Daniel Wagner on the Secrets to Happiness: Insights from Harvard's Longest Study and Midlife Mastery Research

Picture this: you're on the quest for the key to happiness, and you stumble upon the longest study on human happiness ever conducted - the Harvard Study of Adult Development. What secrets might you uncover about the real ingredients for a fulfilling life? Well, you're about to find out! We're unpacking this study, shedding light on the surprising revelation that wealth and career success aren't at the heart of happiness. Instead, it's all about good health and nurturing deep, supportive relationships. We'll also discuss the rising issue of loneliness, its impact on health, and how social media fits into the puzzle of our social lives.

Now, imagine you're at a crossroads in life. You're in the midst of your midlife years and you're trying to grasp how to master this phase and enhance your happiness. That's exactly where I am right now and I'm thrilled to take you along on my journey. Together, we'll explore insights from various happiness studies and Jonathan Rouch's research on midlife mastery. You'll even have the chance to evaluate your own happiness and consider changes that can boost your overall well-being. And, we've got some exciting news - Jonathan Rouch himself will be joining us on the podcast in the upcoming weeks! Let's embark on this enlightening journey to happiness together.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Science of Happiness and Relationships
• 10:56 Midlife Happiness Audit and Improvement

Transcript

Daniel Wagner: 0:31

Hey Dan Wagner from Midlife Mastery, and today I want to give you a quick update on a couple of amazing news that I'm really blown away by. Number one is that I read this book called 'the happiness curve' and I spontaneously reached out to Jonathan Rauch, who has agreed to come on this podcast in just a few weeks. So as I've done more research on Jonathan, I got quite overwhelmed, actually, by the depth of his knowledge. The other books is written. He's a real eminent, very smart person, so I really hope I can ask him questions that are meaningful to him, not just me and my audience here in Midlife Mastery. But, as always, we're exploring a ways to come through this midlife slump, this midlife discontentment, and not just use it but accumulate knowledge, and there is some amazing insights I got from his book already. Just the awareness of that phase can actually help you shorten the phase and have less challenges in that period of your life.

Daniel Wagner: 1:37

But today I want to speak to you about the longest study ever made on human happiness, and this is a study that started in 1938 and thousands of people literally have been in this study and they try to figure out what makes people happy. So there are some key points from this study and if you want, you can go to Amazon and look for. It's called the good life, a book by the authors Robert Waldinger MD, and Mark Schulz PhD, and they put this the findings from the world's longest scientific study on happiness how to create a meaningful and satisfying life into a book, and I just want to summarize some of the highlights for you here. So there is a real misconception about happiness. Most people, when they're asked, would say it's money, career success and wealth at a primary contributors to happiness. However, our studies on lottery winners show that the initial happiness boost from a financial gain often fades very quickly, and the many people in these situations where this big wind falls and the bomb is more than before. So the Harvard study of adult development, which started in 1938, is one of the longest studies on human development ever and first of all, it started with interviewing why? Young males from Harvard, and obviously that's not really a representative study. So they very quickly added a second group with people from deprived backgrounds and they then put these two studies together and they try to examine various factors that contributed to the happiness and long health.

Daniel Wagner: 3:15

So one of the biggest things, the very obvious, but you might think it's obvious. It is, I believe, is physical health and exercise, and in this book there is some real world studies and these are matter studies, where they put Thousands of studies together at times. Look in a millions of people that even just 15 minutes of exercise a day Can contribute to years of extra life at the end of your life. So physical health and exercise, maintaining that physical health is very important for mental health and emotional health and cognitive health, as they call it, brain health. The even more important factor which is really something that Is obvious when you hear it, but for most people they don't rate it that high is the importance of relationships, and the Harvard study and many other research indicates that relationships, deep relationships, trust, relationships Are pretty much the most vital ingredient for happiness, health and longevity. Strong social connections, intimate partnerships they improve survival rates, reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke and protect cognitive health. That means in old age you're less likely to be demand if you have a strong trust trust in relationship, they reckon. One of the reasons is that these relationships help to regulate the nervous system, so, while people who are alone are more likely to stay in fight and flight response to an event in the outside world and come back home and stay in that state. A relationship can be regulatory and I experienced that and maybe you're experienced that as well. If you're in a long term relationship, the a good long term relationship, a deep social bond, has that kind of regulatory effect on life.

Daniel Wagner: 5:09

Another key point from this book and from this video is that loneliness as the opposite of having a deep relationship meaning for relationships characterized by his objective feeling of being less connected than desired is detrimental to our health and they say that it's feeling loneliness, not being alone. People enjoy being alone, but the definition of being less connected than you actually wish to be is detrimental and it is similar to smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day or obesity, so it's got a direct link to your happiness and longevity. There is an important part to cover and this is that the age when people feel lonely in the last years has tremendously shifted. You might think there's people in their 60s, 70s, 80s who feel lonely or alone. It started in their early 20s. As early as in the late teens, people started to feel a disconnect and this is a alarming trend, to say the least, and there's obviously something we can address and do about it. And there's another aspect of this book and study that we found that in the last 20 years, from 2003 to 2023, the social engagement time with friends and this is the annual daily average in minutes annual daily average in minutes it has decreased from 60 minutes an hour a day to less than 20 minutes a day, and of course, this is a lot due to social media and the way we connect, but it's proven that these interactions are not as conducive to our health. In summary, almost there's not much more to do to this, I want to say, but the quality of relationships is very important and by that they found that secure, supportive relationships, they maintain sharper memories and overall well-being.

Daniel Wagner: 7:20

Also, regarding work and money, yes, wealth isn't the most important ingredient, but meaningful work is actively contributing to happiness. The pursuit of achievements and wealth alone does not guarantee a happy life, but for men particularly, it shows that higher incomes and certain satisfaction in life are linked, and this is contrary to a very much quoted study that above $75,000, there is no link between happiness and income, and this is proven to be wrong. In the meantime, they have found a moderated view on this, to say that it depends who you're comparing yourself with. If you're earning $100,000 a month sorry, a year and many people in your circle around you are earning more, then that money, compared to the others, will make you feel less satisfied and less happy. So there is an aspect of this study that has been misquoted. It's totally okay to aim higher. It's totally okay to aim for meaningful work and have impact in the world, and that's my translate to accumulating lots of money. Finally, and this is point eight of my summary from this longest ever running study on happiness, is that there is that cultivating these relationships in the video they say is like in true physical fitness. It is something that is regular and ongoing effort. This is not a one-off. And now I got relationships. This is maintaining and improving relationships. Let me just look down on my notes if there's anything I still want to mention to you. I think there's just one quote I want to read out to you In one of the biggest studies ever on 70 independent prospective studies with 3.5 million participants followed from average of 7 years.

Daniel Wagner: 9:25

They revealed a significant effect of social isolation, loneliness and living alone on the odds of mortality. After accounting for multiple covariates, the increased likelihood of death was 26% for reported loneliness, 29% for social isolation and 32% for living alone. So this is shocking and it's something that we see more and more as society fragments and people feel more disconnected and more and more people live alone. I recently watched a report where they say in our cities now, more than two thirds of people are living in single person households. Now there is a cynic in me that says economy, the the power is to be like that, because if we're alone, we're consuming single pack meals and everyone needs their appliances and we stay plugged into our devices much more and we have less social interaction, which we now know is detrimental for our health and happiness.

Daniel Wagner: 10:29

That's it, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening. This was just a very quick, not even a deep dive, a very quick glance on the longest study on happiness. I am excited about having Jonathan Rauch come on the next episode. Very soon, about 10 days or 12 days, we have our meeting and hopefully, if it takes place, we're going to have some amazing content to share. So yeah, thank you very much.

Daniel Wagner: 10:56

Check out midlife mastery dot com. I am working on my midlife audit now, so this is going to be a small test you can take yourself to evaluate your happiness and as I'm working on this, I'm getting information from these happiness studies and also from Jonathan Rauch is a study on happiness. He's obviously done a lot of research and a lot of science on that to help you determine where are you, how satisfied are you with your life and could you do something to increase your subjective feeling of happiness and satisfaction today? Because this is not something that's objective. It's very subjective, so we can make a difference and an impact on how happy we feel. I'm signing off for today and I hope to hear you very soon on this podcast. All the best.