Lessons From The World's Longest Study On Happiness - Dr Robert Waldinger - #578

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, friends. Welcome back to the show. My guest today is Dr. Robert Waldinger. He's a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, Zen priest, and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest running study of adult life ever conducted. What makes for a good life? That was one of the main questions I asked myself when I began this podcast. A far easier solution would have been to just speak to Dr. Waldinger, as his team has been researching thousands of the same individuals for 75 years to answer this question definitively. Expect to learn how you operate a longitudinal study that spans more time than any researcher's career, just how in-depth this study went with brain scans and blood tests, what the most important factors which determined life happiness were, how many friends people should have if they want to be happy, whether being married makes you live longer, what role achievement has on life satisfaction and much more. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Surfshark VPN. Protect your browsing online and get access to the entire world's Netflix library for less than the price of a cup of coffee per month. If you use a public Wi-Fi network like a library or a cafe or university, the internet administrator can see all of your data and that is stopped if you use Surfshark VPN. It also is allowed across unlimited devices, so your laptop, your phone, your iPad, even your smart TV, and it gives you unlimited access to the entire world's Netflix library. It'll allow you to use services like HBO Max and Disney Plus when you're abroad, and all of this is for less than the price of what? Rubbish espresso every single month, $2 or £2 per month, less than that in fact. It's 83% off, three months free, and a 30-day money back guarantee. So you can buy it, set it up, which takes 30 seconds, try it for 29 days, and if you don't like it, they'll give you your money back. Head to surfshark.deals slash modern wisdom. That's surfshark.deals slash modern wisdom. In other other news, this episode is brought to you by MyProtein. They're the number one sports supplement company on the planet, literally the biggest in the world, and it is a new year. If you are getting into your fitness, if you are making some improvements to your health, you need to ensure that you are getting adequate protein. It will support your muscle building and it will make you feel better plus help you to lose weight by being the best profile that you can get when it comes to a macronutrient. MyProtein's Clearway is the best protein powder that I've ever found. It's light and fruity. It looks and tastes like juice, but it has more protein in than a normal protein shake. And it comes in amazing flavors. Orange and mango is goated, absolutely goated if you want to get started. Also, they've got protein bars, foods, supplements, like creatine, pre-workout, recovery drinks. They've got absolutely everything and they ship worldwide. And you can get 37% or greater off everything if you go to bit.ly slash protein wisdom and use the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's bit.ly slash protein wisdom and MODERNWISDOM at checkout. And in final news, this episode is brought to you by Optimal Carnivore. Organ meats are some of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet. The founders of Optimal Carnivore understood the amazing benefits, but found it difficult to source a variety of high-quality organ meat. They disliked the process of preparing them and trying to make them tasty. So they started sourcing 100% grass-fed organ meats from New Zealand, freeze-drying the organs and encapsulating them into convenient bovine gelatin capsules. So if you have been learning or reading about the benefits of organ meats, but you do not fancy trying to tackle the difficulty of eating or cooking liver, this is a really good solution. It will help you to get the benefits of organ meats without having to go through the rigmarole of putting them in your mouth and tasting them. They have a grass-fed organ complex, a powerful combination of beef liver, brain, thymus, heart, kidney, spleen, pancreas, lung and gallbladder, none of which sound particularly enticing to eat, but all of which you can get by trying their supplement. Head to amazon.com/optimalcarnivore and use the code WisdomSave10 to receive 10% off everything at checkout. That's amazon.com/optimalcarnivore and WisdomSave10 at checkout. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dr Robert Waldinger.
Tell me about the origins of this study that you're currently in charge of.

**Robert Waldinger** (4:55)
The study started in 1938
It's the longest study that we know of, of the same people going through their entire lives. And it started as two studies that didn't even know about each other. One was started at Harvard College, undergraduate students, a 19-year-old who were chosen by their professors as fine upstanding specimens. And it was to be a study of adolescents moving into young adulthood. So of course, if you want to study normal young adult development, you study all white males from Harvard, right? It's like so politically incorrect. And then the other study was a study of juvenile delinquency. It was started at Harvard Law School by a professor named Sheldon Gluck and his wife Eleanor Gluck. They were interested in why some children from really disadvantaged backgrounds and troubled homes managed to stay on good developmental paths and stayed out of trouble. And so both of those studies were then put together in the 1970s as contrasting groups, one very privileged, one very underprivileged. And we've followed them, their spouses, and now their children, for 85 years.