Are we healthy and happy as we go through life? We have
become thinner to work harder and achieve more. We are given the impression
that to get a good life, we need the things we need. Pictures of whole life,
about the choices that people know about how those choices work for them, it is
almost impossible to get those pictures. But what if we could see our whole
life through time? What if we could study people at a time when they were
teenagers to see in old age which really keeps people unhappy and healthy? Most lived in many houses, without hot and
cold running water. The first is that social relationships are really good for
us, and it kills loneliness. It turns out that people who are socially happy
with family, friends.And a lonely experience is toxic.
People who are more
isolated want to be different from others, find that they are less happy, their
health declines from middle age, their brain functioning declines soon and they
become younger. live people who are not
alone. And the sad thing is that at any given time, more than one in five
Americans report that they are alone. And we know that you can be alone in a
crowd and you can be alone in a wedding, so the other big lesson we learned is
that there are not as many friends as you, and whether it is in a committed
relationship , But it matters to your close relationships that matter. It turns
out that living in the conflict is actually bad for our health. High-endogenous
marriages, for example, without much affection, can be very bad for our health,
perhaps worse than being divorced. And staying in good, warm relationships is
protective. Once we had followed our men like they were in their 80s, we wanted
to see them return to midlife and see if we could predict who would grow into a
happier, healthier who else has not been. And when we knew about them at age
50, it was not their medieval cholesterol levels that predicted how they were
getting older. It was gratifying how satisfied they were about their
relationship.
Those who were most satisfied in their relationships at age 50
were the most healthy at age 80. And good, close relationships to keep us from
getting old with some slings and errors. Our happiest runaway men and women, in
their 80s, reported that the day they suffered more physical pain, they were in
the same mood. But those who had unhappy relationships, in days when there was
more physical pain, it was exacerbated by more emotional pain. And the third
big lesson we learned about relationships and our health is that good
relationships do not protect our bodies, they protect our minds. It turns out
that in your 80s protective being a securely attached relationship to another
person, that people who are in relationships where they actually feel they
count the other person in their time of need Can, those memories are sharper
for longer. And people in relationships where they feel they don't really trust
the other are people who decline inexperienced memory. And those who have good
relationships do not have to be comfortable all the time. What we really want
is a quick fix, something we can get that will make our lives good and keep them
that way. Relationships are messy and they are complicated and the hard work of
family and friends, it is not sexy or glamorous. It is also lifelong. it never
ends. Many of our men when starting out as young adults actually believed that
fame and high achievement were the ones who needed to go on for a good life. Suppose
you are 25 years old, or you are 40 years old, or you are 60 years old. What
can a tilt in relationships look like? Well, the possibilities are practically
endless. It could be something as simple as changing screen time over time for
people, or doing something new together to sustain a stale relationship, long
walks or date nights, or reaching out to a family member you've spent years
with. I have not spoken, because they suffer all the usual family fights.There
is no time, so life is very strange.
A good life is built with good
relationships.