2 min to read
What makes a good life?
The good life is built with good relationships.
Nowadays most people’s life goal is to get rich or famous. We live in a society that constanty tells us to work harder and achieve more in order to fulfill this goal. But does money and fame really keep us happy and healthy as we grow up?
The Harvard Study of Adult Development recently gave us the answer. Since 1938, researchers have been tracking the lives of 724 men, asking them regularly about their work, home lives, and health, interviewing them in their living rooms, drawing their blood, scanning ther brains, talking to their children and much more.
The study generated thousands pages of information and the results proved that good relationships keep us happier and healthier. The three main lessons about relationships we can learn from the study are the following.
Firstly, social connections are really good for us whereas loneliness kills. People who are more socially connected to their family, friends, and community tend to become happier. They are also physically healthier, and they live longer than people who are less well connected.
Secondly, it is not the number of friends and whether or not you are in a committed relationship, but the quality of your close relationships that truly matters. Living in the midst of conflict is really bad for our health whereas living in the midst of warm relationships is protective.
Thirdly, good relationships do not just protect our bodies. They also protect our brains. In fact, being in a securely attached relationship to another person lets you remember much more longer and prevent early memory decline.
In conclusion, close relationships are good for our health and well-being. You may wonder how you can change your relationships for the better. Well, there is plenty of actions you can take. For example, you could replace screen time with people time or liven up a stale relationship by doing something new (long walks, date nights, etc), or reach out to that family member who you haven’t spoken to in years!
There isn’t time, so brief is life, for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that.
