The Key to Happiness and Longevity
Happiness is a shared goal of humankind and has been for as long as we look back in time. Some people find it and keep it, some lose it — many see it as an impossible reality.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development is one of the longest studies of adult life to have ever taken place. In this study, they kept track of the lives of 724 men over a period of 75 years (so far). Every year, monitoring the development of their careers, health, families, and happiness.
The study was split into two groups — one being a group of Harvard sophomores who graduated during WW2 — many going off to fight in the war. The second group being a group of boys who grew up in some of the poorest neighbourhoods in Boston — they were specifically chosen for the reason, and because they came from some of the most troubled and dysfunctional families in 1930s Boston.
All of these gentlemen were interviewed, as were their families. They had medical examinations, and all was recorded. Unsurprisingly, they all went into a wide variety of trades as their lives progressed — blue collar and white collar. One of the participants even became the president of the United States. Some climbed and some descended the social ladder.
Incredibly, of all the data obtained showed that it wasn’t wealth or hard work that stood out as creating happiness for these participants — it was good relationships. Those who are more connected and have better ties to friends and family and community live longer, and those who are lonely and isolated find themselves less happy and they are more likely to die earlier than their social counterparts.
Moving on from urban dwellers from the city of Boston, there is a blue zone in the Sardinian mountains where living beyond 100 is hardly rare, and where there are six times as many people to reach 100 as on mainland Italy. Not only that, but in this area, men and women live to roughly the same age! This proportion of longevity is hardly seen in cities and urban environments throughout the globe, where women live longer than men, and reaching 100 is a rare sight to behold.
Canadian psychologist, Susan Pinker, decided to find out why this was the case. Starting with looking at the genetic profile of the people, she soon realised that genetic factors would only account for a quarter of Sardinian mountain people’s longevity — the rest was to do with environmental factors, in other words, lifestyle.
Susan visited the village of Villagrande in the Sardinian blue zone to investigate the lifestyles of the people even further. After interviewing one centenarian, the notion of good relationships aforementioned in this article was only strengthened. His entire life, and even in his old age, he has been surrounded by good friends, family and people in his village. His social network was particularly vast for someone living in a remote village in the mountains of Sardinia.
However, Pinker could not just take one Sardinian man’s life as her only evidence. She looked further into the studies of Julianne Holt-Lunstad and found that out of every aspect of middle-aged people’s lifestyles, whether it be if they smoke, whether they are obese, they exercise, etc. the one most important thing to living longer was having close and meaningful relationships.
Exploring this further, Dan Buettner, National Geographic Fellow and author did similar research into why people in isolated regions were living for so long. Only to find the same results — relationships and social interactions. It wasn’t diet, or exercise or sleep (although these are very important factors), it was mostly to do with how these people spent time together, the quality of that time and the frequency of those interactions.
And you might be thinking, ‘my social network is strong, I have 300 friends on Facebook’. However, studies very much oppose the concept of ‘social’ and ‘friends’ that we have now. Those who lived and currently live beyond 100 years old didn’t have social networks such as Facebook and Instagram, they have always had real, human interaction, in person and on a regular basis. They did not instant message and post profile pictures. Maybe this is something that we need to consider as a society?
Earlier in this article, it was mentioned that throughout the globe men tend to live shorter lives than their female counterparts. Susan Pinker also set out to find why this was the case, the answer was rather simple: women tend to prioritise their face-to-face relationships more than men do. It turns out that women spending time together is not only a short-term pleasure in the moment, but could be seriously contributing to the long-term pleasure of living a fuller and healthier life.
The majority of evidence overwhelmingly points towards relationships being the key to living a long and happy life. So, maybe skip the gym one day and go for some drinks with friends, or instead of studying in your room alone, call some mates and have a study group together. Whatever it is, maximise your face-to-face time with friends and family — because maybe you’ll be thanking them on your 100th birthday!
