In this column, Father (Doctor) Jose Parappully, a Salesian priest and clinical psychologist trained in the US, will present practical data and tips from current psychology. In this first article, he presents fascinating data on this central issue everyone faces: What is the most important requirement for happiness in our later years? Read on. The findings are clear, the results striking, the lessons very relevant.
What is it that contributes most to health and happiness in the later years of life?
What do you think? Make some guess! Write down the possible answers in case pen and paper are available. Or, use your ever present smart phone! If not, at least make a mental list.
The answer to this question is something that psychology has been searching for years. The answer is now clear, with conclusive data from research.
It is our satisfying and fulfilling close relationships (friendships, marital relationships) in the earlier years that lead to health and happiness in the later years of life. Period!
Research after research has been reaching the same conclusions. Let me cite the most famous of them all.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development, known as the Grant Study, is the longest running longitudinal study ever. It was begun in 1938 and is still continuing. The study began with two groups of men. The first consisted of a group of privileged young men: 268 students from Harvard University. The second group consisted of 456 young men from Boston’s poorest families. Around 70 of these men are still alive.
These men were followed year after year, now for seventy years – with questionnaires and interviews, psychological and medical tests that collected every kind of data. As the data got analyzed several publications – peer reviewed journal articles and books – followed.
Four Striking Findings:
The latest is a Review from Dr. Robert Waldinger, the current and fourth Director of the Study. In a recent TED presentation entitled “The Good Life,” Waldinger declared that the Grant Study provided conclusive evidence to show that it is our close relationships that lead to health and happiness.
Those with the most satisfying relationships at midlife were the happiest and healthiest at 80. Those who were isolated from others, who had no friends or satisfying marital relationships, were less happy and less healthy.
A second clear message delivered by the Study, Waldinger observed, is that it is the quality of close relationships, and not the number of relationships that matter. Having a few really good close relationships is more helpful and protective than several not so close or healthy ones.
A third finding: Those happiest in retirement were the ones who were able to replace lost relationships (through death) with new ones.
A fourth conclusion: Good relationships, where one could count on the other, protect the brain in old age.
Waldinger’s predecessor as Director of the Study, Dr. George Vaillant, has published four books (Adaptation to Life, 1977; Wisdom of the Ego, 1993, Aging Well, 2002; and Triumphs of Experience, 2012) based on the findings from the Study. In them Vaillant had already confirmed what Waldinger found. It is our close relationships that really count. In many different ways Vaillant asserted the basic conclusion from his analysis of the decades-long accumulated data from the Study: “Warm, intimate relationships are the most important contributing factor in the establishment of a good life.”
And these men’s capacity for close relationships depended significantly on the warm relationships they had experienced with their parents, siblings and other significant people in childhood. A loving and cohesive home environment had a profound impact on life satisfaction in adult life.
According to the Study’s conclusions, the most important influence by far on a flourishing life is love. “There are two pillars of happiness revealed by the seventy-five year old Grant Study,” Vaillant wrote in Triumphs of Experience (p.50). “One is love. The other is finding a way of coping with life that does not push love away.”
Valliant’s five-word final conclusion: “Happiness is love. Full stop.” (p. 52)
The Grant Study’s conclusion that health is influenced by close relationships was confirmed in a recent research at Concordia University. Psychologists at the university have found that close relationships have a significant positive impact on heart conditions.
People with lower heart-rate variability are seen to be at greater risk for developing cardiac problems. Research at Concordia has found that students who were able to form close relationships had increases in heart-rate variability, while those who remain isolated over time showed a decrease.
Close relationships pave the pathway to health and happiness.
How about Religious?
These conclusions from the Grant Study as well as other research on health and happiness made me reflect on religious life and especially on formation to religious life. How much importance does religious formation give to cultivation of close relationships?
My own experience and reports from my friends and colleagues tell me that scant attention is given to this all-important contributor to health and happiness. Rather, in many cases, close relationships are positively discouraged and even frowned upon.
I do think there is need for a rethink on the role of close relationships within religious life in the light of these findings from scientific research.
It would be worthwhile especially for religious formators to ask themselves: What is my reaction to the data presented in this column and the conclusions drawn? What do they evoke in me?
Is the environment in our formation house one that facilitates formation of close relationships? If yes, how? If not, why not? What can the formation team do to create or enhance an environment that facilitates formation of close relationships?
***
In the forth-coming issues of this magazine I shall continue to provide research based data on factors that contribute to health and happiness and discuss implications for religious life and formation.
I shall also be happy to get from readers (email to sumedha.bps@gmail.com) list of topics related to psychology and life, particularly religious life and formation, that could be explored in future columns.
Be happy and be healthy! Cultivate some satisfying close relationships!
– Fr Jose Parappully is the Founder-Director of Sumedha Centre, which runs courses and retreats in psycho-spiritual integration. He also does individual and group therapy.
To subscribe to the magazine Contact Us
