What keeps people happy and healthy as they go through life?

The Harvard Study of Adult Development is one of the only studies in history to track the same people from adolescence into their 90s, to find out what really makes us thrive.  We find that the breadth and depth of our relationships with others are keys to wellbeing as we age – not just happiness, but physical health. We will talk about the evidence for this and the implications for how people make choices in their lives.

Robert Waldinger is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and Zen priest. He is Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest-running studies of adult life ever done. He directs a teaching program in psychotherapy at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and he writes about what science can teach us about healthy human development.