Everyone wants to be happy. There is no argument about that. The question is, what will make you happy? If happiness is your ultimate life goal, where will you spend most of your time and energy? Will you focus on gaining financial abundance, good health, strong relationship, successful career or prestige and power? What do you need to achieve to have a good life? A Harvard Study that started in the late 1930s has been examining this question for years now. It is the longest study that has ever been done. So, what makes a good life?
The Harvard Study of Adult Development otherwise known as the Grant Study, had followed 724 men, year after year, from the time they were teenagers, to their marriage and career life all the way to their old age. While the original 268 men were from Harvard University, the remaining 456 men were from Boston’s poorest neighborhood. For years, the men agreed to have regular extensive interviews, together with a series of physical and physiological examinations to determine their physical, mental and emotional well being.
Some of these men became workers and bricklayers. Others became alcoholic and developed schizophrenia. At the same time, a great number of them achieved great success and became doctors and lawyers. One of them even became a US President.
So, what makes a good life? If you think that money, fame and success are the answers, think again. After almost 75 years of research, here are the three big lessons they have learned according to Robert Waldinger, the fourth director of the study:
1. Social Connections are Important to our Well Being
People who have deep connections with their family, friends and community lived happier, healthier and longer lives. Social connections improved one’s physical, mental and emotional well being. People who live in isolation and are lonely often live shorter lives.
2. Quality of your Relationship Matters
When it comes to relationships, it is quality over quantity. It is not a matter of how many friends you have or if you are married or not, but rather it is all about whether you have a healthy relationship with the people around you. The quality of your relationship will determine your quality of life. In the study, the people who are happy and satisfied with their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.
3. Happy Relationships Protect Both the Body and the Brain
Happy relationships not just protect our physical body but also our mental and brain health. The people who are secure and happy in their relationships remained sharp while the others who don’t have meaningful relationships suffered from memory decline.
Check out this Ted talk by Robert Waldinger for more insights:
Do you want to have a good life? Then improve on your social wellness. Invest in the quality of your relationships with the people who are dear to you. Make this your first step towards a better life.
First published May 7, 2020.
Feature Image by Posted by A.L. Jonas in Social, 0 comments
All of us experience different kinds of stress in our daily lives. We often force ourselves to act as if nothing is wrong; pretending that everything is just fine. We may be feeling sick and tired emotionally or mentally. All throughout the day, we act like everything’s just normal. We make the effort to smile and be cheerful just to make sure no one notices that we’re not okay. For this scenario, the Dark Mode Challenge is a way to get through. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. This is how most of us cope with challenging mental and emotional issues – we pretend that we’re just fine. We have been programmed to believe that showing our vulnerability is a weakness. We believe that it is unacceptable to indulge in or to show our negative emotions to anybody else. In the process, we are engaging in toxic positivity. Your challenge is to indulge your dark mood, by switching on your Dark Mode. Your task is to do everything you need to do to express your feelings. Keep in mind that you should do this without harming yourself or someone else. You can do this with a friend or on your own. This process is you accepting that it’s okay to not to be okay. You can’t control everything. Sometimes you just need to relax and have faith that things will work out. Let go a little and just let life happen. Schedule a whole day, or the weekend. Go offline, laze around and unwind. Focus on what you are feeling. It doesn’t matter if you decide to watch sad movies and cry all through it. If it takes finishing off a tub of your favorite ice cream; don’t stop yourself. Write, draw, paint, listen to music or dance your heart out. The goal is to do whatever you need to do to get the negative feelings out and truly feel them. Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame. Imagine yourself as Batman, who is always on dark mode. As Batman, you are trying to engage your negative feelings. Your goals is to draw them out from within yourself. Put a name to each one of them if you can, and in the process, vanquish them. In the morning, you can switch to your light mode again. Named must your fear be before banish it you can. This doesn’t mean that you dwell in the negative state. That’s why you have to set a time limit for yourself. Have a friend remind you that your time is up. Give yourself a day or two, no more. We are often told to “just get over it”. Worse, this is what we tell ourselves. This overgeneralization of a happy, optimistic state results in the denial, diminishment and invalidation of our emotional experience. This is toxic positivity. You are essentially denied the right to experience your emotions. We often do this to ourselves and sometimes to other people. It is a form of self-sabotage that we have come to treat as normal. This should not be normal. You should take the time to indulge in your negative feelings. The whole purpose of bawling your eyes out, or writing your heart out, etc.; is to get the heavy emotions and thoughts out of your system. This will help you feel a little lighter mentally and emotionally. The process will help you clarify your thoughts. This will make it easier for you to start working on how to get back up from your dark mode. You can slowly start switching to your light-hearted mode again. Featured Image: Original Photo by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash.
The Dark Mode Challenge
The Dark Mode Challenge
Use Your Imagination
Toxic Positivity