What The Ultimate Study On Happiness Reveals | Highlights and Annotations by Gistr.

This segment introduces the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a groundbreaking longitudinal study spanning over 85 years, which provides a unique and valuable dataset for understanding the factors contributing to a happy and healthy life. gonna make you happy? -um. -uh. - uh. -uh. -ooh. -[Derek] but people aren't really good at judging what will make them happy. winning the lottery seems like it should make you happy. -what!? (sister screams) what!? what!? -[Derek] but numerous studies on lottery winners find that after the initial surge of happiness wears off, many are no happier than the rest of us. some are, in fact, more miserable than they were beforehand. -'cause you don't see as many people as you used to see. obviously, you become slightly isolated, i think in some ways. -yeah, I agree. -another problem is that people's memories aren't reliable. -we only detect, encode and store in our brains bits and pieces of the entire experience in front of us. it's called reconstructed memories. it happens to us in all the aspects of our lives all the time. -most studies on happiness find older people and ask them to recall what made them happy. This segment highlights the importance of consistent effort in maintaining strong relationships. The speaker emphasizes that actively nurturing connections through regular interactions, even small gestures, is key to long-term happiness and fulfillment. They share anecdotal evidence of individuals who transformed their relationships by making conscious efforts, demonstrating that positive change is possible at any stage of life, even when unexpected. The message underscores the importance of perseverance and hope in building and maintaining meaningful connections. This segment summarizes the key findings of the Harvard study, emphasizing the crucial role of relationships in overall happiness and well-being, while also discussing the role of meaningful work and money. relationships to human happiness and health. they teach us three main lessons. the first is that relationships are great for our health. in 2010, researchers looked across 148 studies with a total of more than 300,000 participants. they found that, on average, people with stronger social connections had a 50% increased likelihood of survival for any given year. being married, in particular, has a large impact on how long people live. -there's one study, I think it's pretty well respected, that suggests that married men live 12 years longer on average than unmarried men and married women live seven years longer on average than unmarried women.. marriage is always a better deal for men on all parameters than it is for women. (Derek laughs) and it's not because you have a marriage license, right? it's because people living together in an intimate partnership tend to keep each other healthier. you have somebody who's kind of watching, looking out for you. it's a very real, concrete effect. -if feeling well-connected to others makes us happier, healthier, and extends our lives, then what happens if we feel disconnected? -there's a researcher, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, out of the University of Utah, who did a meta-analysis of a whole slew of studies of the physical effects of loneliness. and her calculation was that being lonely is as that matters. -when we'd followed all the original people out to their 80s we said, "okay, what data actually are the best predictors at age 50 of who's gonna be happy and healthy at age 80 as opposed to sick or dead?" and we thought we were gonna be looking at blood pressure and cholesterol level at age 50 as the strongest predictors. it was their relationships. it was particularly their satisfaction with their marital relationships. That was the strongest predictor. -and relationships don't just keep us happier and physically healthier, they also protect our brains. people who are in secure relationships in their 80s, where they feel that they can rely on the other person, find that their memories stay sharper for longer. and people who feel lonely, well, their memories fade quicker. a study of retired U.S. adults found that the rate of cognitive decline was 20% higher over 10 years for those who felt lonely. a meta-analysis from 2018 further confirms the detrimental effects of loneliness, finding that it also increased the risk of dementia. but there's still a big open question: what is it about the relationships that makes them particularly healthful or helpful? -the best hypothesis, for which there's some pretty only have the options in your city. but betterhelp changes the game on this because it's an online platform. and by filling out a few questions, you'll get matched with a professional therapist. so you can get talking in most cases within 48 hours and then you can have your therapy session as a phone call, as a video chat, or even via messaging if you prefer that. just whatever's the most comfortable version of therapy for you. and it's easy to sign up, there's a link in the description. it is betterhelp.com/veritasium. clicking on that link both helps support this channel and it also gets you 10% off your first month of betterhelp. so you can try it out and see if it helps you. and if you don't really fit with your first therapist, which is pretty common, you can easily switch to a new one for free without stressing about insurance, who's in your network or anything like that. if you feel like you could benefit from talking to someone, getting feedback, advice, and help for anything that might be affecting your happiness and progress in life, then visit betterhelp.com/veritasium or click that link in the description below. so I want to thank betterhelp for sponsoring this part of the video. order to make yourself happy. we don't think about that at all. and yet, when we study it scientifically, we find that that turns out to be an enormous predictor of happiness as well as physical health. -what's gonna make you happy? -um. -uh. -uh. -uh. -um. -uh. -being wealthy is definitely a big aspect of it. but that loving family is kind of like the foundation of it. you know what I mean? -realistically, money. but like building deep connections with people are what's going to make me happy. -[Derek] that's awesome. -having like good relationships with other people. -you raise a family. -have a family and provide. -friends and family. -seeing my family happy, that's all I really care about. -giving back to the community where you came from, the world. -a strong family base just to come home to every night. -yeah. I wanna get married, have a ton of kids. I want to--how many is a ton? -probably like five-ish, six. -that's a--as many as I can afford. (Derek laughs) so. -in fact, when I interviewed people, I was pleasantly surprised to see how many identified the importance of relationships. so if you could give people advice