Happy people live longer: good genes are important, but joy and happiness are more important

Did you know that happy people live longer and better? According to the latest study, it is more worthwhile to invest in happiness than in cholesterol levels.

Happy people live longer than unhappy people - and according to the latest study, they are healthier. A study of adult development, which was conducted at Harvard, produced interesting results.

Since 1938, researchers have followed 724 men throughout their lives, and are now studying 1,300 children of these participants. The study was very complex, tracking data through detailed medical records and hundreds of face-to-face interviews and questionnaires. All findings are published in the book The Good Life, which was written by the co-authors of the research Dr. Robert Waldinger and Dr. Marc Schulz.

dr. Waldinger, who is also a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, shared with Reades' Digest some of the things that surprised him most about the study.

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According to him, the first thing you can do to improve your health is to nurture and maintain close relationships with each other. Those 50-year-olds who reported good interpersonal relationships were incomparably healthier even in old age. In fact, close relationships were a better predictor of overall health than IQ, social class, bank account numbers, or genetics.

Happy People Live Longer: Interrelationships

According to the research, good interpersonal relationships reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. They also reduce the level of blood pressure and reduce the chances of heart attack and chronic diseases. In addition, they also affect better cognitive health in old age and strengthen your immune system. The key is that relationships go a long way in managing stress.

Most of the book focuses on relationships, Dr. Waldinger also shared some of his own habits that are a result of the findings in the book. He goes for a walk every morning (3-4 km), and twice a week he does weight training. He meditates daily, while spending little time on social media (even more so to communicate with others). It is also of great importance that pets keep him company, and he also avoids multitasking (he prefers to concentrate on the task).