and health. Such research is rare because typically, after a couple of decades, individuals decide not to participate anymore, funding runs out, researchers lose interest, or their workplaces and lives change. However, this study has survived due to both luck and the dedication of several generations of researchers. Nearly sixty percent of our original group of 724 are still alive and continue to participate in the study. Most of them are in their nineties, and I am the fourth person to manage this research project. Since 1938, we have observed the lives of two groups of men. The first group consisted of second-year Harvard students who completed their studies during World War II, and nearly all of them went to war. The second group included boys from one of the poorest high schools in Boston. The boys chosen for this study came from very troubled and impoverished families in Boston. Many grew up in the ruins of the suburbs, lacking hot water or sewage. When we began this study, we interviewed all participants. We visited their homes and spoke with their families. We conducted medical tests on them. They grew up to become factory workers, lawyers, doctors, drivers, and even a President of the United States. Some turned to alcohol, and some developed schizophrenia. Some rapidly climbed the social ladder and reached the highest levels of society, while others moved in the opposite direction. Those who founded this study could not have imagined that it would last for 75 years. I must tell you that this study is still ongoing. Every two years, we reach out to these men and ask them to answer new questions. Many of the men who came from the poor Boston high school ask why we still want to know about their lives. They feel their lives are not interesting. This is a question that none of the men from the Harvard group ever asked. To have a clear picture of these individuals' lives, we do not just send them a list of questions. We go through their medical records and interview them in their homes. We take their blood samples, scan their brains, talk to their children, and film them when they discuss their deep life concerns with their spouses. When we finally asked these men's wives a decade ago if they were willing to participate in our studies, many of them said it was now time for women to be included in this study. But what have we learned from all this research? What lessons have we gleaned from thousands of pages of data collected over the years? I must say that the lesson we learned had nothing to do with wealth, fame, or working harder and harder. The clearest message we have received throughout these seventy-five years of research is this: good relationships lead to greater happiness and health in our lives. That’s it! It is not the number of friends or the presence or absence of committed relationships that brings happiness and health, but rather the quality of these relationships that determines our mental health. From this research, we derived three important lessons about relationships: One: Social relationships are very beneficial for us, and loneliness can be deadly. It appears that individuals who are more connected to relatives, friends, and community members are not only happier mentally but also remain physically healthier. They live longer than lonely individuals. We have learned that loneliness is like a poison that gradually poisons individuals over time. Those who are lonelier and wish to limit their relationships with others are less happy, and their health declines in middle age. Their brains begin to forget sooner, and their lives are shorter than those who are not lonely. The unfortunate news is that throughout history, more than one in five Americans has often felt lonely. And we know that individuals can feel lonely even among crowds or when married. The second lesson we learned is that it is not the number of friends or the presence or absence of committed relationships that brings happiness and health, but rather the quality of these relationships that determines our mental health. Living amid conflict is very detrimental to our health. Turbulent marriages where both parties do not have much love for each other are very harmful to health; even more harmful than divorce. When we studied these men's lives into their eighties, we looked back and thought whether we could predict who would have a happier and healthier old age based on their midlife knowledge. We gathered all the information related to these individuals until their fifties. It was not their cholesterol levels in middle age that predicted their happiness and health in their eighties, but rather their satisfaction with their relationships. Those who were more satisfied with their relationships by the age of fifty became happier and healthier elderly individuals. The happy eighty-year-old men and women in our study even reported good mental health on days when they experienced physical pain. However, for those who were dissatisfied with their relationships, physical pain also meant severe emotional pain. A healthy relationship contributes more than anything to our health and happiness, but why do we struggle so much and find it hard to navigate life more easily? The third and most important lesson we learned from this research is that good relationships do not just protect our bodies. Individuals who had strong emotional relationships in their eighties had healthier brains. Their memories deteriorated later than others, and their intelligence remained youthful for a longer time. Now we have a clear finding that a healthy relationship contributes more than anything to our health and happiness, but why do we struggle so much and find it hard to navigate life more easily? Well, because we are human. We all seek quick solutions to our problems. Something we can obtain to improve our lives and maintain it in the same way. Human relationships are not simple; they have specific complexities, and our relationships with friends and family are not easy. Relationships are not always bright; they persist throughout our lives and never end. Throughout these seventy-five years of research, those who were happier and more satisfied were those who consistently worked on replacing their relationships with others. Like today’s youth, many of these men believed when they were young that fame and wealth would be their greatest achievements in life and that they should pursue them to have a good life. But time and again over these 75 years, our research has shown that those who were happier and healthier were those who had better relationships with family, friends, and their surrounding community and relied on these social relationships. But what does relying on relationships mean, and how can one achieve it? I must say that there are countless ways to do this: reduce time spent on electronic devices like computers, phones, and tablets, and increase human relationships. Try to do something new together at every stage of the relationship to keep it fresh: walk together or have dinner together. Reach out to that distant relative you haven’t heard from in years. Mark Twain, the famous American writer, says that in life, there is no time for resentment, making each other sad, apologizing, and hurting each other. Life is just a short time for love. A good life is built on good relationships.