คำบรรยาย (326)
0:00- I started out as an intern in pediatrics
0:02and I would see one ear
infection after another,
0:05and the kids were adorable,
but one ear infection
0:09is pretty much the same as every other.
0:11Whereas when you talk to
people about their lives,
0:15And I knew that that
would keep me interested
0:18for my whole career, which it has.
0:23- [Narrator] The secret to happiness.
0:27- I became interested in
psychiatry unexpectedly.
0:31I had never known a
psychiatrist growing up.
0:34But when I was in medical school,
0:35I found that the way people's minds worked
0:39was the most fascinating
thing I could possibly study.
0:43So I eventually found that
there was really nothing else
0:47for me in medicine, but doing psychiatry.
0:50I am the fourth director
0:53of the Harvard Study of Adult Development,
0:55and it is the longest study of adult life
0:58that's ever been done.
0:59We're in our 85th year.
1:05as two studies that weren't
even aware of each other.
1:09One study started at Harvard
Student Health Service
1:12with 19-year-old sophomores
1:15who were thought by
their deans to be fine,
1:17upstanding young men.
1:19And the other study was a
study of juvenile delinquency
1:23and it selected boys middle school age
1:28from Boston's poorest families,
1:30but also the most troubled families,
1:33families beset by problems
like domestic violence
1:37and parental mental illness
and physical illness.
1:40This study set out to understand
1:44what makes people thrive
as they grow and develop.
1:48because most research that's been done
1:51is done on what goes
wrong in human development
1:54so that we can help people.
1:56But this was a study of what goes right,
1:58so it was how do kids from
disadvantaged families
2:02stay on good paths and develop well?
2:05And then, of course, the
very privileged Harvard group
2:08was meant to be a study of
normal young adult development.
2:13We now know that if you wanna study
2:15normal young adult development,
2:17you don't just study
white men from Harvard,
2:19but at that time, that's what they did.
2:22We study wellbeing as
people go through life,
2:25and our big question is,
2:27if you could make one choice today
2:31to make it likely that
you would stay happy
2:35and stay healthy throughout your life,
2:37what single choice would you make?
2:39And most of us think it's
something to do with getting rich
2:46and some people even think
they need to become famous
2:49to have a happy, healthy life.
2:52But our study and many other studies show
2:55that the single choice we can make
2:58that's most likely to keep us
on a good path of wellbeing
3:02is to invest in our
relationships with other people.
3:06The people in our study
3:08who had the happiest,
warmest relationships
3:12were the people who stayed healthy longest
3:15and who lived the longest.
3:17The Harvard study started in 1938,
3:22and it has followed the same people
3:25throughout their entire lives,
3:26from the time they were teenagers
all the way into old age.
3:30The study began with 724 young men,
3:35and then we brought in most of their wives
3:38and eventually most of their children,
3:40so that now there are over 2,000 people
3:44in these 724 families who we have followed
3:47through their entire adult lives.
3:49We started collecting information
by giving these young men
3:55elaborate psychological examinations,
3:58also medical examinations.
4:00Then we went to their homes,
we talked to their parents,
4:03and sometimes even their grandparents,
4:06and the workers made elaborate notes
4:08about what was being served for dinner
4:10and what the discipline
style was in the family
4:12and even what the curtains looked like.
4:16as new methods of studying
human life came on board,
4:20we adopted those methods.
4:22So audio taping, videotaping,
4:25we now draw blood for DNA,
4:27and DNA wasn't even imagined
in 1938 when the study began.
4:32We've put many of our
people into an MRI scanner
4:36and watched how their brains light up
4:38as we show them different visual images.
4:42We bring them into our laboratory
4:44and we deliberately stress them out,
4:46and then we watch how
they recover from stress
4:50as one more way of
understanding wellbeing.
4:53One of the things that is more common now,
4:56but was unusual when we started it
4:58was combining biological measures
and psychological measures
5:03and seeing how our biology is influenced
5:06by our mental states and vice versa.
5:09So it's this combining of
mind and body measurement
5:14that was relatively new
in the last 20 years.
5:19The question comes up,
5:20how much of our happiness
is under our control?
5:24And they've actually done some
scientific analysis of this.
5:28A psychologist named Sonja Lyubomirsky
5:31did an analysis in which she estimates
5:34that about 50% of our happiness
5:37is a kind of biological set point,
5:40probably determined by our genes.
5:42That has to do with inborn temperament.
5:44We all know people who are
kind of naturally gloomy
5:47and other people who are naturally chipper
5:50no matter what's going on.
5:52So about half of our happiness
is that inborn temperament.
5:57And then about 10% she finds
6:00is based on our current
life circumstances.
6:03And then the last 40%
is under our control.
6:06We can move the needle.
6:08We can make ourselves
more likely to be happy
6:11by building a life that
includes the conditions
6:14that make for happiness.
6:16The questions that we might ask ourselves
6:19about our relationships
are kind of simple.
6:23One is, do I have enough
connection in my life
6:26or do I even have too much connection?
6:29If I'm a shyer person
6:31and don't need as many people in my life,
6:34so do I have what I need?
6:35And each person can check in
with themselves about that.
6:39Then the question is,
6:41do I have relationships that
are warm and supportive?
6:46And there again, each of us
needs to ask that question,
6:51do I have people who have my back,
6:54who I feel I could call
6:56and would be there in an emergency?
6:58Because hard times are
always coming our way.
7:01And then the question is also,
7:05what am I getting from relationships?
7:06Do I have enough people to have fun with?
7:09Do I have enough people who
will loan me their tools
7:13when I need to fix something in my house,
7:15or who will drive me to the
doctor when I need a ride?
7:19Do I have those kinds of friends?
7:21One of the things we know about life
7:23is that we all have worries.
7:26We all have concerns that come along,
7:29worries about children,
worries about health,
7:32worries about finances.
7:34And one of the best teachings I got
7:38in my training as a psychiatrist
7:40was from one of my mentors
who said, "Never worry alone."
7:46And this teacher meant that about
7:49being worried about a
patient who I was treating.
7:52But what I've come to understand
7:54that it's really good advice
7:56for just about everything in life,
7:57that if I'm really worried about something
8:00and I share it with somebody I trust,
8:03it makes all the difference
in how much better I feel
8:06and how much less alone
I feel with my worry.
8:10There are so many different things
8:12we get from relationships,
8:14and so each of us can
check in with ourselves
8:17about what we have and what we
would like a little more of.
8:20So we've learned several big
lessons about relationships,
8:24about good relationships,
8:27and one of them is that
childhood experience
8:32What happens to us in
childhood sets the stage
8:36for what we come to expect from the world,
8:39and that's often a good thing
if we're raised by people
8:43who are warm and caring and reliable.
8:46Some people don't have that luck
8:49and are raised in environments
8:51where they feel like the
people who are supposed
8:54to take care of aren't
trustworthy, can't be relied upon.
8:58And so many of those
people come into adulthood
9:02with the expectation that
the world is not a safe place
9:06and that people can't be relied on.
9:09The other thing we've learned
is that adult experience
9:13can correct for some of
those unfortunate lessons
9:17that people learn in childhood.
9:19Becoming connected with a good partner,
9:22with good friends who you can count on
9:25can go a long way to change
those gloomy expectations
9:29about the world and about relationships,
9:32and allow us to realize that yes,
9:35we can find people who are good,
9:38reliable partners in our relational world.
9:42So another lesson that we learn is that
9:47all relationships that are
important have some disagreements
9:50or some difficulties.
9:52And that actually,
facing those difficulties
9:57goes a long way to strengthen
relationships much of the time
10:00so that if we can work on relationships,
10:03that turns out to have great payoff
10:06in terms of keeping our
connections stronger.
10:10What that means is that it's
normal to have disagreements,
10:13it's normal to have difficulties,
10:16and that the more skill we can develop
10:19in working through difficulties,
10:21the better our social worlds are.
10:25One of the biggest lessons
we learned from our study
10:28is that our connections with other people
10:31help us weather the hard times of life
10:34and hard times are there in every life.
10:36So our original participants
10:39were born during the Great Depression
10:42and many of the Harvard
undergraduates were of an age
10:45to go and serve in World War II.
10:46And when we asked them,
10:48how did you get through
these really difficult times?
10:52All of them to a person talked
about their relationships.
10:56Our neighbors shared what little we had
10:59during the depression.
11:00My fellow soldiers in the trenches
11:02were the people who kept me going.
11:04The letters that came to me from back home
11:07while I was overseas in the
war were what sustained me.
11:11And so what we find is
that these connections
11:14turn out to be the best protection
11:17against the difficult times
that are always coming our way.
11:22We are pretty sure that we human beings
11:25evolved to be social animals,
11:29that in fact, staying together in groups
11:33made it more likely that we
would survive the dangers
11:36that are out there in the world
11:38and pass on our genes, which
is the goal of evolution.
11:41So we evolved to find being together
11:46secure and safe and to find
being alone a stressor.
11:51And what we find is that
that is still the case,
11:53that people who are more isolated
11:56than they want to be are stressed.
11:59Loneliness is a big stressor,
12:02and we think that that
is biologically based
12:04as well as emotionally based.
12:08about how relationships
get into our bodies
12:12and affect our physical
health is through stress,
12:16that we're having stressful experiences
12:20often all day long, and that's normal.
12:23And that when we're
stressed, the body is meant
12:26to go into what we call
fight or flight mode,
12:30where essentially heart rate
goes up, might start to sweat,
12:34a variety of changes happen.
12:37But then when the stressor is removed,
12:39the body is meant to
return to equilibrium.
12:43What we think happens is that
12:45if I have something stressful
happen during the day
12:48and I can go home and talk
to a friend or call someone,
12:52I can literally feel my body calm down.
12:55If I don't have anyone I can talk to
12:59about something that happens
in my life that's stressful,
13:03we believe what happens is we
stay in a kind of low level
13:07chronic fight or flight mode.
13:10And what that means is
that we have higher levels
13:13of circulating stress
hormones like cortisol.
13:16We have higher levels of inflammation
13:20going on in the body all the time,
13:22and that these changes gradually wear away
13:26different body systems,
13:28which is how stress and loneliness
13:31could make it more likely
13:33that we would get coronary artery disease
13:36and more likely that we
would get type two diabetes
13:39or arthritis could affect
multiple body systems
13:44through this common
denominator of chronic stress.
13:47Our understanding is
that good relationships
13:51actually are emotion regulators,
13:55that what happens is
that good relationships
13:58involve the exchange of positive emotion
14:03that helps our bodies stay in equilibrium.
14:06So in fact, they've put
people in MRI scanners
14:11and watched what happens to them
14:12when they go through a
stressful medical procedure,
14:15and they find that if they're
holding someone's hand,
14:18even a stranger, but
certainly someone they know,
14:21their bodies stay much
closer to equilibrium
14:24than if they're alone undergoing
the same medical procedure.
14:28And so what it shows us
14:30is that being connected to another person
14:33makes us feel safer and keeps our bodies
14:37at a kind of physiologic
equilibrium that promotes health.
14:41A toxic relationship is one
where we can't get beyond
14:46difficulties, unhappiness, anger.
14:50We can't come out the other side
14:52to a place where we're
okay again with each other.
14:56And so a toxic relationship
involves unhappiness,
15:00even if you're quiet about it.
15:02Chronic resentment, often withdrawal,
15:05and then active arguing.
15:10couples argue all the time
15:12without having these detrimental effects.
15:15What we've found from our research
15:17is that couples can argue
often and quite vocally,
15:23but if there is a bedrock
of affection and respect,
15:27those relationships continue
to be positive and stable.
15:31Research shows us that loneliness
is certainly a stressor
15:36and that we have increased
levels of stress hormones,
15:41increased levels of chronic inflammation,
15:44but research also shows us that
15:47ongoing acrimony in a relationship,
15:50constant arguing and unhappiness,
15:53is also hazardous to our health
for just the same reasons.
15:57So there was in fact
a study that suggested
16:00that staying in a really
toxic intimate relationship
16:04may be worse than splitting
up for that reason
16:08because a really difficult
acrimonious relationship
16:12is that source of chronic stress
16:15that keeps us in fight or
flight mode most of the time
16:19and breaks down our body systems.
16:21The research shows that people
who have a secure connection
16:27with a partner in late life
have slower brain decline.
16:33In addition, the research shows
16:35that people who are lonely in late life
16:38have more rapid brain decline.
16:40So we know that this same
process of increased stress
16:44or decreased stress
affects how our brains age.
16:49- [Narrator] Wanna support the channel?
16:51Join the Big Think Members Community
16:52where you get access to
videos early ad-free.
