What happiness means is different for each individual and may shift over a lifetime

At the end of the day, don’t we all want to be happy? Here are 5 ways to get there

Getting involved in community activities that you enjoy can help you meet new people and build more relationships.
Getting involved in community activities that you enjoy can help you meet new people and build more relationships.  FreshSplash/E+/Getty Images

(CNN) — Americans are really into pursuing happiness.

What happiness means is different for each individual and may shift over a lifetime: joy, love, purpose, money, health, freedom, gratitude, friendship, romance, fulfilling work? All of the above? Something else entirely? Many have even suggested that while we may think we know what will make us happy, we are often wrong.

One man may have cracked the code for what makes a happy and healthier life — and he has the data to back him up.

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Dr. Robert Waldinger is the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development — possibly the longest-running longitudinal study on human happiness, which started back in 1938. (The original study followed two groups of males, Harvard College students and adolescents in Boston’s inner city. It was expanded in recent decades to include women and people of more diverse backgrounds.)

Plenty of components are at play in the quest for a happier life, but the key comes down to one main factor: quality relationships.

“What we found was that the important thing was to stay actively connected to at least a few people, because we all need a sense of connection to somebody as we go through life,” Waldinger told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently on his podcast Chasing Life.

“And the people who were connected to other people lived longer and stayed physically healthier than the people who were more isolated,” he said. “That was the surprise in our study: not that people were happier but that they lived longer.”

Waldinger, who shares many of the study’s lessons in the book he coauthored, “The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness,” is a psychiatrist, a professor of psychiatryat Harvard Medical School and a Zen priest.

Why would having quality relationships help people live happier and longer lives?

“The best data that we have, and other studies have, has to do with stress and relief of stress,” Waldinger said. “If I have something upsetting happen today, I can literally feel my body rev up into fight-or-flight mode. … That’s not a problem, that’s normal, the fight-or-flight response. But what we’re meant to do is go back to equilibrium when the stress is removed. And if I can go home and complain to my wife or call up a friend, I can literally feel my body calm down.”

He said neuroscience research suggests that people who are isolated or feel lonely stay in a low-level, fight-or-flight mode, which means they have higher levels of circulating stress hormones. “They have immune systems that don’t function as well, so they get infections more easily,” he said. “And that chronic inflammation breaks down body systems.”

Additionally, people who are isolated don’t have anyone looking out for them, Waldinger said, ensuring they eat well, visit the doctor and engage in other behaviors that lead to better health.

It doesn’t meanintroverts or people without partners are doomed to short, miserable livesHaving one or two good friends — someone you can count on — is enough, he added.

What can you do to live your happiest life? Waldinger has these five tips.

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Don’t neglect the basics

Optimize your physical health. “On the one hand it sounds obvious, but we find that the people in our study who took care of their health lived longer and had more years when they were free of illness as they got older,” Waldinger said.

“It means, exercising regularly. It means eating well. It means not becoming obese. It means not abusing alcohol or drugs. It means getting a reasonable amount of sleep,” he said. “Those things matter a lot.”

If you don’t know where to start, sign up for these newsletters on exercise, eating right and sleep.

 

 

 

 

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