10 Life-changing Lessons From The Longest Ever Study On Human Happiness! Dr. Robert Waldinger | E246

I saw a video that you made. It punched me in the face. (dramatic music)

The reason why my TED Talk went viral was because- Dr. Robert Waldinger-

A Harvard psychiatrist and director of-

The longest study ever done on what makes humans live happy or unhappy lives.

This TED Talk is one of the most viewed of all time. (dramatic music)

... for 85 years. We've tracked the lives of 724 families through their entire adult lives, looking at mental health, physical health, to see what really keeps people happy and healthy.

Some of the participants donated their brains.

They have. We know so much about them in life, and now we get to examine their brains. The most surprising finding in the study was that it's our relationships that keep us healthier and happier. There is research (laughs) that shows that actually people who are married, men live 12 years longer and women live seven years longer. That said, it's, it's not the marriage license. It's about... (dramatic music) Starting in the 1950s, we stopped investing in other people. Being lonely is as dangerous to your health as smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day. Isolation can break down your coronary arteries, your joints. The brain declines sooner. My mission now is gonna be to bring this science that we've worked so hard to develop and bring it to people in ways that they can use.

Looking at that research, what are the factors that made those relationships more successful?

Well, the most surprising finding in the study was that- (dramatic music)

Would you like to go for dinner with me and my guests here on the Diary of a CEO? We are holding dinner parties all around the world over the coming months, and our subscribers on this YouTube channel are invited. We're inviting 20 subscribers to every dinner. So, if you'd like to come for dinner with me and my guests here on the Diary of a CEO, I have a favor to ask you. All you've got to do is hit the subscribe button. And I hope to see you at dinner somewhere around the world very soon. (upbeat music) Robert, who are you? And what is the mission that you're on?

I am a psychiatrist. I am, uh, a married father of two grown sons. I'm a Zen priest, and I'm a researcher. And the mission that I'm on is to relieve the suffering that's optional in the world. That's the vow I took as a Zen priest.

What is that optional suffering you're referring to?

Well, there's some suffering that's not optional, right? There's pain. There's th- there's so many things that we can't control that hurt, that, that we suffer from. But then there's optional suffering. There are all the, the stories we tell ourselves about, about things that turn out not to be true, things that I worry about that turn out to amount to nothing. Um, a- uh, Mark Twain had a wonderful quote that I love. He said, "Some of the worst things in my life never happened." And, and that's the optional suffering that we're talking about, the, all the ways that we imagine things that make us suffer a great deal.