80-year Harvard study has been showing how to live a healthy and happy life
news.harvard.edu
news.harvard.edu
I've been working from home for a number of years. During this time I've on average spoken with and interacted with 1 person every day - my wife.
I occasionally go out, occasionally see family members, but the majority of my day-to-day work is quiet, alone, working at a computer.
- I have been more sick in recent years than ever before in my life. This is even compared to previously living in a major city and taking public transportation.
- I have been experiencing sharp mental decline especially in the last year. Solving complex problems is much more challenging.
- My memory is suffering. Even my wife has begun to notice, I forget little things and have developed an "aloof professor" disposition that wasn't natural to me.
- I now find social interaction more difficult. I'm more akward, and find myself over-thinking previously natural interactions.
- Lastly ... I'm far more depressed. I just don't enjoy much these days. I wake up, work, don't talk to many people.
The TLDR here is that I urge everyone to tend to their social garden. I let mine decay for too long, and I'm paying the price now. I am beginning the process of restoring connections, and getting out more, and I'm already noticing an improved mood.
Oh and I should mention - I'm naturally an introvert so this reclusive lifestyle was all too comfortable for me.
I should mention that I have already covered the basics, which is why I strongly believe this is a social problem. I have:
- Seen a doctor, gotten blood tests done, and verified all is "normal"
- Eaten very healthy, home cooked meals since I started WFH.
- Exercise 4-5 times a week. I am in "good" shape, and I am looking at registering to run my first marathon soon.
- Drink lots of water. Mostly avoid alcohol.
Religion is a non starter for me but I would like to find some community groups doing good things with good people.
I know about meetup.com etc but I'd like to have ties with something a little deeper. Preferably something without political and especially without supernatural overtones.
I see there being a big need for this in the modern world.
When I've moved from city to city I've joined a good local badminton club and played in local leagues. With that has come vigorous exercise AND social interaction. Latterly its also brought the opportunity to contribute to local community through coaching my club's juniors. I find this challenging in a very rewarding way.
You may vary it depending on your tastes about leisure activities, but there's a lot of social groups you can try.
Sometimes I feel like American culture is being sterilized. Just like white bread and a multivitamin, we only take what we understand and leave everything else behind. And then when we encounter social problems after eliminating church (or health problems when we eliminate natural foods), we are puzzled.
But most importantly from my perspective I see the fundamental basis being at odds with what I understand to be reality.
I'm not saying churches don't fulfill an important function, they do. But the order of things changes and even though change can bring a period of chaos we generally don't go back, we go forward.
What we know as "churches" are not growing, they are dying. For whatever reason(s) and this trend probably isn't going to reverse. So for me the solution is to move on to something with equivalent functionality but with less dysfunctionality.
I wonder if the "next thing" is going to come from atheists constructing such an organization from scratch, or from religious people adapting churches to fit our new understandings?
What I see being different in evolution this time is that it isn't an issue of whether God and Jesus are the same being or different beings or whether the Pope is the mouthpiece of God or the King is or Jesus or Muhammad was the last messenger. It's a whole different understanding, one that doesn't generally accept the existence of supernatural forces. So it's a foundational issue this time. I just see the non acceptance of the supernatural continuing to grow in the world and don't think it will roll back (may be wrong but don't think so, at least in my lifetime). So some important things get lost. Meh, anyway, enough about that. I don't fault anyone for being religious, I just simply can't be.
And I won't even comment on your connection to health problems and natural foods (whatever those are). You mean like what prehistoric man ate? And lived to 25 years old?
Similar to how a multivitamin and junk food doesn't replace a balanced diet. That's just an analogy to help illustrate my point, not a point on its own.
I think it's more likely that churches will adapt to our modern understandings than someone will build the perfect atheist social institution from first principles.
What happy pills do you recommend?
For real, I'm not trying to be cute. Unless you're pronounced clinically depressed by a couple doctors, one should avoid the official benzo & related "happy pills".
One thing that might help, is try to make some hippy friends. You're not expected to become one of them, but they have a lot to share, wink wink.
There are related issues, like racing thoughts and anxiety, which are different and not all that uncommon. Lorazepam is actually pretty effective for these issues.
Do you have any evidence that your recommendation is the "right" diet?
Fasting: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4257368/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4274578/
Low Carb: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3595318/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2989112/
You sound depressed and you mention that social interaction might be the cause, but is it not possible that you are finding your work unfulfilling, that's causing depression and the rest follows?
I only say this because I've worked long stretches more or less alone with limited social interaction (didn't have a wife around) and didn't suffer any of those symptoms, but that's an anecdote for you. I did suffer those symptoms when depressed, though, and that didn't take solitude.
Some people are very happy with solitude and there's no hard rule that it affects everyone the same.
Yes, right now I struggle to find fulfillment in my work. But did that develop because of solitude which induced depression or did the lack of fulfillment develop naturally and cause the depression itself? It's difficult to say for sure, even as the person experiencing it.
I can only speak to what I know of myself and my situation. I was a developer for ~3 years before I started WFH, and never felt like this. The product I worked on then, wasn't any more interesting than the current one. It's true though that the first few years of work carried with them a novelty and enjoyment that was bound to fade. But I think my happiness then was more than just that. Even off days felt successful if I was interacting with the team.
> Some people are very happy with solitude and there's no hard rule that it affects everyone the same.
Definitely agree. We're all different, and some people surely do thrive in this kind of environment. Interestingly, I would have told you I was one of those people. I'm naturally an introvert so this lifestyle was very comfortable at the outset. Too much of a good thing though...
I have suspected for some time that my problems were due to social isolation, but I have been too apathetic to make an effort to do anything. You've just given me the motivation to change that. Thank you!
In related news, if anyone reading this is in central Oregon and wants to meet up, feel free to shoot me an email :-)
"We need one more person to our game evening, anyone nearby? #Games"
"I am driving to Los Angeles. Ayone need a ride? #Rides"
"Need more potatoes for our #food. Bring some and come to eat"
Obviously you would also need to figure out a way to keep creeps civilized and a currency/counter to keep the small asshole minority just taking advantage of others help.
But I think the crucial point is that if you want to fight loneliness, it is difficult to do that if the lonely one is made to think that he is now getting something because he is lonely. That will instead make him feel worse. It would be much better to tell to the lonely one that hey, just you, I would need your help. (Complete amateur psychologist writing here)
Scoring has its challenges, but somehow I think there should be a way to flag people that do not behave decently. Maybe just two grade scoring with wording that makes it clear that the lower grade is applicable only if the person has e.g. threatened with violence or completely disregarded what was agreed (being a bit late or politely cancelling in the last minute is not sufficient)
And for the second part, I just thought that it would be enough to get a notification on your phone that someone nearby could use some help that you can give. Not probably a perfect solution that saves every lonely soul, but if even a few, that would not be bad. And of course, maybe also some of the not so lonely ones get to receive or give some help.
I am open to discuss about this further, though, if there are people interested in taking a lead. (Ideally I would see this built as a open source client on top of some distributed data store and not a for-profit thing, but that probably is way too idealistic)
For example, there are tons of video game forums out there, but if you focus on one game, the pool gets smaller, but more tight. I've met a few people IRL playing Destiny, and tons more online. Maybe someone else has more suggestions!
The best way to meet people is to look for activity groups, meetups and so on. People with common interests. I'd even argue that this is actually a better way to find romantic partners, than to signal "I am looking for a romantic partner" (unless you're above-average in attractiveness).
People without any common interests are boring to spend time with. You need at least something in common.
I move all the time and every time I move to a new city I try to find a board game group and a Linux User Group.
I'm not super into Linux anymore (I used to be a Systems Administrator) but I can help new users and the people are geeky and people that I often get on with. In the past I have joined Toastmasters groups. They are good with a much more varried group of people going to them. The point is the people then connect you with other people.
I work as a teacher, so in a normal week I have lots and lots of high bandwidth face to face engagement with hundreds of people. I've seen people retire from teaching and suddenly discover the relative atrophy of their non-work networks, and I'm taking steps to avoid the same experience.
It was really jarring, but I knew what was going on, so I didn't freak out. I'd read about how solitary confinement affects peoples' intelligence, especially their ability to formulate speech, and I figured I had a diminished version of that which only took effect when talking to strangers. It took about a week of work and interacting with people other than my parents on a regular basis for me to feel normal again.
I noticed I was falling sick when I took a short break from work and was mostly home. Everything returned to normal once I resumed my normal work schedule.
Sometimes that is tending to my little garden, toying around with a Raspberry Pi, tv or gaming or whatever.
Is that the comfort you're talking about?
Lucky to have a family, which does help a great deal in this situation. But, I do sometimes worry about it, but as a result compensate for it - exercising to stay fit/lean. Also, always try to be on the cutting edge of tech - HN/similar is great for that.
Edit: Just to add two more points:
1) Social networks: One might think, that they will help in this situation. But again, its different for everyone. I find, in my case their use is detrimental. So after having disconnected from them totally (save a pseudonymous twitter a/c for news/venting), I find it more peaceful, also I found my friendship with good friends has improved. And Facebook friends withered off.
2) Another thing, I learnt a few years ago, some people need social interactions to re-energize where as for some people it is solitude. Are you the type, who if goes for a walk in the park, and when people try to hold a long conversation, do you like it? Or would you rather be left alone after greeting/short-conversations. I definitely, am the second type. (If I am portraying my personality to be totally anti-social, then that's inaccurate. As my social needs are fulfilled well, by family and friends. May be if I had less of that, then would definitely like to have long talks with strangers in the park. Each person has different situation and needs, that's the key point).
Not saying that's the solution but I'm glad you said it's an "anecdotal experience".
I haven't read the paper yet but on first glance it looks like an observational study. I know it's cliche but correlation does not imply causation and observations are just that, drawing conclusions after facts.
It's still an interesting study though...
So that's what I figure how to keep myself sane if I would enter a period of almost-to-none daily interaction with people.
The one probably can't replace the other, but I'm curious if you would still have those symptoms with regular exercise.
Before I started working from home I used to consider myself an introvert, who was good with/preferred being alone. But that was always against a back-drop of living a relatively social work and home-life. Once I started working from home my tendencies towards introspection, and insulation, which were tempered by my social life, became dominant and I ended up becoming insidiously depressed without even noticing it.
Change your job/workplace man, it'll change your life.
Although I have never been sick for the last year, I recognize all the other symptoms to some degree. For an assessment, I took an IQ test a while ago. I used to be really good at number sequences, acing them or at least getting 95% right. I think I got about half of them this time, which was quite shocking.
Once I finish this thesis (my supervisor keeps trying to convince me to postpone my graduation - a student working on a very similar problem has spent more than 2.5 years now, and has not graduated yet) I want to spend more time on my social life again.
Now, being in grad school, working full time and having a toddler did a lot of the work in atrophying my social connections over the last three years, but this spring delivered a knock-out blow. Luckily, I'm attentive to my mental health and generally a proactive person, so I've outlined steps to try and at least get into another job (Cracking the Coding Interview... groan). I've also started scouring the internet looking for ideas to start developing my community ties:
- Our local YMCA has programs for families that we'll be taking advantage of, including free babysitting once a month(!!!)
- There's a local collective of volunteer "civic hackers" that I'll start hanging out with after summer's over.
- I just saw, somewhere above in this comment thread, a mention of meetup.com. It's now open in another tab.
- I'm even leaving comments on the internet, such as this!
Instead of being sick several times a year- we would literally watch colds and other illnesses work their way up and down the rows, I instead got sick maybe once a year.
Solving problems in a nice quiet room with no coworker conversations around me improved my ability to concentrate and do the hard things 10x.
Social interaction is a mixed bag. My last two jobs I was surrounded by a bunch of people who hated their work, and we only really bonded over the fact that we would rather be literally anywhere else. My remote coworkers all get along great, and it would be nice to spend more face time with them, but I have an active personal social life so that helps.
I think you are missing a big piece here though- and that's activity. I take my dog on long walks and generally like to bike around town (I live in a city) but it requires much more of an active effort. Luckily I eat a lot better and much less than I used to. I don't keep junk food or really any prepared foods in the house.
YMMV.
Now most of my days are spent working from home, and the only human interaction are the cashiers at the grocery store. I'm tired all the time, focusing is difficult for me now, and I feel like I've become slower with anything that requires mental effort.
What's the solution here? Don't work from home? Hang out more?
you pay small price to get intense focus whatever that small price may be. go isolate yourself in a room or go to a library or co-working space. take a long pensive walk.
Why is that? Even Elon Musk spends times with his kids. What's keeping you from spending time with people you care about?
Solitary Confinement.
Even in a prison with the most vile scum in the state, the worst thing you can do to a person is to remove them from the others.
That speaks volumes to me, personally.
> Dozens of painstaking studies... have established beyond reasonable doubt that ... [t]he more integrated we are with our community, the less likely we are to experience colds, heart attacks, strokes, cancer, depression and premature death of all sorts...
> ... the positive contributions to health made by social integration and social support rival in strength the detrimental contributions of ... risk factors like ... smoking, obesity, elevated blood pressure, and physical inactivity.
> ...as a rough rule of thumb, if you belong to no groups but decide to join one, you cut your risk of dying over the next year in half.
Putnam was surveying a large number of studies, not just the Harvard one.
[1] Putnam, Robert D, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community; https://www.amazon.com/Bowling-Alone-Collapse-American-Commu...
What I'd do is this: find a local diner, not a touristy place, but a real local institution and landmark. And then eat dinner there every single night at the same time. If constrained budget wise, look for the early bird dinner specials. Become a regular. Trade gossip with the wait-staff, complement the cooks on their sublime creations, chat up the little old ladies, engage the workmen about their craft. After a few weeks you'll find yourself invited to birthday parties and have the opportunity to give back your own time and energy, shovelling a driveway or helping out at a food drive.
A summer time variant: farmers markets. They typically have the same vendors every week and will remember you if you purchase a quart of organic honey and ask with genuine interest questions about their practise. Offer to get them started on Facebook / Shopify. Pretty soon, word spreads and you're no longer a stranger in town!
It takes a little longer, but a popular walking path can grant good results as well. Basically anything routine where you are likely to run into the same folks over and over.
"The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health."
You can be surrounded by "caring" family and friends that you don't have a lot in common with, and that can be miserable. Getting determined but bad/outdated advice from parents is a classic and widespread example. It's not that the parents don't want the best for their now-adult kid, it's just that they're simply ignorant of the best way forward. But they're convinced that they're right and that creates friction despite good intentions.
Status from my 20s to early 30s: at home, occasional small gigs, not much steady work or career prospects. I got badgered with "we worry about you" or "maybe you should get a second job" all the time.
Status as of yesterday when I reported that I had successfully speculated several hundred thousand dollars through multi-year cryptocurrency trades: Wow, that's great, you should diversify your wealth and marry someone now. The dinner table conversation was relaxed for once.
Which is still them imposing a narrative on me, but it's one I feel a lot more able to negotiate than the money question, where any plan or project I announced was simply met with further doubt, dismay or disinterest. They didn't want to engage with the prospects or pay attention to anything but results and it was leaving me constantly gloomy and self-doubting and frustrated with them.
And I don't think it's exactly that the money itself is making me happy, since I'm pretty spartan in my lifestyle - I'll go out for coffee drinks most days and that's my biggest and most common indulgence, but I don't spend on big luxuries or travel more than once every year or two. It's the side effect of the story changing to "I'm not totally dependent anymore, I'm free to do what I want right now" and subsequently changing their outlook.
Don't know about marriage, but definitely diversify your wealth...
How do you actually prove that the relationship between the two attributes is causal versus correlated?
For example, one could conclude, instead, that being in good physical health is the cause of successful relationships.
When you buy a Ferrari and it breaks it's "temperamental" or "quirky".
A Toyota may cost a pretty penny and be more reliable than the Kia but the Ferrari looks much better in your garage and is much more fun to take for a spin.
In this case it looks like they found the later.
As this article and book say "loneliness kills", but what does that mean for those of us who want to live long and healthy lives? Do we need to start scheduling social time alongside gym time? Will a hug a day keep the doctor away? Should we join organized religions or get married strictly for the health benefits?
[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22933077-the-village-eff...
As a married religious person who was once single and not so religious, I can attest that faith and marriage have generally made me happier.
Given the choice again, I'd utilize both regardless of health benefits. I do wonder if that general happiness factor contributes to better health in indirect ways.
Sure, why not? So long as you can use from it what is beneficial and leave the rest. Everyone gets married for some reason (have kids, finances, politics, lust, love etc...). If you do it to be happier and live a longer live, then all the more power. Everyone who choosed their religion did so for some reason (get closer to God, politics, fashion, soul-finding etc...). If you do it to be happier and live a longer live, then all the more power.
No, we need to stop scheduling things and embrace a less forced, more natural, community-centric, living.
Of course, that also speaks to a profound failure of urban design and a desolate hellscape. Human-scale communities where you're a 10-30 minute _walk_ from your friends make this sort of less-forced living much easier.
But they don't have to be anonymous to you, that's also a rather new and urban development: The expectation that nobody should "bother" anybody else unless they already know them or have some business reason to do so.
In smaller communities, everybody knew most of their "service-workers" even outside of their service function, that wasn't something out of the ordinary it was pretty much normal.
While religion and marriage are the most popular and accessible options for finding community and social support, there are other options like meetup groups, travel communities, polyamorous communities, group yoga classes, etc. Just mentioning that for anyone out there who's thinking they have to join a religion they don't believe in to find community.
"Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives, the study revealed"
So going after fame and money doesn't necessarily lead you to become unhappy (if we interpret the results as causal). Quality personal relationships just makes you even happier.
Also, I'm curious to what extent cultivating meaningful relationship serves as a coping mechanism for people with little money or social status (alternatively, focusing on making money and acquiring high social status to compensate for poor personal relationship development skills). My impression, based on my observations from people I've met in developing countries, is that low income / social status people tend to have richer and active communities and personal relationships. High status individuals tend to be lonelier. But this could just be confirmation bias.
IMHO there is something wrong with this kind of research that rehashes known facts but doesn't really go any deeper than what was already known before. My gratulations to the researchers involved for getting the funding for such a long running study.
Also, I assume the study is just in America which makes me ask if happiness is the same recipe for different people in different parts of the world.
Our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health.
Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives, the study revealed.
Loneliness kills. It’s as powerful as smoking or alcoholism.
Good relationships don’t just protect our bodies; they protect our brains.
The key to healthy aging is relationships...
[1] Some quotes: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Conquest_of_Happiness
I taught social dance for a number of years. This is a great avenue for expanding your social interactions, getting healthy, building self awareness... blah blah blah. There's a great Argentine Tango scene in SF, just sayin, folks.
There's also joining a hiking group or a walking group. Great to get out, get active, and get social.
Or engage with an after school program, or mentorship organization.
You have, like, so many options.
https://www.amazon.com/Triumphs-Experience-Harvard-Grant-Stu...
Too many people see the point of life as getting past all the crap they have to do to survive so they can get drunk on the weekend.
1. Sample bias: "Why just study WEIRD [1] subjects? Let's do male Harvard graduates!" (Yes, half the study included inner city men, and one eighth of the duration featured women. It's still super heavily biased towards Harvard men.)
2. Correlation is not causation: "Hmm, health is correlated with relationship satisfaction. Could there be a common cause for both? Or maybe people like to hang out with healthier peers? No, the clear conclusion is that working on your relationships magically makes you healthier."
3. Inconsistent data collection: "Those '30s nincompoops were measuring skulls and handwriting. We'll stop doing that and take MRIs instead. But it's still the same study!"
My first thought was that he found what he was looking for.
A healthy and happy life means something different for an African farmer or for an Oxford professor. Obviously this study is concerned about the later. I also imagine that back in the day there were far more male graduates at Harvard.
You are also acting like the results of modern psychology studies are somehow superior or more useful. Where did you get that outlandish notion from exactly? Every such study I read about seems to go through a cycle of hyped up result (eg power posing) to TED talk to book deal to failure to replicate to finally working out these results are either irrelevant, invalid or just fake.
So if the work is so polished then it should be really easy to defend on its merits right? I find it curious that your main argument is instead about the work's authors.
If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; otherwise please don't comment until you do.
If there's already any study about it, please share it with me, I'd love to read it!
Step 1 - be an adult white male graduated at the beginning of an unprecedented and unique economic boom
Step 2 - graduate out of the most prominent college of the period
Step 3 - watch your asset grow themselves
Step 4 - enjoy the life without never have to worry about job security, housing, spending power
Yeah no shit sherlock. I guess being upper middle class does wonder to one life. Meanwhile we have to contend with constant worry about our future, our kids future and one misstep in our career path can and will landslide into a life of regrets.
And this study just say 'socialize' and everything else will magically go away.
"During the intervening decades, the control groups have expanded. In the 1970s, 456 Boston inner-city residents were enlisted as part of the Glueck Study, and 40 of them are still alive."
"Those ties protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes. That finding proved true across the board among both the Harvard men and the inner-city participants."
The study control for the effects of class. That refutes some of your assertions.
Hint: it's hard to develop a social life working 60 hours a week, vice versa, people that can afford a good living standard are more likely to have the time to socialize.
This study does nothing to verify if their ipothesys is correlation, causation or coincidence (because, let's be honest, 500 ppl and without a control group?)
The entire genre of internet comments that dismiss the life-work of others with a contemptuous hand-wave is problematic. Critique is good, but it should seriously engage with what it is criticizing. That takes effort, for which nastiness is an ugly substitute.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14816358 and marked it off-topic.
Btw that longitudinal Harvard study has been well-known and interesting for long time, despite its flaws. Previous HN threads have discussed it without sinking into snark and I doubt that the community has become smarter since then.
Step 2: ?
Step 3: HAPPY LIFE
--
† As a male in 1938.
I like this study! I didn't call it 'bullshit' and there's nothing nasty in my formulation.
But the high-order bit of things to be considered in the limits of this study's interpretation is how peculiar the main focus group - Harvard enrollees in 1938 - was.
This HU house-press piece only obliquely hints at the issue, by noting how the study has gradually expanded to include children and wives, and an "inner-city" "control group".
I realize wrapping the point in a formulaic meme risks making it look like pure snark/dismissal. But it can also be a way to sharply and memorably raise a very specific issue.
You're right that the initial sample is much narrower than ideal. That's why they've broadened the study to include a comparator group of city men and second-generation participants of both genders.