Loneliness kills
Loneliness is as powerful as smoking or drinking alcohol
- Robert Waldinger
I just read an article about a study that has been going on for 80 years now at Harvard. The secret to long-term happiness.
I have always known deep down that happiness and I mean true happiness is driven by relationships with people and what you spend your time on a day-to-day basis. Not the amount of money you have in your bank account or the car you drive to and from work. The title behind your name or the degree hanging on your wall.
This study started in 1938…think about 1938 right now. The depression was happening, there wasn’t a whole lot of medical advances, especially when it came to mental health. There was an active draft for the war going on. Not to mention back then the study started with only men. No women at all. They added women about 10 years ago and now they are starting to include their children. If that doesn’t make you think about the period this study was started then I don’t know what to tell you!
I have always believed that it all starts with your brain and thought process. Which has a lot to do with who you are surrounded by. Your environment. I think that mental health has to come before physical health because if you don’t know what you need how can you do it?
Starting from the moment you are born, your brain is being developed up until roughly 25–30. The funny thing is that attachment styles are formed in the very beginning like 0–3 yrs old is the most important part. Those first few years of life and the love and warmth you feel have a lot to do with who you are and how your relationships are today. Now life will always happen so that doesn’t mean that as long as your parents loved you and cared for you right away you will be fine. It means that this sets the tone for how you view the world and other people.
The point of the study they conducted at Harvard was that meaningful relationships make people happy and live longer. See it’s simple….get rid of the negative toxic people in your life or at least distance yourself from them and you will be that much happier.
From my point of view, relationships are everything. The people you spend your time with, share your problems with. The people you chose to lean on when your down. How they treat you is everything too, do they listen to your problems to solve them or listen just so you can get it out and vent? Do they make eye contact with you when you are talking? Are they the ones at the dinner table on their phone while you’re talking?
I like to observe these things when I’m out and about in the world. I look around to see the emotions on people’s faces, or in their body language. It’s all very interesting to me…
Anyways…
Here is a link to the article itself in the Harvard Gazette. Enjoy!
