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# Robert Waldinger: What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on
happiness | TED
# https://www.youtube.com/watch/8KkKuTCFvzI

00:00:12.756 What keeps us healthy and happy

00:00:15.756 as we go through life?
00:00:18.506 If you were going to invest now
00:00:21.048 in your future best self,
00:00:23.131 where would you put your timeand your energy?
00:00:27.131 There was a recent survey of millennials
00:00:29.548 asking them what theirmost important life goals were,
00:00:34.756 and over 80 percent said
00:00:36.798 that a major life goal for themwas to get rich.
00:00:40.964 And another 50 percentof those same young adults
00:00:45.339 said that another major life goal
00:00:47.881 was to become famous.
00:00:50.964 (Laughter)
00:00:52.214 And we're constantly toldto lean in to work, to push harder
00:00:58.881 and achieve more.
00:01:00.964 We're given the impression that theseare the things that we need to go
after
00:01:04.631 in order to have a good life.
00:01:06.506 Pictures of entire lives,
00:01:08.714 of the choices that people makeand how those choices work out for
them,
00:01:13.964 those picturesare almost impossible to get.
00:01:18.089 Most of what we know about human life
00:01:21.173 we know from asking peopleto remember the past,
00:01:24.631 and as we know, hindsightis anything but 20/20.
00:01:29.464 We forget vast amountsof what happens to us in life,
00:01:33.173 and sometimes memoryis downright creative.
00:01:36.798 But what if we could watch entire lives
00:01:41.214 as they unfold through time?
00:01:44.089 What if we could study peoplefrom the time that they were teenagers
00:01:48.089 all the way into old age
00:01:50.839 to see what really keeps peoplehappy and healthy?
00:01:55.548 We did that.
00:01:57.631 The Harvard Study of Adult Development
00:01:59.881 may be the longest studyof adult life that's ever been done.
00:02:05.714 For 75 years, we've trackedthe lives of 724 men,
00:02:13.381 year after year, asking about their work,their home lives, their
health,
00:02:17.881 and of course asking all along the waywithout knowing how their life
stories
00:02:22.298 were going to turn out.
00:02:25.298 Studies like this are exceedingly rare.
00:02:28.923 Almost all projects of this kindfall apart within a decade
00:02:33.006 because too many peopledrop out of the study,
00:02:36.214 or funding for the research dries up,
00:02:39.131 or the researchers get distracted,
00:02:41.423 or they die, and nobody moves the ballfurther down the field.
00:02:46.298 But through a combination of luck
00:02:48.548 and the persistenceof several generations of researchers,
00:02:52.298 this study has survived.
00:02:54.506 About 60 of our original 724 men
00:02:59.048 are still alive,
00:03:00.381 still participating in the study,
00:03:02.548 most of them in their 90s.
00:03:05.548 And we are now beginning to study
00:03:07.506 the more than 2,000 children of these men.
00:03:11.673 And I'm the fourth director of the study.
00:03:15.423 Since 1938, we've tracked the livesof two groups of men.
00:03:20.173 The first group started in the study
00:03:22.339 when they were sophomoresat Harvard College.
00:03:25.048 They all finished collegeduring World War II,
00:03:27.881 and then most went offto serve in the war.
00:03:31.298 And the second group that we've followed
00:03:33.464 was a group of boysfrom Boston's poorest neighborhoods,
00:03:37.631 boys who were chosen for the study
00:03:39.673 specifically because they werefrom some of the most troubled
00:03:43.048 and disadvantaged families
00:03:44.923 in the Boston of the 1930s.
00:03:47.673 Most lived in tenements,many without hot and cold running water.
00:03:54.506 When they entered the study,
00:03:56.464 all of these teenagers were interviewed.
00:03:59.423 They were given medical exams.
00:04:01.631 We went to their homesand we interviewed their parents.
00:04:05.214 And then these teenagersgrew up into adults
00:04:07.589 who entered all walks of life.
00:04:10.048 They became factory workers and lawyersand bricklayers and doctors,
00:04:16.173 one President of the United States.
00:04:20.173 Some developed alcoholism.A few developed schizophrenia.
00:04:25.339 Some climbed the social ladder
00:04:27.631 from the bottomall the way to the very top,
00:04:30.881 and some made that journeyin the opposite direction.
00:04:35.506 The founders of this study
00:04:38.506 would never in their wildest dreams
00:04:40.506 have imagined that I would bestanding here today, 75 years later,
00:04:45.089 telling you thatthe study still continues.
00:04:49.298 Every two years, our patientand dedicated research staff
00:04:52.923 calls up our menand asks them if we can send them
00:04:56.006 yet one more set of questionsabout their lives.
00:05:00.048 Many of the inner city Boston men ask us,
00:05:03.631 "Why do you keep wanting to study me?My life just isn't that
interesting."
00:05:08.589 The Harvard men never ask that question.
00:05:11.006 (Laughter)
00:05:20.923 To get the clearest pictureof these lives,
00:05:23.798 we don't just send them questionnaires.
00:05:26.756 We interview them in their living rooms.
00:05:29.256 We get their medical recordsfrom their doctors.
00:05:32.214 We draw their blood, we scan their brains,
00:05:34.714 we talk to their children.
00:05:36.464 We videotape them talking with their wivesabout their deepest
concerns.
00:05:41.714 And when, about a decade ago,we finally asked the wives
00:05:45.298 if they would join usas members of the study,
00:05:47.673 many of the women said,"You know, it's about time."
00:05:50.423 (Laughter)
00:05:51.506 So what have we learned?
00:05:53.214 What are the lessons that comefrom the tens of thousands of pages
00:05:58.464 of information that we've generated
00:06:01.506 on these lives?
00:06:03.714 Well, the lessons aren't about wealthor fame or working harder and
harder.
00:06:10.506 The clearest message that we getfrom this 75-year study is this:
00:06:16.839 Good relationships keep ushappier and healthier. Period.
00:06:23.006 We've learned three big lessonsabout relationships.
00:06:26.839 The first is that social connectionsare really good for us,
00:06:30.964 and that loneliness kills.
00:06:33.506 It turns out that peoplewho are more socially connected
00:06:37.173 to family, to friends, to community,
00:06:40.298 are happier, they're physically healthier,and they live longer
00:06:45.006 than people who are less well connected.
00:06:48.423 And the experience of lonelinessturns out to be toxic.
00:06:51.839 People who are more isolatedthan they want to be from others
00:06:57.006 find that they are less happy,
00:07:00.256 their health declines earlier in midlife,
00:07:03.214 their brain functioning declines sooner
00:07:05.464 and they live shorter livesthan people who are not lonely.
00:07:10.048 And the sad factis that at any given time,
00:07:13.298 more than one in five Americanswill report that they're lonely.
00:07:19.048 And we know that youcan be lonely in a crowd
00:07:21.714 and you can be lonely in a marriage,
00:07:24.423 so the second big lesson that we learned
00:07:26.548 is that it's not justthe number of friends you have,
00:07:29.673 and it's not whether or notyou're in a committed relationship,
00:07:33.214 but it's the qualityof your close relationships that matters.
00:07:38.548 It turns out that living in the midstof conflict is really bad for our
health.
00:07:43.381 High-conflict marriages, for example,without much affection,
00:07:47.381 turn out to be very bad for our health,perhaps worse than getting
divorced.
00:07:53.173 And living in the midst of good,warm relationships is protective.
00:07:57.964 Once we had followed our menall the way into their 80s,
00:08:01.089 we wanted to look back at them at midlife
00:08:04.131 and to see if we could predict
00:08:05.714 who was going to growinto a happy, healthy octogenarian
00:08:09.714 and who wasn't.
00:08:11.673 And when we gathered togethereverything we knew about them
00:08:15.923 at age 50,
00:08:18.089 it wasn't their middle agecholesterol levels
00:08:20.631 that predicted how theywere going to grow old.
00:08:23.548 It was how satisfied they werein their relationships.
00:08:27.048 The people who were the most satisfiedin their relationships at age 50
00:08:31.964 were the healthiest at age 80.
00:08:35.673 And good, close relationshipsseem to buffer us
00:08:38.881 from some of the slings and arrowsof getting old.
00:08:42.506 Our most happily partnered men and women
00:08:46.506 reported, in their 80s,
00:08:48.547 that on the dayswhen they had more physical pain,
00:08:51.506 their mood stayed just as happy.
00:08:54.422 But the people who werein unhappy relationships,
00:08:57.672 on the days when theyreported more physical pain,
00:09:00.631 it was magnified by more emotional pain.
00:09:04.381 And the third big lesson that we learnedabout relationships and our
health
00:09:08.756 is that good relationshipsdon't just protect our bodies,
00:09:12.047 they protect our brains.
00:09:14.464 It turns out that beingin a securely attached relationship
00:09:19.131 to another person in your 80sis protective,
00:09:23.047 that the people who are in relationships
00:09:25.047 where they really feel they can counton the other person in times of
need,
00:09:29.214 those people's memoriesstay sharper longer.
00:09:32.922 And the people in relationships
00:09:34.464 where they feel they reallycan't count on the other one,
00:09:37.589 those are the people who experienceearlier memory decline.
00:09:42.506 And those good relationships,they don't have to be smooth all the
time.
00:09:46.006 Some of our octogenarian couplescould bicker with each other
00:09:49.589 day in and day out,
00:09:51.381 but as long as they felt that theycould really count on the other
00:09:54.547 when the going got tough,
00:09:56.422 those arguments didn't take a tollon their memories.
00:10:01.589 So this message,
00:10:04.381 that good, close relationshipsare good for our health and well-being,
00:10:10.089 this is wisdom that's as old as the hills.
00:10:13.047 Why is this so hard to getand so easy to ignore?
00:10:17.547 Well, we're human.
00:10:19.047 What we'd really like is a quick fix,
00:10:21.881 something we can get
00:10:23.589 that'll make our lives goodand keep them that way.
00:10:27.339 Relationships are messyand they're complicated
00:10:30.672 and the hard work of tendingto family and friends,
00:10:34.506 it's not sexy or glamorous.
00:10:37.214 It's also lifelong. It never ends.
00:10:40.547 The people in our 75-year studywho were the happiest in retirement
00:10:45.631 were the people who had actively workedto replace workmates with new
playmates.
00:10:51.506 Just like the millennialsin that recent survey,
00:10:54.506 many of our men when theywere starting out as young adults
00:10:58.131 really believed that fame and wealthand high achievement
00:11:02.172 were what they needed to go afterto have a good life.
00:11:06.131 But over and over, over these 75 years,our study has shown
00:11:10.339 that the people who fared the best werethe people who leaned in to
relationships,
00:11:16.006 with family, with friends, with community.
00:11:21.089 So what about you?
00:11:23.089 Let's say you're 25,or you're 40, or you're 60.
00:11:27.797 What might leaning into relationships even look like?
00:11:31.756 Well, the possibilitiesare practically endless.
00:11:35.589 It might be something as simpleas replacing screen time with people
time
00:11:41.714 or livening up a stale relationshipby doing something new together,
00:11:46.214 long walks or date nights,
00:11:49.381 or reaching out to that family memberwho you haven't spoken to in
years,
00:11:54.256 because those all-too-common family feuds
00:11:57.756 take a terrible toll
00:12:00.006 on the people who hold the grudges.
00:12:04.006 I'd like to close with a quotefrom Mark Twain.
00:12:09.297 More than a century ago,
00:12:11.672 he was looking back on his life,
00:12:14.339 and he wrote this:
00:12:16.839 "There isn't time, so brief is life,
00:12:20.547 for bickerings, apologies,heartburnings, callings to account.
00:12:26.714 There is only time for loving,
00:12:29.547 and but an instant,so to speak, for that."
00:12:34.756 The good life is builtwith good relationships.
00:12:39.172 Thank you.
00:12:40.422 (Applause)