Grant Study

The longest, longest longitudinal study that's ever been done, and it, it started over 100 years ago.

It was actually called the Grant Study at first, 'cause this guy named Grant gave money to start it.

And they started following all these people.

Originally, just students at Harvard, but then people who lived in tenements in Boston and, and as everyone got married and had kids, they started following them.

Um, you know, let's zoom the lens out.

Let, let's go wide first, right? Because we've all heard through countless different, different sources now that, you know, um, whether it's the Grant Study for men or all these different things, uh, all these different data points tell us we are social animals, we're social beings.

And if you look at all the variables that contribute to a life well-lived, everything keeps pointing back to the depth and quality of our relationships.

And we-- I think we all kind of know that, right? We kinda know it in our bones.

And, uh, y- you know, this is echoed.

It, it's interesting seeing some of these things we knew two and a half thousand years ago that get validated by modern science, and certainly the Grant Study out of your alma mater at, at Harvard, um, you know, number one with a bullet.

That social connection is so important for longevity and happiness and wellbeing and these sorts of things.

So yeah, that, that I think is an important part.

But the most important drug on the planet, Michael, is a thing called happiness.

And there's a little-known university in America called Harvard who've been doing for the last 85 years a thing called the Grant Study, which shows the one key to health and happiness is to have someone else in your life who loves and cares for you, who you love and care for.

So if you do those five things well, You reduce your risk for cardiovascular disease by 83%.

10% is the appropriate use of orthodox medicine, having the right procedures.

And then yours just takes that extra step and connects, connects.

There's the, have you ever heard of this? the Harvard Grant Study.

So this was, I think it was in the 1930s, and there was this Harvard researcher that wanted to figure out what were the aspects of a human life that led to human flourishing.

And he partnered with this department store who wanted to retain their executives, right? So they wanted to, you know, to see, hey, how do we make sure that they flourish? We got an economic model underneath, you know, human behavior.

Yeah, there it is.

So they funded this.

study this became known as the harvard grant study and they followed people throughout their lives like john f kennedy was one of the people that was studied in this because he was a harvard student at the time i'm guessing and it's been going on for 80 years still going on and so they follow multiple generations and then you know expanded into the wider community and they found that the number one thing that is associated with human flourishing and allowing you to, and I think you said this, allowing you to more deftly handle the bumps that life gives you is connection.

Connection to others, community.