What 10 key lessons can we learn about living the good life from studying older people?
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I’ve posted about three major studies of older people that gave deep insight into what makes a good life:
- The Terman study (which followed over 1000 men and women from childhood into old age)
- The Grant study (which followed a group of young men at Harvard from college until the end of life)
- The Legacy Project (which interviewed almost 1500 people ages 70-100+)
Here are my top ten takeaways from the research:
1) What it takes to live a long life and a happy life are often the same
…many (but not all) of the recommendations for happiness are nearly identical to recommendations for maintaining health.
For example, those trying to improve their happiness are advised to do the following things:
• Watch less TV
• Improve social relations— spend time with friends
• Increase levels of physical activity— go for a long walk
• Help others and express gratitude to those who have helped you
• Take on new challenges to remain fresh and in-the-moment
2) Do not stay in a job you dislike
Via 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans:
You know those nightmares where you are shouting a warning but no sound comes out? Well, that’s the intensity with which the experts wanted to tell younger people that spending years in a job you dislike is a recipe for regret and a tragic mistake. There was no issue about which the experts were more adamant and forceful. Over and over they prefaced their comments with, “If there’s one thing I want your readers to know it’s . . .” From the vantage point of looking back over long experience, wasting around two thousand hours of irretrievable lifetime each year is pure idiocy.
3) One question can likely predict whether you’ll be alive and happy at 80
“Is there someone in your life whom you would feel comfortable phoning at four in the morning to tell your troubles to?”
Via Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being:
Is there someone in your life whom you would feel comfortable phoning at four in the morning to tell your troubles to? If your answer is yes, you will likely live longer than someone whose answer is no. For George Vaillant, the Harvard psychiatrist who discovered this fact, the master strength is the capacity to be loved. Conversely, as the social neuroscientist John Cacioppo has argued, loneliness is such a disabling condition that it compels the belief that the pursuit of relationships is a rock-bottom fundamental to human well-being.
And:
Vaillant’s insight came from his seminal work on the Grant Study, an almost seventy-year (and ongoing) longitudinal investigation of the developmental trajectories of Harvard College graduates. (This study is also referred to as the Harvard Study.) In a study led by Derek Isaacowitz, we found that the capacity to love and be loved was the single strength most clearly associated with subjective well-being at age eighty.
4) Your friends are the easiest route to self-improvement and a long, healthy life
The Longevity Project had this to say:
The groups you associate with often determine the type of person you become. For people who want improved health, association with other healthy people is usually the strongest and most direct path of change.
5) Want a happy relationship? Don’t go to bed angry
Via 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans:
…if there was one ubiquitous recommendation about marriage it was this: “Don’t go to bed angry.”
Why might this be so powerful?
Via 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans:
The experts are telling us something profound: namely, most things that couples disagree upon aren’t worth more than a day’s combat…The old know this lesson, but the young must take it seriously too.
6) Conscientiousness is the personality trait that best predicts how long you will live
Conscientiousness, which was the best predictor of longevity when measured in childhood, also turned out to be the best personality predictor of long life when measured in adulthood.
And:
By the end of the twentieth century, 70 percent of the Terman men and 51 percent of the Terman women had died. It was the unconscientious among them who had been dying in especially large numbers.
7) Follow The Golden Rule
Via 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans:
One of these sayings, however, outshone all the rest. It came up again and again in answer to various questions, including, “What are the most important lessons you have learned over the course of your life” and “What are the major values and principles you live by?” In fact it was probably mentioned more often than any other single piece of advice. What was this important truth?… The Golden Rule.
8) You don’t live a long life because you get help from others, you live a long life because you *give* help to others
We figured that if a Terman participant sincerely felt that he or she had friends and relatives to count on when having a hard time then that person would be healthier. Those who felt very loved and cared for, we predicted, would live the longest. Surprise: our prediction was wrong… Beyond social network size, the clearest benefit of social relationships came from helping others. Those who helped their friends and neighbors, advising and caring for others, tended to live to old age.
9) Older people have good tips because they’ve been there before
A few quick tidbits from The Legacy Project:
- Life is short.
- In the world of work, do what you enjoy.
- Treat your body like you’re going to need it for 100 years.
- Biggest regret? Pointless worrying.
- Don’t make your happiness contingent. Be happy in spite of bad times.
10) Relationships are the most important thing
What was the Terman study’s most important recommendation for a longer life?
…connecting with and helping others is more important than obsessing over a rigorous exercise program.
The Grant Study found that “the capacity to love and be loved was the single strength most clearly associated with subjective well-being at age eighty.”
Via Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being:
Vaillant’s insight came from his seminal work on the Grant Study, an almost seventy-year (and ongoing) longitudinal investigation of the developmental trajectories of Harvard College graduates. (This study is also referred to as the Harvard Study.) In a study led by Derek Isaacowitz, we found that the capacity to love and be loved was the single strength most clearly associated with subjective well-being at age eighty.
“Vaillant was asked, ‘What have you learned from the Grant Study men?’ Vaillant’s response: ‘That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.‘”
Vaillant’s other main interest is the power of relationships. “It is social aptitude,” he writes, “not intellectual brilliance or parental social class, that leads to successful aging.” Warm connections are necessary—and if not found in a mother or father, they can come from siblings, uncles, friends, mentors. The men’s relationships at age 47, he found, predicted late-life adjustment better than any other variable, except defenses. Good sibling relationships seem especially powerful: 93 percent of the men who were thriving at age 65 had been close to a brother or sister when younger. In an interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant was asked, “What have you learned from the Grant Study men?” Vaillant’s response: “That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”
More on the Terman study here. More on the Grant Study here. More on The Legacy Project here.
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