Science Reveals the Prescription for Living a Happy Life

The key to happiness is surprisingly simple. It's all about our connections.

Reviewed by Margaret Foley

Key points

• Good relationships help keep us happy and healthy.
• Nurturing our connections is an ongoing process.
• No matter what our age, it's never too late to reap the benefits of human connections.

If you could change one thing about your life in order to become a happier person, what change would make the biggest difference? Harvard psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, director of the longest-running scientific study of happiness, believes his research provides the answer.

The research, which started in 1938, before Dr. Waldinger became director, began as a study investigating what made young men thrive. It has since evolved, tracking multiple generations of both males and females, to look at what makes people feel like they're living a happy, meaningful life.

The results? Surprisingly simple. If you want to change one thing to make your life happier, it should be investing in your relationships. As Waldinger explained in an interview with NPR's Ari Shapiro, "We found that the strongest predictors of who not just stayed happy, but who was healthy as they went through life—the strongest predictors were the warmth and the quality of their relationships with other people." Waldinger added that it doesn't matter what type of relationship we invest in, be it with partners, friends, coworkers, or acquaintances, when we make the effort to connect with others, we receive "little hits of well-being" from them all (NPR, 2023).

The Healing Power of Connecting

According to Waldinger, the best hypothesis to explain these results is the healing power of relationships. Describing good relationships as "stress regulators," he explains that when we experience challenges in life, which is a fairly common universal human experience, the ability to reach out to others for comfort, advice, and assistance serves as a powerful form of stress management. While complications in our lives "rev up" our bodies, causing stress hormones and other negative biochemical influences to wear down our body systems, human connections help calm our bodies and bring us back down to equilibrium. That's why one of the strongest predictors of health, both physical and emotional, is the quality of our connections with others (Williamson, 2023).

Nurturing Connections With Small Gestures

Good relationships aren't self-sustaining. They need to be tended to or they will atrophy. Taking care of our relationships has to be an ongoing process, something Waldinger refers to as "social fitness." Much as we can't expect to remain physically fit by exercising once or twice a year, we shouldn't expect our relationships to survive on "once in a while" reinforcement. Although the reinforcement doesn't have to be extensive to keep the connection strong, it does have to be ongoing.

Unfortunately, in today's hectic world, few people feel like they have time to add anything more to their plates. Yet it doesn't actually take much time to keep our connections strong. Even the smallest of gestures can result in big rewards (Waldinger & Schulz, 2023).

• Be generous, and this doesn't mean with money or material gifts. It means being generous with your time, attention, or skills. It means giving people your undivided attention. It means making eye contact when someone is speaking to you rather than allowing yourself to be drawn away by distractions, such as the constant alerts coming from your electronic device. If you're super organized, it means helping someone who isn't plan something. It means sharing your knowledge to help someone who needs it. Even calling someone at a store you frequent by the name on their name tag can make them feel "seen" and appreciated, and make you feel good for doing it.
• Be curious. Ask questions that show you're interested in others and their well-being. Notice things about people and tell them or ask them about what you noticed. It can be as simple as saying that you noticed and like something someone is wearing, or noticing that they seem unusually quiet or especially happy.
• Be thoughtful. When you think of someone you miss, take a second to send them a text or an email simply to say "hi" and tell them that you're thinking of them; or if you have a bit of time in that moment, call them. No one will ever know of your thoughtful yet forgotten intentions, so when you think of it, take a minute to do it. Some people make this a part of their normal routine, such as making calls to connect during their morning drive or texting their "hellos," "miss you's," or "love you's" while on public transit. As Waldinger explains, when you pair your social fitness routine with your other daily routines, it will eventually become a good habit (Williamson, 2023).

It's Never Too Late

One of the best and most interesting results from Waldinger's research is that it's never too late to reap the powerful benefits of good relationships. In a study that has tracked participants for eight decades, Waldinger points out, "...the wonderful thing about following these life stories is we learn it's never too late. There were people who thought they were never going to have good relationships and then found a whole collection of good close friends in their 60s or 70s. There were people who found romance for the first time in their 80s. And so the message that we get from studying these thousands of lives is that it is never too late" (NPR, 2023).

So even if you're feeling isolated or alone, there are several options to help get you to a path that can lead to a happier and healthier life. One thing you can do is find people or join groups that share your interests and passions. For example, if you enjoy animals, volunteer at a shelter. If you enjoy being outdoors, volunteer at a park. If you enjoy theater, volunteer at a performing arts center. If you enjoy reading, spend time at a library. If you like art, take an art class. This will make it easier to make casual conversation with like-minded people and hopefully start relationship-building opportunities. If you're uncomfortable with in-person interactions, there are online opportunities to engage with those who share your interests.

Another thing you can do is re-engage with those you care about or once cared about. Social media makes it much easier to find friends from the past, people you once enjoyed spending time with and who may be happy to hear from and catch up with you. Not everyone may be receptive to re-engaging, but you never know who will be unless you try. Be aware, though, that there's a very important distinction between active social media engagement and passive social media engagement. As Waldinger emphasizes, active consumption of social media can be beneficial in helping you reconnect with former connections and make new ones; however, passive consumption of social media has been found to make people feel worse about their lives and lower their mood (Williamson, 2023).