What Are the Keys to Happiness? Lessons from a 75-Year-Long Harvard Study

Last year, we high­light­ed the Har­vard Grant Study and The Glueck Study, two 75-year stud­ies that have traced the lives and devel­op­ment of hun­dreds of men, try­ing to get answers to one big ques­tion: How can you live a long and hap­py life? For answers, watch Robert Waldinger above. He’s the direc­tor of what’s now called the Har­vard Study of Adult Devel­op­ment and also an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try at Har­vard Med­ical School.

Accord­ing to the decades-long study, you won’t get health and hap­pi­ness from wealth and fame (nor hard work), the mirages that many Amer­i­cans chase after. Instead they come from some­thing a lit­tle more obtain­able, if you work at it—good, strong rela­tion­ships with fam­i­ly, friends, col­leagues, and folks in your com­mu­ni­ty. These rela­tion­ships, the study finds, pro­tect us men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly. They increase our hap­pi­ness and extend our lives, where­as, con­verse­ly, lone­li­ness and cor­ro­sive rela­tion­ships put us into decline soon­er than we’d like. The key take­away here: good rela­tion­ships are the foun­da­tion on which we build the good life. Start putting that into prac­tice today.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

All You Need is Love: The Keys to Hap­pi­ness Revealed by a 75-Year Har­vard Study

A Guide to Hap­pi­ness: Alain de Bot­ton Shows How Six Great Philoso­phers Can Change Your Life

Take the ‘Hap­pi­ness Exper­i­ment’

Free Online Psy­chol­o­gy Cours­es