The Liz Moody Podcast - The Secret To Happiness, From The World’s Longest Study With Dr. Robert Waldinger

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

How things like money, status, relationships, experiences, and more impact living our best life with Harvard happiness researcher Dr. Robert Waldinger.  the number one thing that universally leads to a good life, according to research the career factors that make you happy (and the ones that we think matter but actually at all) exactly how to use social media in a way that contributes to your happiness  the 2 qualities that help build better relationships the number one thing that gets in the way of having happy relationships (+ how to fix it) what studies about the impact of having kids on happiness the role that wealth plays in happiness levels, according to the research (+ exactly how to spend money to be happier) how much of happiness is genetic  what the research shows about happiness levels as we age how traumatic world events impact happiness (+ ways to feel better even when the world feels like it's falling apart) and so much more! For more from Dr. Waldinger, check out his book The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.  To join the Healthier Together Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthiertogetherpodcast. Grab your Raunchier Together deck in time for Valentine’s Day by ordering before February 9th at healthyconvo.co and use code LOVE15 for 15% off any Healthy Convo Co games!  This episode is sponsored by: AG1 by Athletic Greens: visit athleticgreens.com/healthiertogether and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today.  Paleovalley: head over to paleovalley.com and use the code LIZM for 15% off. Cymbiotika: get 15% off using code LIZ at cymbiotika.com.  GoMacro: use code HEALTHIER30 for 30% off your order and free shipping on orders over $50 at gomacro.com.  Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the healthier together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and long-time journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're learning how to hack our brains for better focus, getting therapists recommended tips for up-leveling our relationships, or hearing all of the best healthy cooking secrets. And yes, those are all real episodes, so if any of those topics sound good to you, scroll on back in the archives. I am so excited to welcome psychiatrist Dr. Robert Waldinger to today's episode.

Dr. Waldinger is the director of the Harvard study of adult development, which is the longest survey ever conducted over people's lives. It started over 80 years ago, yes, 80 years ago, and has since tracked the same individuals and their families asking thousands of questions and taking hundreds of measurements from brain scans to blood work with the goal of discovering what makes for a good life. His TED talk on what makes a good life has over 44 million views, and his new book, The Good Life Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, which he co-authored with his colleague, Dr. Mark Schultz,

shares findings from the study alongside corroborating research from different populations worldwide about the keys to happiness. It's truly a remarkable feat of research, and it was such an honor to get to talk to Dr. Waldinger about his findings. On this episode, we get into the number one thing that universally leads to a good life, according to research, the career factors that make you happy and the ones that we think matter, but actually don't at all. Exactly how to use social media in a way that contributes to your happiness, the two qualities that help build better relationships. The number one thing that gets in the way of having healthy relationships plus how to fix it. What studies show about the impact of having kids on happiness.

the role that wealth plays in happiness levels, according to the research, plus exactly how to spend your money to be happier. How much of happiness is genetic? What the research shows us about happiness levels as we age. This really surprised me, and it made me feel better about aging than anything I've heard in a very long time. So thank you, Dr. Waldinger, for that. How traumatic world events impact happiness plus ways to feel better even when the world feels like it is falling apart. And so much more. If something resonates with you from this episode, please share it with someone that you think would benefit.

This was such a wonderfully thought-provoking, comforting conversation. And I hope it makes you and anyone you share it with feel as warm and fuzzy as I did recording it. And I just want to say thank you so much for continuing to share the podcast with friends, family members, coworkers, I don't know, strangers at the grocery store. 2023 has been an amazing, amazing year already for the podcast, all of the episodes that we have put live. already have been trending on Spotify, which is so incredible to see. And it's all because of you sharing the episode, shooting that link over Slack, sending it in a text message to a friend. And it's just so incredibly appreciated. Quickly, before we get into the episode, I would be remiss not to mention that raunch here together from mine and Zach's Conversation, Card Game Company, Healthy ConvoCo,

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Plus, if you stock up in order two or more of any of our four conversations starting games, you will get free two-day shipping on top of the 15% off, and we are not going to do promo codes that often. So this is a great opportunity to stock up with the code Love 15. You want to order by February 9th to definitely get it in time for Valentine's Day, and the code is limited time only. So head over to Healthycombo.combo. Without further ado, let's find out what really makes for a good life with Dr. Robert Waldinger.

Dr. Waldinger, it is such an honor to have you here. I'm such a fan of your work and all of the incredible research that you're doing in the space. And I was just telling you before we got on how well, I feel like you distilled decades of research into this beautiful book you've written. Thank you. I'm really glad to be able to come and talk with you about it. Can you just start off by telling me a little bit about the Harvard study of adult development that the book revolves around? Why did it initially start? Who were the participants? What was the goal? The study was actually two studies. Both started at Harvard, but they didn't even know about each other. One study was a group of Harvard College sophomores, 19-year-old guys in 1938,

who their deans thought were fine upstanding specimens and they would develop from adolescents into fine young adults. So it was a study of normal young adult development. The other group was a group of boys from not just Boston's poorest neighborhoods, but from their most troubled families. So families known to like five social service agencies, like really troubled kids. And it was started with the question,

And how is it that some children who are born into such difficult circumstances manage to do well, managed to stay on good developmental paths? So both were studies of how do people thrive? One was a very privileged group, one was a very underprivileged group. And do you feel like you have an answer to that question? If somebody asked you now, how do people from those types of background end up thriving? Would you have a concrete response for them? I would. This is 85 years of data. And we find that the strongest predictor of thriving is good

relationships with other people. And that it's not just emotional well-being and happiness. It's physical thriving. It's staying healthier, longer, and living longer. I would love for you to speak to why that is the case. Like what makes good relationships good for us from a mechanism of action perspective. Absolutely. You are talking like a researcher here because researchers ask, well, how could this possibly work? Like, how could relationships get into your body

and change your health? How could that happen? Well, the best hypothesis, and we've been studying this now for a while, is about stress. We believe that good relationships are stress relievers. So let's say, for example, that I have something really upsetting happen in my day. and I find myself like all ruminating about it and I can feel my heart rate go up and I can feel

myself start to sweat and I bet my blood pressure goes up and that's normal actually our bodies are meant to meet challenges by going into fight or flight response that's normal but our bodies are also meant to return to baseline equilibrium when the threat goes away and what I know is that if I'm all upset and I come home and there's someone at home to talk to or someone I can call who's a good listener, I can literally feel my body calm down. And that's the way good relationships regulate us. But if we don't have that person anywhere who we can talk to, we believe that what happens is we stay in a kind of chronic low-level fight or flight mode. So we have higher levels of circulating stress hormone. and levels of chronic inflammation that just break down body systems.

And we think that that's how stress slowly, gradually breaks down the body and that relationships help us regulate and relieve stress. Does the fact that you've found that relationships are the most important factor mean that they perform better than other mechanisms of stress relief, things like meditation or exercise? It's such a good question. It would be really hard to do a rigorous comparison of that. What we do know is that, for example, loneliness and social isolation are as dangerous to our health as smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day.

So we do know that there are some ways that we can quantify this problem, but it is difficult to say, well, you should have good relationships instead of exercising or instead of eating well. We would never say that, right? We do know from our research that taking care of your health, taking care of your body is super important. To the loneliness comment, you had a line in your book that I wrote down because it struck me so much. And it was, if we feel disconnected from others at work, that means that we feel lonely for the majority of our waking hours. That is wild to me to think about because I've never chosen a job based on the people there. Would you say with the information that you have that the core thing we should be looking at? for in a job is working with people that we like versus the actual work that we're doing?

It's a big thing. I wouldn't say versus the actual work, but I would say to try to find ideally work you care about, but then have at least one person at work who you can connect with personally. In fact, the Gallup organization did a survey of 15 million workers and they ask the question, do you have a best friend at work? And only three out of 10, 30 percent said they had a best friend at work, meaning somebody they could talk to about their personal lives. And those 30 percent were so much more engaged in their work. They performed better. They were less likely to leave that job to go somewhere else because they had someone or more than one person they wanted to show up for every day. They cared about and who cared about them.

So what we know is that having friendships at work is not a distraction. It's just the opposite. It's interesting, too, because it makes me feel like if you were unhappy at work, a lot of us are like, well, is there a job that I'd be more passionate about? But it's interesting to look at the relationship component at the same time you're looking at the actual labor component. Yes. What we can do is think, okay, are there people I could get to know better at work to make my experience better, moment to moment, day to day? Sometimes it's like seeing, you know, just checking out the person who's in the cubicle next to you or the person you run into at the coffee machine and just seeing if you can strike up conversations, see what you might have in common. It's interesting

because there's this whole movement now, I think particularly around people in their 20s and and sometimes 30s where people are like, I don't want the pizza party. I want to show up and get paid and go home. Like, this is the agreement that we've constructed under capitalism. And I completely get that too. I do think sometimes there's this sense of, we'll give you a yoga class. And you're like, well, I really just wanted boundaries around when I had to answer emails. But also, it sounds like from this research that the social component is actually a critical part of work.

So it's an interesting fuzzy area. Well, it's a huge part of work. And I agree with you that boundaries around work are really important. So one doesn't exclude the other. But to have people there who mean something to you, who you can talk even a little bit about your personal life is so bonding and so helpful. Otherwise, it's a lonely eight-hour day. I kind of remember you having strategies in the book for combating that loneliness or feeling happier at work, even if you're you were in a job or situation that you didn't have any choice over it, really, like you had to go to a job to make money to provide for your family. Can you share a few of those tips? One of the stories in the book that I love is the story of this woman. She's kind of middle-aged mom and her cubicle mate is like a young guy who's pretty hip, and she thinks that they don't have anything in common. And then they start connecting. She's having a bad day. She notices he's having a bad day. They start talking about what the problems are. They connect. They start co-operating. They

operating in their work. So, you know, one of the things we can do is just notice, like even notice what other people display on their desk. Notice something personal and say, oh, that's really cool. Or tell me about that that's there on your desk or tell me about that poster on your wall and just see if it allows you to learn more about that other person as a way to begin to connect more with them as a human being, not just another. automaton in a cubicle.

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Liz. Again, that's 15% off at oneskin.co with code Liz. I did another podcast with Annie Murphy-Paul, which was all about accessing our mind outside of our brain. And she says that even putting those personal objects on our desk help us perform better at work. So we should put our personal objects on our desk and then other people can comment on them and then we'll actually do our work better and we'll have better relationships. Absolutely. In fact, our surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, started something in his staff meetings where once a week, for the first five minutes of the staff meeting, one person talks about something in their personal life that they would like everybody to know about them, right?

And it turns out that the staff loves this. It's their favorite meeting. It's the favorite thing they do. They never want to get rid of that part of the meeting. And it helped people strike up relationships. Oh, I didn't know you were into biking or I didn't know you were a gardener or whatever it might be. It's a humanizing thing. It's like, oh, you're a person outside of these spreadsheets. Exactly. Is there a hierarchy of which relationships matter most? And is it a cumulative effect?

Like if you have a really good romantic relationship, but you don't feel like you have any friends, are you cool? Or if you have great friends, but you aren't close with your family, does that balance out? That's such an important question. It's different for each person. So we each have to figure out what makes us feel like we're connected enough. So there is one aspect that we do know seems super important, which is feeling securely connected to at least one person.

At one point, we asked our participants, who could you call in the middle of the night if you were sick or scared? List all those people. And some people could list several people. Some people couldn't list anyone. Even people who were married, some people couldn't list anyone. And so what we think we all need is at least one person in our lives who we feel is really there for us and would be if we were in trouble and we needed help. And then beyond that, it doesn't have to be a romantic partner.

It doesn't have to be someone you live with. It could be a friend. It could be a family member. It could be a workmate. What you really want are some relationships that make you feel connected enough for. For introverts, that could be just one or two people. That's all they need. For extroverts, it might be lots of people.

Do you have any advice for combating how much modern life isolates us? Well, we talk in the book about something we call social fitness. And we use that phrase to be an analogy with physical fitness. You work out today and you don't end it and say, okay, I'm done. I never have to work out again. That'd be nice. Wouldn't it be nice? Yeah, but we don't do that because we know it's an ongoing practice.

And what we find is that taking care of our relationships is an ongoing practice. It needs to be that being proactive in reaching out, I haven't seen you in a while, let's go for a walk, or I miss you, let's have a phone call. I used to think in my 20s that my friends were my friends. They were always going to be my friends. But what we learn about is that perfectly good relationships. can just wither away from neglect. And so what we want to encourage people to think about is,

how could I be active? How could people be active right now when they're done listening to this podcast? Think of somebody you're missing or you'd like to reach out to. Could you just send them a text or send them an email and just see what comes back to you? It's a small act. But if you do those things regularly, that's your social fitness. I also think it's interesting in my own life, I've found myself waiting. I move around a lot.

And I've been like, I'll work on that relationship if I'm ever in the same place as them. And if people move to a different place than me, I'm like, I guess that relationship's not going to be as strong. But I have a girlfriend. And she is a phone queen. And I have been trying to take a page from her book and being like, look, modern life means we're all moving all the time. We all have friendships from all these different phases of our life.

And just because we're not in the same place as them doesn't mean we can't cultivate. those relationships. Exactly. I wrote this book with my collaborator and my friend, Mark Schultz. Now, he's been in Pennsylvania for 25 years and we have a phone call every Friday at noon, no matter what. I mean, occasionally we have to cancel or we reschedule, but every Friday at noon we get on the phone.

And yeah, we talk about research, but we also talk about our families and we talk about everything. I might see him once a year in person, but he's a very much. one of my closest friends because we have this regular contact. What are your thoughts on the virtual versus in-person element? I'm thinking especially back to the workplace conversation and so many people are switching to remote work now. Can we get the social connection we need virtually or is there, I don't know, like a hormone thing happening when we're in person together? That's such a good question. I don't think we know fully. What gets filtered out? We know that some aspects of emotion get filtered out through screens, and we don't fully understand it. I'm sure there will be more research that

clarifies this. But what we do know is that, first of all, screens are here to stay. They're not going anywhere. And that how we use them can make a big difference. Some of the research shows that if we are active and we use screens to connect with people, that can be energizing and that can enhance our well-being. I know people who during the pandemic reconnected with their elementary school friends. And now they get together and have regular Zoom chats and they love it. But then I know other people who just scroll through other people's Instagram feeds and they get depressed and they feel bad about their lives because it looks like everybody else has life figured out and they don't. So depending on how we use our social media, we can either be more energized and

connected to others or more isolated and depressed. Were there other things that you found in your research that impeded creating and cultivating good relationships? Making assumptions about each other really impedes them. And this happens a lot in families. We grow up in our families. We've known these people our whole lives usually. And we often stereotype them after a while. My bossy older sister, my disorganized younger brother, or whatever it might be. We stereotype.

And then we say, oh, I know what they're going to say. I know what they're going to do. And that is often a buzzkill for relationships. So one of the things we can do is try to bring curiosity even to the relationships where we feel like we know everything about this person. Just to ask yourself, when you're with this person, what's here that I haven't noticed before about this person? What could I find that's new to be curious?

about. I've seen that happen in long-term relationships, too, and particularly ones where a partner maybe finds somebody in their life who is seeing who they are now, a new person. And they are like, oh, the partner that I've been with for a really long time hasn't allowed me to change and grow and evolve. And it feels really refreshing to have somebody who sees you the way that you want to be seen in this moment. I think it's really funny how much of our lives we spend trying to grow and evolve and then how little leeway we allow the people we love to have that same experience. Absolutely. It's like, wait, what? Why aren't you staying the same? You're not the person I signed up for? No. On the flip side, you talked about a few qualities that helped people form good relationships.

You mentioned particularly empathy and affection. Can you speak about why those emotions impact relationship success. Empathy is understanding how somebody else feels. And when we do understand how somebody else feels and can let them know that, people can feel so seen and recognized. This is really upsetting to you. Tell me about it. Or it seems like you're scared right now. What's going on? And people can feel noticed. So empathy is huge. It's one of those skills in what we call emotional intelligence that's really important in all kinds of relationships, including at work. And affection, what we know is that even when we're having an argument with somebody, if there's a bedrock of affection, that relationship isn't going to be bad.

That relationship isn't going to fall apart. We watched couples. We actually videotaped them having an argument with each other. and the couples who stayed together five years later in our study were the couples who on videotape, even when they were arguing, you could see there was affection there and there was respect. And the couples where you couldn't see that, those were the couples who were really likely to break up down the road. That's interesting. In couples therapy, our therapist, sometimes when we're fighting,

we'll have us just get up and hug each other for 30 seconds. And I wonder if she's trying to like remind us of the affection that we have for each other. Absolutely. And one of the questions often is, well, what brought you two together? And if you can get back into those memories of why you started caring about this person and could be a friend as well, certainly romantic partners. It's an interesting balance. Remember why you got into it, but also notice who they are now and allow them to change. You got to like walk that line. Absolutely. Are these qualities, empathy and affection? Are they things that just inherently exist in relationships? Or do you have to have? have any tips for us to cultivate them? You can cultivate them, particularly empathy. Empathy actually is knowing what somebody else is feeling. It's like getting the right answer. And we don't always get the right answer. But what we've found in our studies is that if you're trying to know what

someone else is feeling, that matters a huge amount, even if you don't get it. If you say, I think I'm not getting it, but I really want to understand what you're feeling now. Can you tell me a little more? People often feel so appreciative of the effort you're making so that you don't always have to get it if you show that you want to know and you're trying to get it. I love that. And then what about affection? Is that just looking for opportunities to hug and compliment? Yeah, one of the things we say in the book, because it's often an advice given to couples. Catch the other person being good. Catch them because we often catch each other when we're being bad, or when we're doing the thing that really annoys us.

But catch them being good and point it out, oh, I like it so much when you do that. Or I appreciate it so much when you say that. I love that. This is me putting myself on the line a little bit. But I found for a long time in my life, sometimes I felt like I knew the things that Zach particularly wanted me to notice and compliment in him, but I would sometimes even withhold that. I don't know if it was like a weird power move or something.

And then a few years ago, I was like, wait, these are the things that he clearly wants me to compliment him on. And if I just do that, like, he'll be happy. I'll be happy. Absolutely. Because in some ways, you can feel somebody like begging for praise in a certain area. And often it makes you want to say, oh, I'm not going to do that. But what you notice is that when you do give that praise, somebody lights up or they feel so good. And they'll come back and be kinder to you. So it creates what we think of as a virtuous cycle instead of a vicious cycle.

Let's talk about kids. Having kids are not, this is like a big life decision that I'm dealing with in my personal life right now. We've done podcast episodes on it. You have a lot of research on the impact of having kids on our happiness. Can you speak to what you found? I'm going to cite somebody else's research because we didn't do this study, but other studies have suggested that choosing to have kids or not to have kids doesn't predict that you're going to be happier or less happy. So in other words, the decision to have kids doesn't predict whether you're going to be happy. Now, it's different if you can't have kids and you want them, but that's a different thing. But if you choose not to have kids, that doesn't mean you're going to be less happy or more happy.

It probably has something to do with what you want in your life. How do I want to spend these 20 years or years or more of raising children or not raising children. What else do I want in my life if I don't have children? So it is a very personal decision and it's a really legitimate decision to do either to have kids or to not have kids. But if I'm undecided and I just want to live my happiest life, what should I do? Does giving to children resonate for you? Is it something that's enjoyable? Do you like taking care of creatures that need you? Do you like, teaching young people, because a lot of it is these young beings who model themselves on us, who look to us, who need us a lot. It's so individual. I really sympathize. For me,

I sort of just went ahead and did it because I couldn't imagine my life without it. And of course, now I've had kids, so I can't imagine life without it. But boy, I can now envision a choice not to have kids. I could see that road not taken that I didn't take. And what makes me nervous are some of the studies that you talk about in the book where it talks about happiness levels declining when you're caretaking and happiness levels going up when you become an empty nester. And I'm just like, ooh, that doesn't seem great from a data analysis standpoint. You're right. What it means is that there are life stresses, but you got to pick your stressors. Let's say you don't have kids and you invest a lot in your work. Okay, you're going to be more invested in the ups and downs of how your work is going. or you invest in something else. Life brings us ups and downs. Life brings us challenges. If they're not the challenges of having kids, there are going to be other challenges. If you're alive, you're signing up for a life where challenges come our way. I think it depends on where you want your challenges. It's so interesting because what I feel like you're saying is those studies don't point to the

fact that having kids is inherently more stressful than another way you're spending those 18 years, but we haven't necessarily measured all of the various ways that people are spending those 18 years. That's right. We haven't. And what gives you a sense of meaning and purpose? So for me, having these little kids who I was raising, playing with, disciplining, that felt really meaningful to me. Like reading to them at bedtime. I was exhausted, right? You know, I didn't want to read a children's book for the 12th time. But did it feel meaningful to me? Yes. Would that necessarily feel meaningful to you? I don't know. That's where it becomes a very personal decision. If relationships are the most important thing, how do we cope with the idea of loss or fear of loss

of a relationship, something like divorce or even death? If a relationship means something, you're going to lose it eventually. You win. You win. Stephen, as I said it and I totally get it, we are constantly reminding ourselves in my Zen practice of that. I am of the nature to grow old. I am of the nature to have ill health. Everyone who's dear to me, there's no way to avoid being separated from them. It's saying this is our life. It's a bit of a cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason that the cost of loving someone is the fact that eventually it ends. like that cost. I know. But, boy, the joys of loving people are really great. You could just spend your whole life being isolated, and that's another life choice, right? But loving people is,

for many of us, so worth it. And then we have to cope with loss because life involves loss. It is the truth of life, right? No, it's so important. And I don't stay isolated. I don't say isolated. I choose to love people deeply and strongly and then to be wildly anxious about the possibility of their demise. Okay. And so maybe the practice for you is to really face toward that. Okay, I'm going to lose them. And just to keep paying attention to that. What's it like and what's the feeling like that comes up? And then it'll pass away. You won't always be as scared in each moment. I face that too. We start out in the book with a couple who's talking to each other, and they're in their 80s, and the interviewer asks, what's your greatest fear? And the man has a terrible time answering.

And then he says, I'm afraid that you're going to die first, and I'm going to be left here without you. And it's such a moving moment in their interview. We were just so touched. But that's the truth of life. Didn't he die first and then she died six weeks later or something and it was just the saddest, most tragic story ever? Well, but it was maybe an okay story. They had lived long full. I cried, though. I know, I know. They're parts of the book that make you cry because they're real life stories. But they'd had a really long, happy life, right? And they loved each other. And then actually, she wasn't alone very long after he died. before she herself passed on.

I know they were close to being like Noah and Ali in the notebook. Okay. I want to shift gears a little bit. I want to talk about wealth. What impact does wealth have on happiness? I know you speak to the study in the book that talks about happiness increases up to $75,000 a year. I think we've all kind of heard that study.

And it's like, oh, it plateaus after your needs are met. And you say in the book that after our needs are met, it's more about status and pride. And that resonated with me. But I also think about all of these things that money can buy. Like money can buy therapy and nice vacations and joining a good gym and getting a massage. And these things all feel like they make me happier. Is it true that they don't? No, they do.

They do. Because what you just described was what money enables you to do. And you just described a lot of ways in which you connect with people. You take care of yourself and you connect with people. What people find when they come into a lot of money is that they buy the next two or three houses or they buy a big yacht and they buy all these fancy cars and then they're left saying, well, that doesn't quite do it for me. But you could use your money to do the things that do light you up that you do care about. It's just that money in and of itself is empty. You can't eat it.

You can't wear it. You can't anything. but it can enable us to do things we care about in the world. And then in your mind, what would be the best use of money? You said to connect with other people would obviously seem high on the list given the relationship findings, but how would you concretely use your money to better your life? Actually, they've done a study of this. How do you spend your discretionary income?

Are you happier if you pay for things, a car, a piece of jewelry, a flat screen TV, or are you happier if you pay for experiences, a vacation, a yoga class, a concert, a basketball game? What they find is that people are happier and they're happier for longer when they pay for experiences and not things. So why is that? Things lend themselves to comparison. They beg us to compare. So let's say I buy a flat screen TV and I bring it home and I'm happy I have it. But then I go to my friend's house and she's got a bigger flat screen TV. We are just less happy when we compare ourselves to others. But if I go on a vacation with my family or if I go to a concert with my son,

that's an experience that we have together that's not like anybody else's really, because it's us together doing something. Or I go to a new place and I connect with new people. So experiences are more unique. They're not things we just hold up and say, oh, mine's bigger than yours. What about freedom as an idea for happiness? I think for a lot of people having to work is a big source of unhappiness. So the idea that having more money would allow them more freedom around that would increase

their happiness resonates. Does the research pan out around that? What it asks is freedom to do what? the people who get the freedom of money and go home and sit on the couch and watch soap operas all day are not so happy. If it's freedom to engage in activities you care about, activities you love, with people you love, sure, that's great. What we find is that the conditions of happiness are about being engaged in activities you care about with people you care about. That's really the secret. And so how you do that, that could be at work. It could be at a job you have to go to

because you have to bring home a salary, or it could be in a setting where you have enough money and you're free to choose. Does status matter for happiness at all? Because I do think that like it is subconsciously one of the number one things we're chasing when we chase wealth. Totally. It's saying I want to be better than some other people. Or at least I want people to perceive me as better than. And I do think there's like self-worth stuff there where it's like if you actually felt better than you wouldn't need that perception, but I don't know if a lot of us are there. Well, most of us aren't there.

Like we all need to feel valued. It's very human to want to feel valued. But the question is, what are the measures of status that matter? to you. Do I really care if I'm invited to these parties? Do I really care if I win the Nobel Prize, there are people who win the Nobel Prize and then get deeply depressed because it's like, is that all there is? A badge of achievement does it for us for about 10 or 15 minutes and then that's it. Really, it's about, do I feel valued by my community? Do I feel valued in what I do for who I damn, that's really what we're after. It's feeling valued. Is there anything we can do if we feel

like we're putting really good work out there, but we're not being valued by our community, or we're not being valued by our kids or our spouse or our work or things like that? It's hard because most of us don't feel valued in some places. It's really true. On the one hand, we can say, please value me, but that doesn't always work. Sometimes it's looking to others who do value you and who will give you that positive feedback, sometimes it can be saying to your spouse, just like your partner showed you, I really need you to praise these things,

like showing them and in some ways training them. So one thing is to say, it was so good when you told me that you liked what I made for dinner, or it was so good when you really listened and you felt good when I told you about my promotion at work. We can train each other because people, like to be praised. And if you praise someone for praising you, they'll do it again. It really meant a lot to me that you said that to me. It really meant a lot to me that you noticed that I cleaned up the

kitchen. That makes sense. Outside of status, does luxury provide any happiness boost? Like if we're going to go on a vacation, is choosing the more luxurious hotel actually getting us anything? It can be a treat to go to a luxurious place, to be in a luxurious hotel. I think it really depends on what lights you up. Some people love luxury. Some people love interesting settings. For example, for me, when I go to a new place, I'd rather stay in an interesting hotel than in a plush generic hotel, if that makes sense. So for me, it's not about luxury versus no luxury. It's about someplace. that has the flavor of the city I've gone to or is a really unique little bed and breakfast somewhere. That for me is cool. I think it depends on what lights you up. Which begs the more difficult question,

how do we know what lights us up? I think a lot of what we're talking about is the difference between what we're societally messaged to deem valuable and figuring out what is actually valuable. Exactly. And there is a test we can do. So you know what lights you up. You do.

Does something make you feel more energized, more open, more excited about wherever you are, about the world, about who you're with? Does it do that for you? Or does it sap your energy? Does it make you feel more closed off, more pessimistic, more down? That we can do that little test in each moment. That doesn't depend on what other people value. That's me. Like, what do I value?

What do you value? The culture is giving us these messages all day long. Oh, you should buy this car and then you'll be really cool. Or you should serve this kind of pasta and then your family will have the most wonderful dinners every night, you know, or use this face cream and you'll always look young. The culture is telling us, buy these things, do these things. But we know by just checking in with ourselves, what energize. us what lights us up and what doesn't. And that's a highly personal thing. If you have headaches,

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but we still spend the vast majority of our waking hours at work, even beyond what our works expectations are, or we spend so much time chasing wealth, even if we kind of have this vague idea that after a certain point, we maybe don't need it. Do you think that that is just this barrage of societal messaging that we need to combat? Or how do we get around working against our own happiness so often? I think you're right. The societal messaging does a lot to make us think, it's supposed to make me happy. If I just do more of it, if I just make more money, then I'll be happy. But the other thing is that sometimes just staying at work longer or just saying, okay, my goal is going to be to just make more money this year, even though I don't really need it,

can be an avoidance. Because relationships are messy and complicated and they're unpredictable. Like it's two people, at least. And two people who are always changing and have different desires and different needs. And it's so much easier to just say, okay, well, I'll just spend two more hours at work, rather than connecting with a friend. Because I don't know what kind of mood I'm going to be in. I don't know what kind of mood that friend is going to be in. I'll just sit here at my computer. So how do we combat that?

Is it just getting the willpower to do the harder thing, knowing that it will be more rewarding? It is. And some of that is getting ourselves to send that little text saying, I miss you, could we get together? Or doing something to kind of start the ball rolling. there's a study that shows that we're bad at predicting what's going to make us happy. And often we're bad at predicting that, oh, actually connecting with the person is going to make me happier.

They did a study of people about to take the subway. And half the people were assigned to just do what they normally do, listen to music, keep to themselves be on their phone. And the other half were assigned to talk to a stranger. And they asked them beforehand, how much do you think you're going to enjoy this? And the people who could just do their own thing thought they were going to be much happier than the people who had to talk to strangers. When they were done, they asked them again. The people who talked to strangers were way happier than the people who kept to themselves.

So it's just a way of saying that we're not always good at remembering that, oh, actually connecting with people does make me happy. We almost need to put like post-it notes on our computer, like you'll be happier if you text your friend right now. Exactly. So one thing I've done in my life is I used to put on a podcast whenever I would get in the car to drive to the grocery store. And now I've started using that as a time to have a phone call with a friend. And I do have a little bit of phone anxiety. So having this set period of like, well, I'm at the store now. I got to go in has assuaged a lot of that anxiety. But it's a trigger. If I'm driving to the grocery store, I call somebody in my life. And I think setting up those recurring triggers could be helpful for combating that. That is fantastic, actually. doing that. Next, I would like to talk about aging. I think a lot of people associate youth with happiness and they struggle a lot with the concept of aging. So what does the research show about happiness at different stages of our life? The research shows over and over again that we get happier as we get older. I know it doesn't seem possible because we look at old people and say, oh, that doesn't look fun. I wouldn't like to be old. But we get happier as we get older. It starts

about in our mid-40s and we start to get happier and happier. So in your 60s and 70s, if you're basically okay, you know, minor health problems, but basically okay, health-wise, people are happier. Some of the most unhappy people are in their 20s. At a time when, in fact, we feel like, oh, they've got their youth, you know, so much energy, they're among the least happy age groups. Why and how does that happen? One might be just how our brains age, but one may be, that we savor the time that we have left. One of the things we know is that starting in midlife, we begin to be more aware of the truth of our mortality. When we're young, we think, oh, that's so far away. Yeah, I know everybody dies, but it's not going to happen for a long time. But when we get

into our 40s, certainly 50s, 60s, it's like, oh, this is real. And what happens is that rather than making us more depressed, it seems to make us pay more attention to what we care about and what's fostering our well-being. So really stopping and smelling the roses and spending more time with the people we care about. So we get happier. Can we tap into that feeling in our 20s or 30s or early in our life? Do you have any advice for switching our brain into that mode? I think balancing out the achievement mode, which many of us need to be in when we're in our 20s and 30s where you're making a career, but balancing that out with paying attention to relationships, making sure you don't lose track of the things you love to do. Don't lose track of that hobby that you still really enjoy. Really nurture those things that you care about and those people you care about. You don't have to put it off until you're, in midlife or later. Is there anything you'd say to somebody for whom a fear of aging felt like a big impediment

to their happiness at the moment? Yeah. Talk to old people. Talk to older people and see what their lives are like. One of the biggest shocks to me was talking with our older study participants. They were among the happiest, wisest people. They were so fun to talk to. So talk to some older people and then see how scary it seems.

Does the time that we're living in matter at all for happiness? I was just talking to a friend on a hike about this feeling of loss I have because of COVID. Obviously, there's the very real loss of life and stuff that's accompanied COVID. But there's also this sense of before COVID, I would be in a really crowded room and I wouldn't think about illness at all. and now I feel like I'm never going to not think about it, regardless of what my actions are doing. It's never going to not cross my mind again.

And it feels like this loss of innocence in a way. And it made me really sad. And I'm curious, do you feel like the people living now we're living through the climate crisis? We lived through this global pandemic of unprecedented scale. Does that impact our happiness levels? Well, it has during the pandemic. We know that levels of depression and anxiety have gone up during the pandemic. But humans are resilient.

I mean, we've recovered from big global crises, the Great Depression, World War I, World War II, the big flu epidemic of 1919. There were all these things that seemed like the end of the world, and then they weren't. You also have things you didn't have before. You know what it's like to live through a pandemic. You've learned some things, I bet. You've had experiences you didn't have in 2019. Yes, some of them bad, upsetting, but not all bad, not all upsetting.

For example, I learned that I love not commuting to downtown Boston every day. I used to go to my hospital every day where I work, and I'm not doing that anymore. And what a blessing. I was in the car an hour and a half a day, and now I used the kids. that time, to exercise, to go for walks, to do things I didn't have time to do before. There are these benefits. I have lunch with my wife every day. I never did that before. These challenges that come along bring both hard things, upsetting things, but they also bring change that's good and change that is good in ways we couldn't have possibly predicted.

Is there anything that we could do to cultivate more resiliency so that we are better suited to be happier through major life or global events, like anything from illness to a pandemic? So we know self-care is huge, taking care of our health, exercising, eating well, not abusing drugs or alcohol, not smoking, all that, taking care of our relationships. Many of our original subjects served in World War II and saw terrible combat. Some of them saw friends killed, some of them killed people. And we asked them, how did you get through it? They said, it was my relationships. It was the people back home writing letters to me. It was my fellow soldiers. It was my commanding officer. When we asked people, how did you get through the Great Depression?

It was our neighbors helped me and I helped them. It was all about relationships. And so what I would say is, in addition to taking care of your health, take care of those. relationships, they become your safety net for weathering the hard times that come along. The last thing that I want to touch on is your research about having a happy childhood. You showed that that had a number of positive effects down the line. Can you speak to some of those? Having a happy childhood, and by that we mean a warm childhood, people who care about you and are predictable in your life. Often those are parents, but it wouldn't have to be parents, could be a grandparent, could be an aunt or uncle, could be a teacher.

But somebody who cares about you is stable, is present for you, that seems to help kids get a sense that the world is an okay place and that the world is a place where I can trust most people, at least many people. The world is a place where I can ask for help and usually get it. so that if I'm in trouble, the universe will provide me with what I need more often than not. Eric Erickson called it basic trust, that we trust that the world will meet us where we are and meet our needs. And so having that seems to be the result of a warm childhood. But if you don't get that in childhood, you can get that later.

So many people find that if they have a partner who is warm and reliable, even if they didn't have those people earlier in their lives, they can learn about new possibilities in relationships through this new relationship with a warm, reliable partner. The tricky part, though, is that I feel like having the warm, reliable childhood sets you up better to find the warm, reliable partner. And sometimes if we haven't had that, it makes it harder for us to find that partner. You are absolutely right. Could you give us people who have experienced some childhood trauma, maybe some concrete action

steps we could do now to overcome that in terms of laying those foundations to live a happy life? One thing is actually support groups for trauma survivors. If they're well led, you need somebody who knows what they're doing to lead a group. But support groups can really help where people share. their experiences and support each other. Therapy can really help. So I'm a psychiatrist and my specialty is psychotherapy. And talking through what happened to you and really seeing how that isn't the way the whole

world is can be a really meaningful experience and an important experience in helping you move forward, move beyond the trauma. The other thing that can help for some people is helping other people who've been traumatized. So many people get a lot of meaning and satisfaction from doing for others what wasn't done properly for them. Now, that can be a huge help in healing yourself. It's actually something, and I don't know if this is wildly unhealthy, that appeals to me about having a kid, is the idea of getting to sort of reparent myself and the actions

of having a child. I don't know if that's a terrible reason to have a kid. It's not a terrible reason. I had a relatively absent father, nice guy, but he didn't know what to do with little kids. So for me, being more present with my kids was so important. It felt so meaningful to me and a kind of corrective experience for me to be a different kind of dad. It's not a bad reason. If we wanted to raise kids or teenagers to grow up and be happier as adults, is there one piece of advice you could give us for what we can do as adults now?

model for them what you want them to be. You can tell them, but they're really going to model themselves on what they see you doing, how they see you behaving to them, to other people. Your kindness, your wisdom, your ability to be flexible and curious is going to be what they imbibe, what they take in. Kids aren't sponges. and they're so eager to learn how you grow up in the world. And so show them what you want them to be. How much hope did your research ultimately leave you with? Do you believe that anybody can have

access to a good life, a happy life, or do you think that some people, whether for genetic reasons or social circumstance reasons, are not going to be able to get there? Some people actually have said to me, it's too late for me. I'm no good at relationships. I'll never have happy relationships. I won't have a happy life. What I can tell you is that we have stories of people in the book who thought it was too late for them and then they developed a group of friends they never thought they would have. They found love when they never thought they were going to find it. Sometimes in their 60s and 70s and 80s. So what I would say, say is it's never too late and you just don't know what's going to happen in your life. And that's a good thing. Is there a genetic correlation with happiness? Do we know that right now? There's a psychologist named Sonia Lubomirsky who tried to quantify this. She said, how much of our happiness is inborn, is genetic and how much is our life circumstance and how much is in our control? And her estimate was that about 50% was inborn, genetic, temperamental. About 10% was our current life circumstances,

and about 40% of our happiness was in our control. And 40% is a lot, but there are people who are born gloomy, and there are people who are born cheerful. There are Eeyores in the world, and there are Tiggers in the world, and everything in between. An interesting takeaway from that is maybe that there's always hope for us to improve our own circumstances, but we shouldn't be comparing them to other peoples because other peoples might have a different set point. Exactly. Other people are born with different temperaments, different abilities. So to compare ourselves is a rabbit hole. It's a terrible rabbit hole. We all do it though. Like, oh, she's so happy. Why can't I be happy? I think it's such a common

tendency, and it's interesting to use that as permission to not do that in some ways. Exactly. What we really want to do is find our own way. There's a great quote from Joseph Campbell, who wrote The Power of Myth. He said, if the path before you is clear, you're probably on somebody else's path. Ooh. What he means is comparing ourselves to other and saying, well, I should be like them. I should take their path is not your path.

Each of us really is a lifelong practice of figuring out what's right for me right now today. And then tomorrow, the same thing and the day after. I love that. I would love to just end on, in your opinion, I would love one way that we use our time to pursue happiness that we should cut back on or stop completely. It's not in our best interest. And then one thing we could start today that will actually help us live our happiest lives. I think the one thing you could do less of or stop doing is passively consuming social media. So don't scroll through somebody else's Instagram feed or Facebook page or TikTok.

Don't do that because it will drag you down. And the thing you can do today is these little active actions, social fitness. Just think of one person who you want to reach out to and reach out to them. right now when we end this session, just do that and see what happens and then do something every day like that. I've found I've switched my social feed more and more to be about almost like information, like things that are kind of making my life better. I'm learning.

I'm growing. Do you think that's an okay way to use social media in terms of our happiness? And is the idea that it's just sort of like watching another person live out their life is not constructive? Definitely the latter is not constructive. I think that self-improvement, the kind of thing you're describing, is really good except if it leads you to believe that if you just do all the right stuff, you'll be happy all the time and never have health problems. That's a myth that we want to debunk because nobody can be happy all the time. Nobody can be healthy all the time.

And it doesn't mean you're doing something wrong if you're not happy or healthy all the time. That's just the nature of our lives. But I think you're right that switching your feed so that you get trusted sources for ways you can improve things, that seems like a great way to switch the content that you consume. I think it's such an important point that I just want to hammer home since we are in a wellness podcast is there is such a difference between trying to improve your life and self-blaming for the state of your life. And I think that self-improvement that comes from a place of I love myself and I deserve to create a life that I love as much as possible, given my circumstances, given this moment is so different than I hate myself and I'm going to force myself to be better.

Absolutely. I'm going to talk all about your beautiful book at the beginning of the episode, but I would love to hear from you in your own words why you're excited for people to read it. This book is a deep dive into how relationships matter in our lives. And we wrote it because there was a hunger, it seemed. After I gave the TED talk that went viral, there was a hunger for more about this. People were asking, well, how do relationships matter and what kinds of relationships? All the questions you and I have been talking about. We wanted to put it out there with not just the science, but the life stories of real people.

people disguised to protect their privacy, but real life stories that show you how people go through life and what helps them thrive. And then to give people things they can do to make their lives better. So we really care about getting this message out there to people. And it's a beautiful book. And the stories make you laugh. They make you cry. They inspire you. I think that it's just a really wonderful thing to be putting out in the world. And I thank you for your book. And I thank you for your time today. This was a wonderful conversation. It has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you for this delightful interview.

This episode with Dr. Waldinger left me with so much more hope than I even expected going into it. It was such a great reminder that our relationships and community are so important. And they should be something that we put intentional time and effort into every single day. Plus, his thoughts on kids were kind of revolutionary for me, if you could not tell. And he may have cured my fear of aging. So thank you, Dr. Waldinger. Please share a link for this episode with anyone that you think would benefit. And if you're new here, make sure that you're following the podcast on whatever platform you like to listen on.

You're just going to go to the main podcast page, the one that lists all of the episodes. And you'll see the word follow under the logo on Spotify. And then there is a little follow with a plus sign button on the top right of the same page on Apple Podcasts. That way, all of our new episodes will show up in your feed so that you never miss out on one. And you are definitely going to want to be notified because we have some incredible episodes coming up, including a highly requested sleep hacks episode and a very juicy science-backed sex episode. And we have this month's advice episode coming up where we answered all of your career-related questions. So make sure that you're following so you do not miss out. And do not forget to grab your raunch your together deck in time for Valentine's Day.

It is the perfect game for a Galentine's Day night or to spice things up with your friends. partner, head to HealthyConvo.combo.com.com and be sure to order by February 9th at the latest to get your game in time for Valentine's Day. You can use code Love 15, which I made very special for podcast listeners. That is Love 1-5 for 15% off your order. And we also offer free two-day shipping when you order two or more of any of the Healthy ConvoCo game. So it is the perfect time to stock up. Okay, I love you and I will see you next week on the next episode of the Healthyer Together podcast. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, to stay strong as you get older, what do you think that actually comes from?

Most people say working out or good nutrition, and yes, of course that matters. But there is a biological foundation underneath all of that that most people are completely overlooking. I have been diving deep into this lately with the team at timeline and what I've learned has genuinely shifted how I think about my own health. Every single movement that your body makes, every step, every workout, every muscle contraction depends on energy produced at the cellular level. And at the center of that is your mitochondria.

Here is the thing that nobody tells you, certainly nobody told me, starting around age 30, our mitochondria naturally become less efficient. More get damaged, more become sluggish, and over time that impacts your energy, your strength, your recovery, and your resilience. Most of us respond by pushing more. we're like noticing these things and we're adding in more protein. We're trying to fix it with more supplements. We're trying to do harder workouts.

And those things do help. But timelines research suggests that we also need to be supporting the cellular machinery underneath. And that is exactly what their supplement, Mitopure, does. It contains urolithin A, which helps your body clear out damage mitochondria and support healthier ones so that your cells can produce energy more efficiently. Because this is happening to your cells, it's going to impact. your entire body, your immune system, your muscles. One study found that taking

mitochondria increased muscle strength by 12% in four months with no change in exercise routine, it's going to impact your energy, your sleep, your skin, your cell health impacts all of this, and urolithine-keeps your cells healthy. Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, urolithin-A, which, by the way, most of us lack the gut bacteria to synthesize naturally. That's why many of us need to supplement it to get the benefits. This has become a staple supplement for me. It is my top way to support how I want to look and feel as I age. Support yourselves and how you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline.

Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitopure gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. I'm genuinely confused how masterclass gets literally the absolute top people in every single field to teach every single one of their classes. I use it when I want to learn things directly like the cooking class from Thomas Keller has all of the wisdom that you would normally have to go to culinary school for. But also, I'm being honest, this is like a use case I don't hear a lot of people talking about. I'll just watch it for entertainment when I want to do something that's far more interesting than scrolling.

Christina Aguilera taught me to sing. Shan Boudrum's Art of Mastering Confidence and Sex Appeal class. It's 10 out of 10. There's menopause classes with leading doctors. There's script writing with Mindy Kaly. Literally, you name it. They're on masterclass and it is such a good way to get off your phone but have something that's like not quite as long or hard to get into as a TV show or a movie and that it just keeps

you entertained and interested. And you are learning. There are over 200 classes from the world's best all for just $10 a month when billed annually. And you get unlimited access to every class on the platform so you can learn at your own pace whenever you want on your phone, your computer, or even in audio mode like a podcast. If you're looking to stop scrolling and start consuming entertaining content that makes you feel excited and helps you learn, Masterclass is it. And the best part, every membership comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can start learning risk-free. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. That's 15% off at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody,

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