Good relationships keep us healthier
Date: Sunday, December 6, 2020
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The Harvard Study of adult Development may be the longest study of adult life that’s ever been done. The directors of this study that have reached to 75 years long tracked the lives of 724 teenagers. They asked about their work, health and their life in general along the years. Two groups of men were involved in the study. The first group started with Harvard college students, when in the other hand they followed boys from Boston’s poorest neighborhoods which is the second group.
These kinds of studies are rare, limited and most of them fall apart within few years because too many people drop out of the study, the funding of the research dries out or the people involved in it die. Fortunately, this study survived. Also, about 60 of the 724 men are still alive and most of them in their 90s. First, those teenagers were interviewed and were giving a medical exam. They went to their homes and they talked with their parents.
After a decade, the teenagers grew into adults who entered different ways and jobs. Some of them were factory workers, lawyers, bricklayer, doctors and one president of the United States. “The founders of this study would never in their wildest dreams have imagined that I would be standing here today, 75 years later, telling you that the study continues...also, we don’t just send them questionnaire. We get their medical records, we draw their blood, we scan their brains and talk to their children.” Robert-the fourth director of the Study-Said.
The clearest message that they get from the 75-years study is that good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period. They Knew that social connections are really good for us, and that loneliness kills. It turns out that people who are more socially connected to family, friend and community are happier, they’re physically healthier and they live longer than people who are less connected.
They also knew that you can be lonely in crowd and you can be lonely in a marriage. So, the second lesson is the quality of the relationships you have and not the quantity. Moreover, being in securely attached relationship to another person in your 80s is protective.
So, what might be leaning in to relationships even look like? Well, the possibilities are endless. It might be something as simple as doing a new thing with someone like: long walks, date nights, reaching out to that family member who you haven’t spoken to in years or going out of your comfort zone. Robert ended his talk by a quote he liked from Mark Twain, which said "there isn’t time, so brief is life, for bickering, apologies, heartburning, calling to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that.”
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KkKuTCFvzI&t=30s
Note: I searched for a podcast URL but didn't found.
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