The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

Thu, 13 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Ask people what will make their later years good and most will point to money, career, or health habits. More than eight decades of data say they’re aiming at the wrong target. The single best predictor of how well you age — how long you live, how sharp you stay, how content you feel — is the warmth of your close relationships. That’s the headline finding of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, and after tracking the same lives for generations, its directors state it plainly: good relationships keep us healthier and happier. Period. It’s an unglamorous conclusion, and a costly one to earn — you can’t run this experiment in a lab or over a weekend, and it took decades of patient, every-two-years tracking before the pattern stood out from the noise.

Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz on SummaryShelf

The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness