I spent a day with the director of the longest study on happiness.

5 learnings (that may change your life):

Dr. Robert Waldinger is the fourth director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has studied the lives of its 700+ original participants and their 1,300+ direct descendants for over 85 years.

It is considered the longest-running longitudinal study on adult life, health, and happiness.

Here are 5 insights from our conversation:

1. Relationship Satisfaction Impacts Health

I asked Dr. Waldinger about the most shocking finding of the Harvard Study.

His response:”Relationship satisfaction at age 50 was the single greatest predictor of physical health at age 80.”

Relationship satisfaction was a more effective predictor of health at age 80 than cholesterol, blood pressure, or any other health marker tracked by the study.

The strength and quality of your relationships has a direct and powerful impact on your physical health as you age.

2. Loneliness Has Real Consequences (& It’s More Prevalent Than Ever)

Loneliness is on the rise.

60% of adults say they don’t feel very connected to others. The amount of time teenagers are spending in person with their friends is down 70% over the last two decades.

And unfortunately, loneliness has consequences.

A number of studies—including Dr. Waldinger’s Harvard Study—have found that the health impact of loneliness is quite dire.

Chronic loneliness has been found to increase dementia risk by up to 50%.

Lack of social connection is worse for your health than tobacco and alcohol abuse, obesity, and more.

3. Make “Social Fitness” a Priority

Dr. Waldinger says our social health should be thought of in the same manner as our physical health—that it’s the result of tiny daily actions that compound over long periods of time.

Make your social health a part of your daily routines: When you think something nice about someone, let them know right then, tell your partner one thing you appreciate about them every single day, reach out to that friend and catch up, plan that dinner.

Your daily social health actions compound. Build your Social Fitness.

4. Check Your Energy to Improve Your Life

Check your energy level after spending time with someone. Do you feel energized or drained?

Spend more time with your energy creators and less time with your energy drainers. Your life will improve.

5. Ambivalent Relationships are the Most Toxic

Ambivalent relationships—those that are sometimes supportive and sometimes demeaning—are actually worse for your health than purely demeaning relationships.

A variety of studies on humans and animals have shown that ambivalent relationships have sharper negative health consequences than purely toxic ones.

Audit your relationships. It may be time to reduce the energy given to these people.

This is just for the moment when we take our eyes off the screen, pick our head up from the daily News and wipe the fear and horror off our faces.

Then one day the sky fell down.
No chicken little warning- the house fell on the witches legs and just like that the emperor had no clothes.

Cinderella lost more than her slipper and the three blind mice could no longer run. Mother Goose stopped singing nursery rhymes and stood by as prisoners exercised around the “mulberry bush.” There were no rainbows and we waited for happier days to be here again-hit it Barbra with an A.

Severus Snape knew that “the dark arts are varied, ever changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and more clever than before.”

Even though Tom (Tom and Jerry) was the antagonist, all of us felt for Tom. “After all what good is a cat if he can’t get the better of a rat.” From our own little corner in our own little chair- uh, oh! we spied with our little eye a black cat crossing our path.

And to quote Elmer Fudd in his garden of evil- “Shhh. Be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits.” Only in that case, the hunter gets hunted always.

Then we ran into Mary Poppins who offered us a spoon full of sugar. It helped the medicine go down. We began to believe again and just like we know pruning flowers helps new ones grow bigger and brighter, alas the Prince of Tides helped our ship sail in.

We turned the beat around, stopped playing victim and got behind the wheel to claim our power back.

If you believe in magic, follow toto down the yellow brick road and know that somewhere between the curtain and the wizard is a place called Home.

When “The suddenly’s” happen with more frequency, we take stock of how to best preserve our closeness through memories. 

When dear, long standing friends show up we double hug, catch up on the so and so’s and order our vodka with lemons to accompany our shared appetizers. 

And so on we went, picking up where we left off, recalling memories that only we remember. Soon our drinks are gone:

“Take care of yourself. . . .”

“We ’ll talk again soon. . . .”

Sometimes we wonder which one of us will be the first to not answer.

Make it an easy on yourself Monday.

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Four

WHEN IT COMES UP AS A MEMORY- REMEMBER IT!

A -my name is Alice and my husband’s name is Al, we come from Alabama and we sell Apples. As we open the cupboard on memories, bouncing a Spaulding as we sang the A my name is Alice rhyme, lifting our leg over the ball with each bounce was an all time great walk around the corner and under a tree. A veritable, primordial work out and creative singing lesson all in one. 

My sister Bettie Ann and I grew up together and hung with the girls on the block. We stopped playing and walked home for our tuna sandwich or the treat of salami on rye, only made better with the delicious taste of deli mustard. 

After lunch we would walk around the corner to the all purpose grocery store. I can vividly see the barrel of pickles prominently sitting next to the left of the front door. We would use part of our allowance to buy candy. Our first go to was a stripped pixie stick, a straw filled with lik-m-aid. For those in the know it’s a tasty sugary retrospective in time. The original version of Fun Dip. We would then mosey over to the red licorice and marshmallow peeps. At Halloween the chicks turned into orange faced pumpkins. 

Fast forward 55 years. It’s 6:00 A.M.Time to put up the coffee, my turn to “make the donuts.” 

We woke up salivating for a piece of my past, inside that grocery store. My sister Bettie Ann and I would bring our bag of goodies up to the counter. The man would take the pencil he harbored behind his ear and tally up our treats on a paper bag.

With our visual bounty in hand we would skip our way home and unveil the contents, perhaps trade a piece or two. 

Our afternoon were often consumed through adventures with Dick and Jane, The Bobbsey Twins or figuring out if Nancy Drew was ever going to hook up with one of the Hardy Boys. 

As we felt the heat of the oven cooking sweet potatoes we knew they would soon be sitting next to the lamb chops and canned peas for our dinner. A welcomed pre- dinner activity was watching Patty Duke and her identical cousin navigate their way through high school. We often tried to distinguish the subtleties in their looks. Hmmm!

We long for those days of innocence when the doctor appointments took place as we sat upon the kitchen table. The local store that sold glass bottles of milk and farmer cheese made no room on the shelf for ammunition. 

Everybody in Grovers Corners looked into the grocery store and the drugstore once a day in. Our Town by Thornton Wilder. It is with older eyes and wiser hearts that we live life. So, for today  reach for the red licorice after a very sour pickle and make it a dejavu Saturday.

“Don’t throw your past away, you may need it some rainy day.” Hit it Peter Allen. Rewind upon request.

“I See Friends Shaking Hands- saying how do you do.”

When the leaves were orange and the living was easy. What does the tooth fairy do with all the teeth? Why do the people in the front of the picture appear so much larger than the people toward the back? “What did Grandma do with her real nose when she changed it to her fake one?”- shout out to Grandma Robo- Out of the mouths…

The days when Ozzie and Harriet made parenting look like a breeze and we were pretty certain Susan Lucci never used J-date or Match to help find yet another husband.

We re-dialed land lines after our friends phone was busy the first time and screeched with excitement Conrad Birdie style, over our anticipated girl/boy party that evening.

We left it up to Wally and Beaver to make sure there would be enough Fresca,TAB and Potato sticks. They were heavily endowed with the Cleaver organizational skills

The back ground sound on our transistor radio, as we primped for the evening, was set to 77 WABC Cousin Bruce’s Saturday Night Rock and Roll Party.
We crooned to Build Me Up Buttercup, in The Still of the Night-while we sat under a hot dryer with beer can sized rollers in our hair flpping through Cosmopolitan Magazine.

We were almost ready as we brushed away the fumes from our eyes left by Aqua Spray.

The decision to curl our hair rather than iron it straight was a good one, it came out just right.

Getting ready was the excitement. Our new madras blouse, alpaca sweater and matching “skort” (remember?) hung prominently in the front of our closet right above our shiny, new cordovan colored weejuns. Bright, Penny, dated 1969 heads up in place.

A touch of revlon blush and a glimmer of “coffee bean“ lipstick proceeded a spritz of Shalimar, Joy or Ambush and we were on our way.

With dejavu on our breath we can still euphorically recall how it felt as we clasped our yellow slicker coats.
We proudly walked in, en masse, as if we were auditioning for the Miss Pre-Teen of America contest. Can you say In-Crowd?

The boys gathered on one side of the room as the girls sifted through the 45’s on the other.

At this point there was no bottle to spin in sight. Would the Angels sing tonight as our Soldier Boys danced under the Blue Moon?
We snapped our fingers in unison to Brian Wilson’s tune-
“If you should ever leave me. Though life would still go on believe me. The world could show nothing to me. So what good would living do me? G-d only knows what I’d be without you.” This just could have been the theme to our impending heartbreaks along our path. He left for camp and only wrote once. “See you in September”- well maybe.
The evening was a success. We twisted and shouted and moved around as we were invited to the dance floor to do the Loco-Motion and The Peppermint Twist.

The specialty years of pre-teening had a wonderful life of its own. We made room for our daydreams filled with Johnny Mathis lyrics and wondered if we would ever sit starry eyed on a rainbow. We hold tightly to our memories of days where we would “climb way up to the top of the stairs and all our cares would just drift right into space.” All the while Jay and the Americans knew as the “lion slept tonight” those were our “Magic Moments.” Shout out to Herbie Frankel. Have a good Wednesday.

Have an egg roll Mr. Goldstone.
Have a Matzoh Ball, maybe two.
As we celebrate liberation we’ll stand proudly as a Jew.
Leave an empty chair at the sedar table.
Pray a hostage will show up.
Take a sip of Manichewitz, from the half full sedar cup.
Pray that pestilence, war and famine.
Finds their way outside the door.
On the precipice of unlevened bagels.
We will Daven to end the War.
So Mr. Goldstone here’s your matzoh ball laden with a carrot maybe two.

  So on this first night of Seder.

  A little fuss, a little muss.

“Smote the land of Egypt,”

   On the eve of Exodus.

And Repeat!

Dear Acid Reflux, 

Where were you all our lives?

Tums, Rolaids and Pepto.

Helped our parents stomachs thrive.

Proton uptake inhibitors.

Add an endoscopic search.

Waiting for results, clearly keeps us in the lurch.

We love to eat pastrami, deli mustard piled high.

A half a sandwich later.

How will we survive?

We take our little purple pill.

Go along our merry way.

Hello Acid Reflux are you really here to stay? 

A cough and then a tickle.

Is our stomach that high up?

Please hand me the mylanta,

Perhaps a half a cup.

Our stomachs have gotten older.

Our eyes still on the pie.

The days of a la mode, have quickly passed us by.

Let’s try the milk from Almonds.

Lactose intolerant too.

We are so very over, the limitations in our view.

A spritz of just plain seltzer, a ginger ale was quite the cure.

Our dietary habits, we need to re-explore.

Forget the mozzarella-deep fried, sauce on the side.

Our days of grabbing a slice, 

Makes our stomach wanna hide.

We love a little bolognese.

Tossed on pasta piled high.

We wake up at 2:30 and hear our stomachs cry.

Now we’re planning dinners.

That are as bland as all get out.

Dear Acid Reflux, shut the door on your way out.

When the planning you do for the immediate future coincides with destiny you consider it a match and proceed with caution.
With no maudlin overtones we get the bigger television, incorporate it into a Barbecue and watch a Movie night and sail into the-new category of the “what we have planned,” with hope that it manifests into our syllabus of events. Run on sentence.
On the precipice of one door closing we will optimistically run into the arms of fate. Here’s to enthusiastically swinging the new door open and welcoming our next room crowded with Bashert.