Kind: captions
Language: en
this video is about one of the most
important questions what leads to a
happy life realistically money being
wealthy is definitely a big aspect of it
to save a lot of money money money
earning money it's very important to be
rich it's easy for people to say they
don't care about having money and that
money can't buy happiness but that's
really not true because I would rather
cry on a yacht than in a like a
Subaru clearly having a successful
career and financial wealth are
important to people is there a number in
mind something you want to get to at
least a million yeah yeah in a survey
from 2018 of around 100,000 College
freshmen about 55% said they wanted to
be successful in their career and 83%
reported that they wanted to become rich
but do these accomplishments really
increase happiness well that's what I
want to find out in this video but how
do you study what makes people happy
well you can ask them what's going to
make you happy
um but people aren't really good at
judging what will make them happy
winning the lottery seems like it should
make you
happy but numerous studies on lottery
winners find that after the initial
surge of Happiness wears off many are no
happier than the rest of us some are in
fact more miserable than they were
beforehand cuz you don't see as many
people as you used to see obviously you
become slightly isolated I think in some
ways yeah I agree another problem is
that people's memories aren't reliable
we only detect encode and store in our
brains bits and pieces of the entire
experience in front of us it's called
reconstructed memories it happens to us
in all the aspects of our life all the
time most studies on happiness find
older people and ask them to recall what
made them happy but as we've just seen
memory is
unreliable so a better way to conduct
the study would be to follow people
throughout their entire lives capturing
the choices they make and how those
affect their happiness that is really
hard to do but there is one study like
this that's been running since
1938 now 85 years is a long time to run
a study so it has been passed down from
one generation of researchers to the
next it's currently run by its fourth
director Robert waldinger what what is
the claim to fame then of of the study
you know the claim to fame is that it is
as far as we know the law longest study
of human development that's ever been
done the longest study of any depth
these are studies that take deep dives
into people's lives and their mental and
physical health the study actually began
as two separate Studies by two groups of
Harvard researchers that didn't know
about each
other the first group followed 268 young
men from Harvard to find out how they
would develop into early adulthood so of
course if you want to study normal young
adult development you study all white
guys from Harvard right you know it's
one of those
limitations the second group studied 456
boys from middle school onwards from
Boston's poorest and most disadvantaged
families so there were these two studies
both meant to be studies of what goes
right in development and how we predict
who does well as they grow up eventually
the two studies merged into one the
Harvard study of adult development at
the start of the study the participants
were interviewed and received extensive
physical examinations and as they grew
they entered all walks of life some of
them became Brick Layers and doctors and
Factory workers and lawyers and one even
became president of the United
States every 2 years researchers ask
them questions about their lives like if
you could stop working without loss of
income would you what would you do
instead how often do you feel isolated
from others true or false life has more
pain than pleasure and other questions
about their marriage career friendships
and their physical and mental health
while the study started with just 724
participants over time their spouses and
children were also included in the study
so how many people are we talking about
in total uh who have been part of the
study between 2500 and 3,000 people all
together in the study and as technology
improved so did the methods of data
collection we now draw blood for DNA you
know DNA wasn't even imagined in 1938 we
we measure messenger RNA DNA
methylation we bring people into our
laboratory we deliberately stress them
out and then see how quickly they
recover from stress looking at heart
rate variability for example looking at
cortisol deposited in hair uh because
that seems to be a long-term measure of
Circ ating cortisol but all of these new
methods are in the service of studying
the same big
phenomena of human
well-being so what do 85 years of
research across entire human lives teach
us about a healthy and happy life two
huge takeaways really one is no surprise
it's that if you take care of your
physical health it has huge benefits for
not just for your longevity but for how
long you stay healthy eating well
getting regular exercise not abusing
alcohol or drugs not smoking getting
preventive Health Care exercise is
hugely important a Taiwanese study
looked at the medical data of 416,000
healthy people between 1996 and 2008 8
years later they followed up with each
person to look at the link between
exercise and mortality they found that
people who exercise just 15 minutes a
day had a 14% % reduced risk of dying
and a threeyear longer life expectancy
every additional 15 minutes of exercise
decreased the risk of dying by an extra
4% a large meta analysis from 2008
confirms that people who are Physically
Active have a reduced risk of dying
during the time frames investigated in
each
study exercise also protects our
cognitive Health a meta analysis from
2014 found that participants with higher
levels of physical activity had a 35%
reduced risk of cognitive decline and a
14% reduced risk of
dementia and then the big surprising
finding is relationships not just
keeping us happier but keeping us
healthier and helping us live
longer it's not just the Harvard study
there's now a whole list of studies that
show the importance of relationships to
human happiness and health they teach us
three main
lessons the first is that relationships
are great for our health in 201
researchers looked across 148 studies
with a total of more than 300,000
participants they found that on average
people with stronger social connections
had a 50% increased likelihood of
survival for any given year being
married in particular has a large impact
on how long people live there's one
study uh I think it's pretty well
respected that that suggests that
married men live 12 years longer on
average than unmarried men and married
women live 7 years longer on average
than unmarried women marriage is always
a better deal for men on all parameters
than it is for women and it's not
because you have a marriage license
right it's because people living
together in an intimate partnership tend
to keep each other healthier you have
somebody who's kind of watching looking
out for you it's a very real concrete
effect if feeling well connected to
others makes us happy happier healthier
and extends Our Lives then what happens
if we feel disconnected there's a
researcher Julianne Hol lunad out of the
University of Utah who did a
metaanalysis of a a whole slew of
studies of the physical effects of
loneliness and her
calculation was that being lonely is as
dangerous to your health as smoking half
a pack of cigarettes a day or as
dangerous as being obese feeling
disconnected from others also makes you
more prone to disease a large meta
analysis from 2016 found that poor
social relationships were associated
with a 29% increase in risk of heart
disease and a 32% increase in risk of
stroke so these have real sort of
quantifiable consequences when we look
at studies of thousands of people one
caveat is that most studies on the
health effects of loneliness focus on
people aged 50 and
older and loneliness is on the rise the
US Surgeon General today declared a new
Public Health epidemic in America
loneliness we're now finding that one in
two adults report measurable levels of
loneliness and it turns out that young
people are most affected and here's why
this is so concerning it's because we've
realized that loneliness is more than
just a bad feeling it has real
consequences for our mental and physical
health the UK has appointed a minister
of
loneliness um many many countries are
concerned about this breakdown in Social
connection a question about uh
loneliness like what does that look like
because obviously everyone experiences
some periods of loneliness so you know
what what is when does it become sort of
really detrimental and how do we Define
that well loneliness is different from
being alone right so you can be alone
and quite content and many people are in
fact the ability to be content when
you're alone is quite a skill and it's
it's a wonderful ability loneliness is
that subjective experience of being less
connected to people than you want to be
and that's why you know you can be
lonely in a crowd we're all on a
spectrum between extraversion you know
wanting lots of people in our lives and
introversion actually needing a lot of
solitude and and not wanting a lot of
people a lot of people are stressful for
introverts and what we know is that
neither one is healthier right like
introverts are perfectly healthy they
just may need one or two really solid
relationships and don't want a lot more
people nothing wrong with that at all
whereas extroverts may want lots of
people in their lives so the second
lesson is that it's not how many people
you know or see or even whether you're
married or not because a bad marriage
can be worse for your health than
getting divorced instead it's about the
quality of your close relationships that
matters when we' followed all the
original people out to their 80s we said
okay what data actually are the best
predictors at age 50 of who's going to
be happy and healthy at age 80 as
opposed to sick or dead and we thought
we were going to be looking at blood
pressure and cholesterol level at age 50
as the strongest predictors it was there
relationships it was
particularly their
satisfaction with their marital
relationships that was the strongest
predictor and relationships don't just
keep us happier and physically healthier
they also protect our brains people who
are in Secure relationships in their 80s
where they feel that they can rely on
the other person find that their
memories stay sharper for longer and
people who feel lonely well their
memories fade
quicker a study of retired us adults
found that the rate of cognitive decline
was 20% higher over 10 years for those
who felt lonely a meta analysis from
2018 further confirms the detrimental
effects of loneliness finding that it
also increased the risk of
dementia but there's still a big open
question what is it about the
relationships that makes them
particularly healthful or helpful the
best hypothesis for which there's some
pretty decent research now is that
relationships are emotion Regulators
they're stress Regulators so stressful
things happen every day to many of us
right so then what happens well the body
goes into fight ORF flight mode blood
pressure goes up respirations become
more rapid circulating stress hormone
levels rise but then the body is meant
to go back to equilibrium after that
normal fight ORF flight response when we
face a challenge if I can come home and
there's somebody here to talk to I can
literally feel my body calm
down what we're pretty sure happens is
that people who are isolated that
they're more likely to stay in a kind of
chronic fight or flight mode and that
what that means is that they have higher
levels of circulating cortisol higher
levels of chronic inflammation and that
those things gradually wear away body
systems so that's how for
example chronic stress can predict
coronary artery disease but also
arthritis and also type 2 diabetes
because of this common mechanism that
breaks down multiple body
systems the key to preventing this
breakdown is simple just spend a little
more time with the people you care about
unfortunately we seem to be doing the
exact opposite before going into why
we're doing the exact opposite this part
of the video was sponsored by betterhelp
there are many things that can
negatively impact our happiness it could
be stress or fear or a clinical mental
health issue like depression or anxiety
but regardless of which one it is
therapy can help you by giving you the
tools to approach your life in a very
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veritasium or click that link in the
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betterhelp for sponsoring this part of
the video and now back to the importance
of
relationships there is an alarming Trend
in our society social engagement with
friends decreased from 60 minutes a day
in 2003 to just 20 minutes A Day in 2020
the technology has fundamentally changed
how we interact with one another and how
we communicate with one another and
unfortunately has often replaced what
used to be rich iners connections uh
with online connections which often are
of lower quality now you may say you're
an introvert and you don't need to spend
much time with people to feel good and
while it's true that introverts and
extroverts need different amounts of
social stimulation both need human
Connection in 2015 Hol lunstad and her
colleagues looked at the data of 70
independent studies with more than 3
million total participants similar to
other studies they found that the
subjective feeling of loneliness
increased the risk of premature death
death by 26% but they also looked at the
objective measure of social isolation
how much time you're actually spending
with other people and they found that
social isolation increased the risk of
premature death by
29% and unfortunately introverts are
more at risk of being socially
isolated just like many young people
today many participants from the Harvard
study also believed that money and
achievement were what they should go
after to have a good life but what this
study and plenty of others show is that
the people who were the happiest were
those that leaned into their
relationships with their partner friends
family and community and when they were
in their 80s the researchers asked them
what are you most proud of and what is
your biggest regret many people said
that they were proudest of something to
do with their relationships so it could
be I was a good boss I was a good parent
I was a good friend I was a good Mentor
nobody said I made a fortune right
nobody even said you know I won the
Nobel Prize which a few people did it
wasn't about those badges of achievement
right that we think of as oh that's
that's what we got to get to feel like
we've had a meaningful life Everybody
Looking Back mention their relationships
the biggest regret was particularly
among the men cuz this was the World War
II
generation they said I wish I hadn't
spent so much time at work I wish I had
spent more time with the people I care
about so what about our original
question do achievements and money
really make us happy well according to
the Harvard study Badges of achievement
do not necessarily make us happier but
doing meaningful work can and what about
money does that make us happier well
there's a famous study from 2010 by
Daniel conman and Angus Deon that found
that above an income of around $75,000 a
year there is no improvement whatever in
the measures of emotional well-being but
11 years later Matthew Killingsworth
studied data on 33,000 employed us
adults and he found that higher incomes
corresponded to higher levels of
well-being so he wrote there was no
evidence for an experienced well-being
Plateau above $75,000 a year contrary to
some influential past research in 2022
Conan and Killingsworth set out to
resolve the conflict with Barbara
mellers as a mediator when they analyzed
Killingsworth data they discovered an
interesting pattern depending on how
happy people were relative to others
earning more resulted in different
increases in happiness for each income
level they divided people into groups
based on their happiness low medium high
and so on they found that below a
threshold of roughly $100,000 a year a
higher income was associated with more
happiness for all groups but if you go
above that threshold then for the
unhappiest group a further increase is
not associated with more happiness
however for all the happier groups
higher incomes do seem to lead to more
happiness and the real twist is that
those who were the happiest to start
with stand to gain the most with
increasing
income relationships meaningful work and
money all play a role in our happiness
so why can it be so hard to realize just
how important relationships are you know
if you think about it relationships have
been there since before we have memory
right so they're like the air we breathe
we take them for granted so you don't
think about that as something you
cultivate in order to make yourself
happy we we don't think about that at
all and yet when we study it
scientifically we find that that turns
out to be an enormous predictor of
Happiness as well as physical
health what's going to make you
happy
um being wealthy is definitely a big
aspect of it but uh that loving family
is kind of like the foundation of it you
know what I mean realistically money but
like building deep connections with
people are what's going to make me happy
that's awesome having like good
relationships with other people you
raise a family have a family and provide
friends and family seeing my family
happy that's all I really care about
giving back to the community where you
came from the world a strong family
based just to come home to every night I
want to get married have have a ton of
kids um I want to how many is a ton
probably like five or six as many as
many as I can
afford in fact when I interviewed people
I was pleasantly surprised to see how
many identified the importance of
relationships so if you could give
people advice on what to start doing
today to uh to start being happier what
suggestions would you make to think
about it as analogous with physical
fitness if you go work out today you
don't come home and say I'm done I don't
ever have to do that again right you
there it's like a a practice right that
the people who were best at
relationships were the people who made
it a
practice day after day week after week
to stay connected to the people they
cared about you know to talk on the
phone to go for walks to have coffee to
to do whatever to play basketball the
people who took those actions again and
again regularly were the people who
stayed very connected and stayed happy
that way so so what we propose is that
this is a practice we can cultivate and
that that they're tiny actions that that
people can take we have many stories of
people who thought that they were no
good at relationships that they were
never going to have happy lives and then
it changed and many times it changed
when they didn't expect it so like we
have a story about one man who really
didn't have a good marriage and was kind
of distant from his kids didn't have any
friends and then when he retired he
joined a gym and he found this group of
friends that became for the first time a
kind of tribe for him and that's just
one example of
how uh Our Lives take these twists and
turns that we usually can't predict that
we don't expect and many of those turn
turns are in Positive Directions the
message that the science tells us is
don't don't give up on this aspect of
your life cuz um many things can change
at any age