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📖 Quote of Today
“Just because improvements aren't visible doesn't mean they aren't happening.
You're not going to see the number change each time you step on the scale. You're not going to finish a chapter each time you sit down to write.
Early wins come easy. Lasting wins require a lifestyle.“
☀️ Happy Sunday! It’s great to be in your inbox. The official first day of summer (summer solstice) is on June 21st - most of us already started summer last week. Are we right?
🧾 Read on, this is an interesting one…
⚡️Focus of Today
👀 Robert Waldinger was the 4th director of one of the longest studies of adult development. Here’s some info about the study:
It ran for 75 years, this is incredibly rare for a study ⏰
They studied 724 men from when they were teenagers all the way to their 80s 👨🦳
Throughout the study, the researchers asked the participants about their work, their home lives, their health, and more 🤔
One of the people in this study went on to be the president of the United States 🇺🇸
Some men climbed the social ladder from the bottom, all the way to the very top. While others in the opposite direction. 📈
As of 2016, 60 of the 724 men are still participating in the study! It started in 1938 🎖
👦 What did they learn from the tens of thousands of pages generated from medical records, brain scans, and interviews in the men’s homes?
💵 The lessons are not about wealth or fame or working harder and harder. The clear message from that 75 year study was this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.
They learnt 3 big lessons about relationships:
Social connections (family, friends, community) are really good for us. Loneliness kills.
It’s not how many friends you have and it’s not whether or not you’re in a committed relationship. It’s the quality of your close relationships that matter.
Good relationships protect our brain. It turns out that being in a securely attached relationship in your 80s is protective. Those people’s memories stayed sharper for longer.
👀 When they looked back on the lives of the men who were now in their 80s, it wasn’t their middle age cholesterol levels that predicted they were going to grow old. It was how satisfied they were in their relationships.
🌲 This is wisdom that is as old as the hills. Robert asks Why this is so hard to get and so easy to ignore? Well, we’re human. What we’d really like is a quick fix.
👪 What actions can you take today to strive towards better, more quality relationships? Maybe that’s a whole other newsletter entirely… stay tuned!
With love,
— Amir and Erik
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