"After 60 people are happier." It is one of the conclusions of a study that Harvard University has been carrying out for 80 years on happiness and which ensures that "everyone can give positive turns to their life" and that what marks "a good life" is quality of relationships.
To prepare the study, the lives of two generations of individuals from the same families in the United States have been closely followed and thousands of interviews have been carried out, in addition to collecting test tubes with their blood, data on their physical and mental health and even donations of some brains have been received.
From the work carried out, its third director, the psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, has concluded, together with the psychologist Marc Schulz, that neither childhood nor the natural disposition nor the neighborhood in which you grew up marks destiny; that loneliness hurts and that "living surrounded by loving relationships protects our body and mind."
And all this has been reflected in the book "A good life" (Planet), which Waldinger has discussed with various Spanish media.
"We believe that it is because we have a sense of the limits of life and that death is something real, and that makes us happier because we change our lives. We get rid of obligations, friendships that do not make us happy or meetings that do not we like them," Waldinger explains.
This greater happiness is also due to the fact that the brain gives more value to the positive than to the negative and prioritizes what makes us happy in a period in which there are still things to learn and develop. "We are emotionally wiser and that wisdom makes us flourish," emphasizes the psychiatrist.
The psychoanalyst also explains that the first generations had a more social life purpose and now the majority pursue hedonistic happiness, something that in the period of the Second World War was not very well seen.
However, Waldinger cannot answer the question of whether today's society makes us happier, since he details that there are many variables: "screens make us more and less happy at the same time, the increase in economic well-being does the same, and we know more about the violence in the world than before, even if it is safer and healthier".
The Harvard Psychiatry professor assures that by observing the stories of thousands of lives studied, including those of JF Kennedy or the journalist Bob Woodward, it is found that the happiest people are those who maintain their relationships.
And in this sense, he recommends practicing "good social manner" and taking care of these relationships actively.
Waldinger describes the myth of the self-made man as fiction: "all of us are connected to the whole world and need each other."
And it highlights that, regardless of the generation, women better understand the importance of maintaining relationships than men, who "do not work as actively to maintain them."
Under the protection of the study and other investigations, he assures that loneliness is physically very dangerous because it causes the diseases of old age to develop earlier and more severely (cardiovascular problems, diabetes, joint diseases, etc.).
And he believes that this is due to stress and the impossibility of telling what is happening to us: "when I can complain to another person, I can feel that the body is recovering its balance; the person alone cannot calm it down, while the one who has sex can" .
Waldinger refers to unsought loneliness, since he specifies that introverts "take energy from being alone", contrary to what happens to extroverts, who get it from others.
For this reason, he recommends reflecting on the needs that each one of us has in terms of relationships and solitude, taking into account that there is variability during life and during the course of the day.
Although he acknowledges that the covid pandemic has greatly increased the rates of depression and anxiety, he reveals that these problems began to rise in the mid-50s, when the "loneliness pandemic" began, caused by televisions.
He also blames "the screens" for the increase in loneliness in the 21st century, because a person has two or three working at the same time and "neither looks nor attends to others."
The psychiatrist cites studies that show that money is important to cover the necessities of life and that the amount that contributes well-being in the United States is estimated at around 75,000 euros per year.
"But, once you have that money, 70 million more do not increase happiness," Waldinger points out, and bases his opinion on the work done with the lucky ones in the lottery: "before they win and a year later they have the same levels of happiness".
The Harvard professor highlights as positive the case of one of the families studied in which the father, Leo DeMarco, a high school teacher, used money as a means to achieve some personal satisfaction and objectives that connected him with the people he loved , versus situations where you become the target instead of a tool.
In this sense, the psychiatrist explains that capitalism is a good system for many things, but not for happiness, since it gives us continuous messages that we need to buy many things to be happy, which is not true.
"We know that buying experiences makes us happier and longer than buying things," he stresses.
"It is very possible to believe that other people have perfect lives and that we are the only ones who do not, and that is not true," emphasizes the stadium director after analyzing thousands of life stories.
In this sense, he refers to the role of influencers today, whom he describes as "models without filters and people who are famous for being famous", who are mostly only concerned with appearance and wealth, and who are generating many depressions among the youth that "consumes those unreal lives".
Robert Waldinger, for whom a good life is working on things that matter to him, being connected with people he cares about, and being involved in activities that are meaningful to him, augurs much more life for the study of happiness.
He reveals that now the team of psychologists he leads is collecting data with the children of the first interviewees (baby boomers), who are asked about social networks and the effects of the covid, among other issues.
