donheff
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Some of you may enjoy this article in The Atlantic on a very deep, long term study of Harvard men (1937 sophomores including Kennedy, whose data has been pulled until 2040). No stunners about what makes us happy but some interesting anecdotes about the lives of these old timers. The article is as much about the psychiatrist who made the study his life's work as about the subjects of the study. A couple of interesting tidbits on happiness:
"Vaillant...identified seven major factors that predict healthy aging...Employing mature adaptations...education, stable marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight. Of the 106 Harvard men who had five or six of these factors in their favor at age 50, half ended up at 80 as what Vaillant called “happy-well” and only 7.5 percent as “sad-sick.” Meanwhile, of the men who had three or fewer of the health factors at age 50, none ended up “happy-well” at 80."
"What factors don’t matter? Vaillant identified some surprises. Cholesterol levels at age 50 have nothing to do with health in old age... The predictive importance of childhood temperament also diminishes over time...Vaillant sums up: “If you follow lives long enough, the risk factors for healthy life adjustment change. There is an age to watch your cholesterol and an age to ignore it.”
"The men’s relationships at age 47, he found, predicted late-life adjustment better than any other variable, except defenses."
"Vaillant...identified seven major factors that predict healthy aging...Employing mature adaptations...education, stable marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight. Of the 106 Harvard men who had five or six of these factors in their favor at age 50, half ended up at 80 as what Vaillant called “happy-well” and only 7.5 percent as “sad-sick.” Meanwhile, of the men who had three or fewer of the health factors at age 50, none ended up “happy-well” at 80."
"What factors don’t matter? Vaillant identified some surprises. Cholesterol levels at age 50 have nothing to do with health in old age... The predictive importance of childhood temperament also diminishes over time...Vaillant sums up: “If you follow lives long enough, the risk factors for healthy life adjustment change. There is an age to watch your cholesterol and an age to ignore it.”
"The men’s relationships at age 47, he found, predicted late-life adjustment better than any other variable, except defenses."
