What Makes Us Happy? The Longest Running Harvard Study Finds Out

Close, positive relationships can give you the best gift- a happy, healthy life.

A decades-long Harvard study has revealed what makes us happy in life. It's not money, muscles (though fitness does help things along), or even winning an Oscar. Instead, your positive, close relationships and social fitness determine your happiness and longevity. 

Robert Waldinger, the current director of the study, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, had this to share:

"This 75-year study's most important finding is this: Positive connections keep us happier and healthier. Period."

Sometimes, the most straightforward answers solve the most complex questions, don't they? 

What Is The Study About?

The Harvard Study of Adult Development has been following hundreds of lives for 84 years, tracking more than 700 men, including their spouses and descendants, from the late 1930s to the present. The study started while the participants were teenagers and continued until they were 80. 

The longitudinal study followed two groups of men over the last 80 years to identify the psychosocial predictors of healthy ageing. There are two groups of participants: The Grant Study, composed of 268 Harvard graduates from the classes of 1939-1944 and the Glueck Study group, which comprises 456 men who grew up in the inner-city neighbourhoods of Boston. 

The study subjects went on to work in various professions, including bricklayers, doctors, and factory employees.

Fun fact: One of the original subjects was John F. Kennedy Jr., who went on to become President of the United States.

The study's current director is Robert Waldinger. The associate director is Marc Shulz, PhD, a practising therapist with postdoctoral health and clinical psychology training at Harvard Medical School. 

What the study revealed

• More than money or fame, close relationships keep people happy throughout their lives. They protect people from life's dissatisfactions and help delay mental and physical decline. They are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or genes.
• Marital satisfaction has a protective effect on people's mental health. People who had happy marriages in their 80s reported that their moods didn't suffer even when they had more physical pain. Those who had unhappy marriages felt both more emotional and physical pain.
• Those who lived longer and enjoyed sound health avoided smoking and alcohol in excess. Those with strong social support experienced less mental deterioration as they aged.
• Psychiatrist George Vaillant joined the study team as a researcher in 1966 and led the study from 1972 until 2004. In a book called Aging Well, Vaillant wrote that six factors predicted healthy ageing for Harvard men in the study: physical routine, absence of alcohol abuse and smoking, having mature mechanisms to cope with life's ups and downs, healthy weight and a stable marriage. For inner-city men, education was an additional element. "The more education the inner city men obtained," Vaillant wrote in his book, "the more likely they were to stop smoking, eat sensibly, and use alcohol in moderation."
• The study showed that genetics and long-lived ancestors proved less important to longevity than the level of satisfaction with relationships in midlife. 
• The study has disproved that people's personalities are set by age 30 and cannot be changed. "Those who were clearly train wrecks in their 20s or 25s turned out to be wonderful octogenarians. On the other hand, alcoholism and major depression could take people who started life as stars and leave them as train wrecks at the end of their lives." Vaillant has been quoted saying.
• Robert Waldinger expanded the study's research scope to the wives and children of the original men. This is called the second-generation study, with hopes of continuing into the third and fourth generations.
• As participants entered mid- and late life, they were asked about retirement. The study found that people's main challenge in retirement was missing the social connections that had supported them for so long at work. Retirement talk usually focuses on economic concerns, health and caregiving. The study found that people who fare the best in retirement find ways to develop associations and a sense of purpose. 
• The study's biggest learning: People need to invest in social fitness. A big part of finding fulfilment and happiness is maintaining relationships with the people you care about and sharing your joys and sorrows.
• Isolation is detrimental to your health and can accelerate physical and cognitive ageing.
• When people were evaluated in their eighties, cholesterol levels didn't have the most significant impact; nonetheless, researchers looked back to their fifties to check for predicted causes of their happiness. Relationships were brought up once more. Those in their eighties with strong relationships could retain better moods even in physical distress.

The Final Word

The study directors Waldinger and Schulz have co-written a book, The Good Life: Lessons From the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness (Published in 2023). Contrary to popular belief, they say it is not monetary success, professional success, physical activity, or a balanced diet that helps with a prolonged and happy life. Instead, it is comfortable, healthy relationships. So take stock of your relationships, they advise. 

"Perhaps every year, on New Year's Day or the morning of your birthday, take a few minutes to draw up your current social universe and consider what you're receiving, what you're giving, and where you would like to be in another year."

You can find out more about the study here: https://www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org/

What do you think of the study? Have happy, healthy and meaningful relationships created a difference in your life? Tell us how you have nurtured them and a few secrets of your own. Comment below or email us at editor@silvertalkies.com, and we would love to update this article with your thoughts!

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