FEATURE
Healthy relations and happiness for good health and longevity.
Prof. B. M. Hegde,
hegdebm@gmail.com
Ausonius
Man’s effort at immortality is an age old dream. Of course, that is impossible as it goes against the very grain of nature. However, efforts to keep humans healthy as long as they live is both legitimate and altruistic, despite the efforts of the huge sickness scare industry that feeds on money from the sick room-the so called corporate monstrosity! There have been studies galore, both prospective, cross sectional and retrospective, to see what makes man jug along without major hurdles into old age?
One such milestone study has been the Harvard Sophomore class of 1938 among whom the still kicking fellows are in their 90s now-the famous Grant Study. Since 1938, researchers have tracked their development, documenting every two years details about their physical and emotional health, their employment, their families and their friendships.The big takeaway from the decades of research and millions of dollars spent on the famous Grant Study is that all you need is love. It was not money or status that determined a good life. “Those who were happiest and healthier reported strong interpersonal relationships, while those who were isolated had declines in mental and physical health as they aged.” Robert Waldinger, the director of the program, shared that key finding in a widely popular Ted Talk. Money may be drying up for the study as the grants come from mainly governmental sources. The findings have dampened the prospect of the industry backing this study as the industry will not be able to patent and sell the findings of the study that to be healthy one must be happy.
What have we learnt from the Grant Study on men? The only thing that really matters in life is your relationships to other people. Waldinger feels that there is still knowledge to be gained by expanding the research to the second, and he hopes the third and fourth, generations of the original group.It also could help understand the onset of mental illness, which is being taken more seriously as a disorder as disruptive to lives as many physical ones. Recently the WHO named depression as the globe’s leading health risk. Figuring out what factors might contribute to psychological disorders could lead to identifying ways to mitigate them. The negative aspect of this study is that it dealswith a select set of people in the upper income group and white people in the USA. Would that be applicableto all men and women is a question yet to be answered? However, no sample is perfect, but the data so far collected is valuable.
Of the 268 students among1938 sophomores in Harvard only 19 are still alive and they are in their 90s. But the study got expanded. In the 1970s, 456 Boston inner-city residents were enlisted as part of the Glueck Study, and 40 of them are still alive. More than a decade ago, researchers began including wives in the Grant and Glueck studies. “Over the years, researchers have studied the participants’ health trajectories and their broader lives, including their triumphs and failures in careers and marriage, and the finding have produced startling lessons, and not only for the researchers.”Loneliness kills. It’s as powerful as smoking or alcoholism. Good relationships are the key to good health.
The most important two things that have come out of the Grant and Glueck studies which are worth recording for the progeny are that happiness is the sole asset factor for a healthy long life. Interpersonal relations, response to life stresses, capacity to make others happy, touching other lives, and understanding the other person in every problem situation have come up as important guiding factors. The other important finding was the negative impact of social status and money on health, longevity and absence of diseases. Money neither made man happy nor did it reduce the disease load. In fact, what came out was the reverse. More money brought in more unhappiness. The younger generation should know that happiness is not a goal but a journey. If one is happy at a given time in life he is more likely to be happy at a later date and that is what keeps one healthy and keep one away from diseases. What impresses me most is the fact that it was stressed in our ancient scriptures which look very scientific in hind sight.
Prasanna athma, indriya, manaha swasth ithyabhideeyathe, says Ayurveda with an emphasis on happiness and absence of negative feelings as the root of a healthy life. The world has been going round in search of health and happiness for centuries only to come back to the basics that happiness is the root of all good things in life like good health and longevity.Robert Waldinger, director of the study, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School had this cryptic comment of the study he directs now. “Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care too. That, I think, is the revelation.” How very true indeed! When one takes care of others, indirectly s/he is taking care of himself as today the quantum world view teaches us that the other person is a part of you only-in tune with the old Indian idea of world as a single family.
“There is only one happiness in this life; to love and be loved.”- George Sand
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