If You Want Your Life to Change, Do These 3 Things (From the Longest Study on Happiness)

What makes a good life? For more than 85 years, Harvard researchers have followed the same people to find out. Here are 3 things the longest study on happiness suggests you can start this week, and one of them takes 5 minutes. In this video: What the Harvard Study of Adult Development actually found Why relationship quality, not quantity, seems to matter most Thing 1: stop counting, start choosing Thing 2: treat relationships like fitness Thing 3: reach out first (the research on why we underestimate it) The honest limits of the study Chapters: 0:00 Who would you call? 0:08 The 85-year study 1:20 What predicted health at 80 1:55 Thing 1: Stop counting, start choosing 2:35 Thing 2: Treat it like fitness 3:14 Thing 3: Reach out first 3:56 The honest part 4:27 Who would you call? (answer) Sources: Harvard Gazette (2017), "Good genes are nice, but joy is better": https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor... Harvard Gazette (2023), "Work out daily? OK, but how socially fit are you?": https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor... Holt-Lunstad, Smith & Layton (2010), "Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review," PLoS Medicine Liu, Rim, Min & Min (2022), "The Surprise of Reaching Out: Appreciated More Than We Think," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Educational content, not medical or psychological advice. Most findings here are correlations, not proof of cause and effect. #psychology #relationships #happiness