BITESIZE | The # 1 Lesson From The World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness | Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz #603

Today’s guests are both passionate about spreading the crucial message that high-quality relationships are one of the biggest predictors of happiness, health, and longevity. Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests. Today’s clip is from episode 364 of the podcast with co-authors of The Good Life: Lessons From The World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness – Professors Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz. They are directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, an extraordinary research project that began in 1938 and has followed participants for more than eight decades. In this clip, they explain why nurturing high-quality relationships may be one of the most powerful things we can do to support both our long-term health and our happiness. By the end of today’s episode, I’m pretty sure you’ll feel inspired to reconnect with an old friend, phone that family member you don’t see enough of, or make plans for a face-to-face get-together. You’ll feel happier, and even be healthier, if you do because the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives. Thanks to our sponsor ⁠⁠⁠https://drinkag1.com/livemore Show notes and the full podcast are available at https://drchatterjee.com/364 Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts ⁠⁠https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore⁠⁠ For other podcast platforms go to ⁠⁠https://fblm.supercast.com. DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rangan Chatterjee?

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• 0:41Rangan Chatterjee?

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• 1:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  See all details at drinkag1.com/livemore. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 364 of the podcast with co-authors of The Good Life, Professors Robert Wardinger and Mark Schultz. Robert and Mark are directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, an extraordinary research project that started all the way back in 1938 and has followed participants for more than eight decades.

• 2:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  In this clip, they explain why nurturing high-quality relationships may be one of the most powerful things we can do to support both our long-term health and our happiness.

• 2:18Rangan Chatterjee?

  You are both, I guess, guardians of one of the most important studies on human happiness. I think there's so much that you've learnt, there's so much that we can all learn from your findings. But I thought a really interesting place to start would be with something you've written about in your book, that there are two major predictors of our happiness, our health, maybe even our longevity, and that's the frequency and the quality of our contact with other people. Why are those two things so important?

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Well, frequency has to do with this observation that when we don't keep current with each other, with the really important people in our lives, that perfectly good relationships can simply wither away from neglect. And the quality has a lot to do with what actually is restorative and energizing about relationships, which is the sense of relationships being stress reducers, the sense of relationships being energizers, affirmers of our identity, so many different things that we get in a positive way from good quality

• 3:47Speaker 01

  relationships. So it is, it's frequency and quality.

• 3:50Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. I think if you walk out on the street and you were to talk to people about their, let's say their longevity, right, their, their health, both now and into the future, what's important, I think many people would immediately go to things like nutrition, physical activity, sleep, for example, yet you guys are making the case that sitting above them all, potentially the quality of our relationships.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's remarkable. I mean, I think we were surprised when we started to find how important. Relationships were for our physical health. And then when we started to look at other studies and it's the loneliness research. That's maybe the most compelling now that you see these incredible links with the amount of time that people spend on the earth, the amount of time that they live. It's just extraordinary. And that relationship is of a similar magnitude to the things that we commonly think about as serious health risks like smoking and obesity. So there's so many indications of how powerful relationships are. I think we take them for granted and it's clear science is telling us that they're important.

• 4:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  You mentioned their relationships and physical health.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 5:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I think that's where some people have to make a leap into the dark. I get it. Good relationships feel good. Okay, we enjoy ourselves when we're in the company of people that we like, who means something to us. But how does that then impact our physical health?

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Well, that's the interesting research question. So we're always asking if we see a connection between one thing and another, how does it work? What's the mechanism? And probably the best hypothesis that we have for which we have the most evidence is a hypothesis about stress, that good relationships help us regulate emotion, particularly negative emotion. So stress is there all day long. I mean, something upsetting happens to me and I can literally feel my body change, go into fight or flight mode. And what we know is that when we have someone we can talk to, when I can go home and complain to my wife about my day, I can literally feel my body calm down.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  And what we know is that loneliness and social isolation are stressors, that we evolved to be social animals. So if we are too alone, what we think happens is that we stay in a low level fight or flight mode. The body doesn't return to equilibrium and that means higher levels of circulating stress hormones like cortisol, higher levels of chronic inflammation. And those things can gradually break down multiple body systems, which is how you could get a connection between relationships and arthritis or between relationships and cardiovascular

• 6:45Speaker 01

  disease because the stress hypothesis posits that these connections are with multiple body systems.

• 6:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  So if I think about relationships, so that's your pitch. Relationships are front and center of what it means to live a happy, healthy and long life. And of course, we started off this conversation talking about those two major predictors that you write about in your book, the frequency and the quality of our contact with other people. So if we think about relationships, how can we break that down? There's a relationship with myself. And then we start to expand it out. There's a relationship maybe with a romantic partner, if we have one. Relationship with our family. Relationship with our friends. Relationship with our work colleagues. The list goes on and on. Relationship with the baristas and the coffee shops, right?

• 7:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  So there's all these kind of circles that are getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So if we're to take you guys at face value and say, okay, relationships are important, which are the most important?

• 7:53Speaker 01

  There's no which about it. There's no most important about it. They're all important. What we do believe is that everybody needs one or two, what we call securely attached relationships. That at one point in our study, we asked our participants, who could you call in the middle of the night if you were sick or scared? And most people could list several people, but some people couldn't list anyone. And a few of those people were married and they couldn't list anyone. What we believe is that everybody, whether you're shy or extroverted, everybody needs

• 8:34Speaker 01

  at least one or two of what we call securely attached relationships, where you feel like someone will be there for me if I'm really in trouble.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, so loneliness, significant problem in all Western countries and also non-Western countries as well. So, you know, the rates are in the US somewhere between 20 and 40% of adults talk about being lonely. And what that means, it's the opposite of what Bob is describing. It's not having a sense that someone has your back or knows who you are, that people just don't care whether you exist. Or not. So those are incredible rates. If you think about 20 to 40% of the adult population says that there's no one that really knows who they are and can they could depend on. So the word intimacy, the roots of the word intimacy about are being known, right? So we talk about physical intimacy or emotional intimacy. It's the same. It's we want to be known by somebody else. And very powerful experience for all of us. It's

• 9:27Speaker 02

  simple, this idea that we want to be seen and heard and appreciated and understood. So people can get that in all sorts of relationships. And the other thing I want to say that's really critical, because I think this is another modern trend, that we tend to invest a lot in our primary attachment, our primary relationship and intimate partnership. And that's a lot to invest in one person, all the things that we can get out of relationships. You know, the ways in which our self in connection with others, we learn about who we are, the kinds of support that we need from other people, the kinds of fun that we can have with our mates, that there are so many things that relationships give us that it makes sense that distributing that among not just one person, but a collection of people might have some benefits for us as well.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  There's a romantic ideal in the culture now that didn't used to be there. The romantic ideal is if my primary relationship is good, I don't need anybody else. That's a fiction, a complete fiction. Actually, Eli Finkel, one of our colleagues, has written a book called The All or Nothing Marriage, where he talks about this, and about the idea that we we imagine that the relationship isn't good if we need to go elsewhere for some of our fun, for some of our confiding, for whatever else we need. And when in fact, the truth is that we get many different things from different kinds of relationships, and we want that to be the case, ideally.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  I think I think partly because of this idea that we choose our friends, that friendships are particularly prone to distancing, that we sort of let our friendships wither, we figure that they're going to work, and we don't have to sort of lean in and and put energy into them. So we talk in the book about this idea about social fitness, and social fitness applies to all of your relationships. But we need to kind of exercise those Relationship muscles to really connect with people, to spend time, to a lot of time that we can be together with the people that are important to us. And friends are particularly vulnerable, I think, because of this idea that they're folks that we choose. And oftentimes, we make friends through the activities that we're doing in life. So they might be schoolmates from university that we're no longer doing the same activities. So we have to figure

• 11:36Speaker 02

  out ways to keep those relationships going. Whereas relatives, I think we often feel that connection around holiday times or family events, that there are ways in which they keep going. But I think the kind of bigger issue here is that there's so many distractions today for our time, that all of us spend a lot of time on screens these days, sometimes doing work, sometimes being distracted, could be by social media or traditional media. But we have to really harvest our time for the things that are most important for us. And it's harder and harder to do that with these devices that pull us away from those things that are critical for us.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  You know, and I think that the whole thrust of the book, really, is that it's to be more intentional, right, to allow us to take a look at something we mostly have on the periphery of our vision, as life is so busy, right? And in fact, we asked our study participants at one point, how has it affected your life to be part of the study? And some people said, your questions are annoying, or it hasn't had any effect. But most people said, this was a really important part of my life because it got me to look at my life regularly, right? And I think that's what we're talking about. What we're

• 12:52Speaker 01

  saying is, if we look at our lives regularly, we'll see what we're doing, and then we can decide if it's time to make some changes, to make some adjustments, rather than just letting the days and the weeks and the years slip by.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  And there's a, if we think about what we know, just the basic ideas about a secure attachment and a connection to other people, that when we look at infants, infants on the playground or toddlers on the playground, they'll, they'll social reference, we call it, they'll, they'll see kids out there, they're a little nervous, so they look back at their parent and is it okay, right? And a parent nods, that an adult relationship can provide that same kind of support, right? So for, you know, a strong relationship, it could be a primary relationship, or it could be a friendship that we have. Bob says, you know, you can do this, right? That's encouragement like the kid on the playground, you know, go out and do this. It would be good for you to do that. So, good relationships are in some ways outward facing, right? They allow us to have new experiences, they're,

• 13:49Speaker 02

  they're the basis, that, that kind of support basis that gives us the confidence to try new things. Bob, you want to write a book?

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  Let's write a book together. You know, that's what a relationship is about.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  You know, and a hallmark of a securely attached relationship is where you feel the freedom to take risks because the other person will support it.

• 14:08Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. That's ultimately one of the challenges, isn't it, that people find with relationships, they're messy, they're confusing, there's risk.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? That's what makes them so beautiful and so nourishing, but at the same time, that can be why they can affect us so much when they're not going well, right? So let's talk a little bit about risk.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Well, the other thing is that relationships are risky because we're each always changing. We're all, we're each a work in progress every moment, right? So, it's not like you know exactly what you're gonna get the next time you talk to your partner, or the next time you talk to your friend, because life is constantly changing. And so then the question is, how do we keep up with each other? How do we support each other in that process of continual evolving?

• 15:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. So there's two areas of practical tools I thought we could briefly cover. One was in the, I think it's in chapter four in the section on social fitness. You had these, I think it was in that chapter, these three tools, generosity, learning new dance steps and radical curiosity. I wonder if either of you'd mind speaking to those three just briefly to help people understand what they can then do.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  So it turns out that being generous to others, being kind to others, and that could be telling them that you really appreciate them, it could be doing something kind. Doing that act of kindness benefits the giver in ways that are really quite amazing. That givers experience a kind of sense of joy, a sense of connection. There's lots of research on generosity and the ways in which it gives dividends back to the person. So we want to do kind things because we think it's important for other people. But an engaged person who does these acts of generosity also reaps benefits for themselves. And those benefits are emotional and they're also physical.

• 16:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  I have a quote from the Dalai Lama about this. He said, "The wise selfish person takes care of other people."

• 16:13Rangan Chatterjee?

  The wise selfish person takes care of other people.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Because it comes back to you.

• 16:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. So practice generosity.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. So what the second one was?

• 16:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  It was learning new dance steps.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  What did you mean by that?

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Well, that has to do, if we think about a relationship as a dance, that we, without even deliberately trying, develop with another person, we find ways, I say this, you say that, I know that if I do this, you're likely to do that in response. And that some of those dance steps involve stepping on each other's toes, some of those dance steps involve gliding smoothly around. But what we know is that the relationships change over time. Certainly, good lord, a marriage or intimate partnership is going to change over time. And so, you know, my wife and I are about to celebrate our 37th anniversary.

• 17:12Rangan Chatterjee?

  Congratulations.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Have had to develop a lot of new dance steps over time. And we're not the same people we were when we got together thirty seven years ago. And that happens with friendships, too. So the idea is find ways to see where the other person is going and see how you can follow them, how you can complement them in the new things they're doing, in the ways that they're changing and hoping that they'll do the same with you.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  And change it up. A relationship that you've had for a long time, a marriage is a good example. It can get stale, it can get boring. And I think the idea about new dance steps is also the idea of trying new things. So I know Bob and his wife are taking voice lessons, both of them. And they might be singing together on occasion.

• 17:57Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, no, I love that. Well, let's go to the third tool there, which I loved. Radical curiosity, yeah.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  So this is an idea, again, that that all people are interesting. That if we give our attention to trying to figure out what it is they're experiencing, what's important to them, what motivates them, what their experience of something that we're also doing might be, if it's different, that we can be radically curious. It's an idea that we can take a kind of beginner's mind to any experience that we've had and say, what have we been missing? What's interesting here that I haven't realized before? And, you know, Bob and I are both therapists. We've been in this business for a long time. We're radically curious about other people. That's part of what nourishes us. It's that privilege of getting to know people. But everyone can have a taste of that by being radically curious. And it has benefits, again, for us. We learn more about other people.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  We appreciate those differences that they may have with us. And people appreciate our interest. That's another key part of it.

• 18:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, curiosity is massive. I think it's such an important value to adopt in life. I can't see any downsides to being curious, personally.

• 19:08Speaker 02

  Well, it's curiosity with a kind of lack of judgment, right? It's a curiosity, gee, it's so interesting, Bob, that you're interested in this opera. And I have no interest in that opera. You know, what is that? Because I respect Bob. I know he's not a crazy person. You know, what is it that's really important? What is it that's important about that particular work of art that moves you, right? So we learn things by asking those questions. And it's, you know, it's a privilege to be able to do that.

• 19:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  So the families or the individuals who are thriving in the study throughout life or later on in life, have you managed to identify any practices that seem to help?

• 19:51Speaker 02

  I can think of two that I'll mention. Bob may have others, but you know, when we look, this is more anecdotal, but when we look at some of the folks in the study and the gifts that they bring to bear on their life and their families, part of that gift is being interested and attentive. So in the book, we talk a lot about Leo DeMarco is one of the happiest people in the study. And when Leo was with you, he listened to you, he was present, he was attentive, his family felt that experience. So I think that's one example that we see. There's another one from some research that Bob and I did years ago, in which we were studying couples, talking about an incident in which their partner had done something that upset or angered them. So we were interested in when they get angry, when the heat has turned up in a relationship. And it turned out, it

• 20:34Speaker 02

  was less important that your partner could figure out what was going on in your head than your perception that your partner was interested in what was going on in your head. Right? So we can give our partner the gift that we're interested in their experience, even if we're not so good at figuring it out. Always, I'm curious what was going on for you. I'm care about you is really what we've had.

• 20:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I remember reading that in the book, thinking that is powerful. It's not about right or wrong. It's just showing that person that you care, you know, it's so important. So if you were going to tell someone in one minute, what are the key things that you have learned from this study about the human experience? What would you say?

• 21:19Speaker 02

  I would say, take care of your body like you're going to need it for 100 years, and invest in relationships. It's the best payoff you'll get.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Throughout your life.

• 21:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  Love it. It was under 15 seconds. That was brilliant. And Mark, how would you answer that same question?

• 21:37Speaker 01

  I certainly would say similar things to Bob, but I also would say there's a kind of basic humanity that we all have when we look hard enough at the, at folks' lives and really try and understand what their experience is. There's a commonality. We're human. We're all human. And that comes through when we look at these lives across time.

• 21:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. And one of the things I, I love about your book, I mean, it's a wonderful book. I honestly can't imagine anyone who wouldn't get something from reading it. It's because you're talking about the human experience. We all have relationships. We only exist in relation to other people, don't we? I always love finishing off the conversation with practical tips for my audience, but perhaps for people listening who are realizing throughout this conversation that they have let certain relationships go, they've maybe not prioritized them as much as they might have. What final words do you have for them?

• 22:33Speaker 01

  When our original participants got to be about 80, we asked them to look back on their lives and we asked them, what do you regret the most and what are you proudest of? And one of the most frequent regrets was, I didn't spend enough time with the people I care about and I spent too much time at work.

• 22:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  And so it's really, it's a cliche for a reason when people say, nobody, nobody on their deathbed ever wishes that they'd spent more time at the office. And so your decision to say, look, this, this friend is really important to me. I'm going to make sure we get together, is one of those things you'll look back on and be glad you did. Doing this research, I've realized that I have to start taking my own medicine. And so. You know, I realized that particularly once my kids were grown and out of the house and they weren't like pulling me away and saying, "Dad, do this," or "Drive me here," that I could just work all the time. And so what I've had to do is be much more intentional

• 23:37Speaker 01

  about scheduling walks with people, scheduling dinners out. Mark and I have a call every Friday noon. And we talk, yes, we talk about our writing and our research, but we also just talk about our lives. And I find that if I'm not active, really active, every week in doing things with people who I want to keep current with, it'll wither away. And so I'm doing more of that now than I ever did when I was younger. I would say, think of someone you've let go or someone you miss and would like to connect with again, and simply take out your phone and send them a little text or an email

• 24:21Speaker 01

  or use the phone to use your voice to call them and simply say, "Hi, I was just thinking of you and wanted to connect." And you will be amazed at how often people will be thrilled to hear from you.

• 24:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I think another critical idea is it's never too late, that those who feel like they just have had a hard lot in life, that they don't feel connected to others, that they wish their friendships could be better than they are, it's never too late. There are things that we can do, starting now, that can really have an impact on our lives. We see it in our study. We see it in many other studies. Seize the moment, you can change your life.

• 24:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  I love it. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. And I'll be back next week with my long-form conversation on Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.