{"id":23578,"date":"2023-10-01T11:10:54","date_gmt":"2023-10-01T11:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microloannexus.com\/personal-finance\/harvard-study-shows-us-how-to-invest-in-happiness\/"},"modified":"2023-10-01T11:10:55","modified_gmt":"2023-10-01T11:10:55","slug":"harvard-study-shows-us-how-to-invest-in-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microloannexus.com\/?p=23578","title":{"rendered":"Harvard Study Shows Us How To Invest In Happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been rich and I\u2019ve been poor, and I prefer rich,\u201d my friend Jim Stovall told me. It\u2019s just one of many things I learned from Jim.<\/p>\n<p>We co-authored a book many years ago\u2014my first, his\u2026who knows how many! But like millions of other readers, I was drawn to Jim\u2019s work because of his best-selling book, <em data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Ultimate-Gift-Novel-Jim-Stovall\/dp\/080073887X\/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1695844061&amp;sr=8-3\">The Ultimate Gift<\/em>, which found a way to articulate the nuance of both the blessings and trappings of wealth through a powerful narrative.<\/p>\n<p>But please don\u2019t get the wrong idea; Jim\u2019s is not a message promoting the pursuit of money for money\u2019s sake. Here are a few other gems to round out his message:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cBeing rich is not about having a lot of money; it\u2019s about having a lot to live for.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cTrue wealth is not measured in dollars and cents, but in the relationships we have and the experiences we\u2019ve shared.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIt\u2019s not about how much you have, but how much you enjoy what you have.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, money can\u2019t buy happiness\u2014at least beyond daily necessities\u2014but it sure can help. One of the world\u2019s foremost experts on the intersection of money, life, and happiness is Arthur Brooks, a career-changing classical musician turned social scientist who now teaches the most popular course at Harvard Business School\u2014on happiness.<\/p>\n<p><fbs-ad position=\"inread\" progressive=\"\" ad-id=\"article-0-inread\" aria-hidden=\"true\" role=\"presentation\"><\/fbs-ad><\/p>\n<p>I got the chance to see him lecture recently, and he closed with a summary of the findings of the most definitive, longest-running study on happiness dubbed the Harvard Study of Adult Development.<\/p>\n<p>Brooks summarized this expansive study with seven recommendations, to which I\u2019ll add my observations on how we can directly (and indirectly) invest in our own happiness:<\/p>\n<p>1. <strong>Quit smoking.<\/strong> I didn\u2019t have the guts to ask him if the occasional cigar counts, but regardless, I think the health implications of cigarette smoking are no longer questioned. But the financial implications are also pretty meaningful. I\u2019ll spare you a hyperbolic net-present-value calculation on the lifetime cost of smoking, but in addition to the possible increased healthcare costs of the probable increase in health complications, the average cost of a pack of smokes today is hovering around $8.00, and you\u2019ll pay at least twice as much for life insurance and any other financial product that requires health underwriting.<\/p>\n<p>2. <strong>Limit problem drinking.<\/strong> He qualified this by saying that if you question whether or not your drinking is a problem, it probably is. He added that \u201call intoxicants lead to less happiness and relational challenges,\u201d despite the narrower studies we cling to that suggest there might be health benefits to drinking in moderation. And if you\u2019re curious what the financial impact of drinking is\u2014or not drinking\u2014try giving up booze for a quarter of the year\u2014heck, even a month\u2014and see how much less you spend when you\u2019re not picking up the tab. Lessening or eliminating alcohol will also help significantly with the next two recommendations.<\/p>\n<p>3. <strong>Maintain healthy body weight.<\/strong> Blood pressure, heart disease, type-two diabetes, high cholesterol, inflammatory and carcinogenic foods\u2014this one can save not only your money but <em>your life<\/em>. I\u2019m deep into the rabbit hole of the mostly plant-based, nutrient-dense, whole-food research, and all I can tell you is that you shouldn\u2019t read <em data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/How-Not-Die-Discover-Scientifically\/dp\/1250066115\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2A7IC8RDQVHVU&amp;keywords=how+not+to+die&amp;qid=1695849253&amp;sprefix=how+not+to+die%2Caps%2C100&amp;sr=8-1\">How Not To Die<\/em> and <em data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Eat-Live-Amazing-Nutrient-Rich-Sustained\/dp\/031612091X\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PFM2HICU0GOY&amp;keywords=eat+to+live&amp;qid=1695849290&amp;sprefix=eat+to+live%2Caps%2C82&amp;sr=8-1\">Eat To Live<\/em> unless you\u2019re ready to look and feel better and get plenty of quizzical looks from your friends and family when you pass up the bacon cheeseburger. And in addition to looking and feeling great, you\u2019ll also save money\u2014because even though you\u2019ll likely be shopping more at hoity-toity grocery stores, most animal protein costs a <em>lot<\/em> more than plant protein. BUT, Brooks reminds us, if we become obsessive about the maintenance of a healthy body weight, we can quickly turn this happiness booster into a buster, both personally and relationally.<\/p>\n<p>4. <strong>Exercise daily.<\/strong> With implementation of the first three directives, you\u2019re actually saving money so far, until we get to #4. Now, Brooks reminds us that daily exercise doesn\u2019t have to be expensive or take much time\u2014a brisk walk counts, eliminating the reflexive rebuttal on the seven-days-a-week habit. Yet I\u2019ll add that I think most people underspend on their exercise habit\u2014and I\u2019ve never known anyone to complain about the money spent on a personal trainer. It\u2019s not cheap, but it\u2019s worth it, and it will also help you stay inspired to adhere to the first three recommendations.<\/p>\n<p>5. <strong>Adopt a coping style.<\/strong> We all deal with crap in life, so we need a way to cope with the crap because avoidance isn\u2019t an option. Brooks recommends \u201cmetacognition, not rumination,\u201d and suggests that the simple act of journaling helps us deal with negative emotion, bringing it from the limbic area of our brain to the pre-frontal cortex. After the lecture, I did have the guts to ask him if this is roughly synonymous with the groundbreaking work of Kahneman and Tvorsky, the forefathers of behavioral economics, regarding System 1 and System 2, something I\u2019ve written about pretty extensively. He said, definitively, yes. And if you don\u2019t consider yourself a journaler and prefer a practice that feels more practical and productive, consider <em data-ga-track=\"InternalLink:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/timmaurer\/2017\/02\/08\/5-reasons-why-non-digital-time-management-is-more-productive\/?sh=29a1c395628c\">5 Reasons Why Non-Digital Time Management Is More Productive<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>6. <strong>Practice continuous education. <\/strong>Mark Twain famously quipped, \u201cThe man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read,\u201d and indeed, Brooks\u2019 recommendation on this front involved only three words: \u201cRead, read, read.\u201d But maybe you don\u2019t consider yourself a reader? I didn\u2019t until after college when I felt like I could finally read what I chose; now, I can\u2019t imagine life without the practice. Yet I probably listen to about a third of my reading list, thanks to the $14.95 monthly investment in Audible.<\/p>\n<p>7. <strong>Foster love.<\/strong> The first six of Brooks\u2019 observations are all in service of the seventh. He qualified the specific types of loving relationships that contribute the most to our happiness as \u201ca stable, long-term romantic partnership or very close friends.\u201d Note here that he\u2019s not saying the number of our friendships or relationships are the contributor to our happiness\u2014but the depth and intimacy of those connections. And is there a better way to spend our money than facilitating those relationships that are the most meaningful to us? Doing so can be expensive, but broken relationships can cost us everything.<\/p>\n<p>Brooks concluded that \u201cHappiness = Love.\u201d He specified, \u201cLove of deity [to provide us with a worldview and ready coping mechanism], love of family, love of friends, and expressing our love to others through meaningful work.\u201d And I\u2019m inclined to suggest that it is through loving ourselves\u2014caring for our mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing\u2014that optimally prepares us to best express our love to others.<\/p>\n<p>Marcus Mumford, lead singer of the band Mumford &amp; Sons, said through song, \u201cWhere you invest your love, you invest your life.\u201d And what better place to invest our money?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/timmaurer\/2023\/10\/01\/harvard-study-shows-us-how-to-invest-in-happiness\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been rich and I\u2019ve been poor, and I prefer rich,\u201d my friend Jim Stovall told me. It\u2019s just one of many things I learned from Jim. We co-authored a book many years ago\u2014my first, his\u2026who knows how many! But like millions of other readers, I was drawn to Jim\u2019s work because of his best-selling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.12 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Harvard Study Shows Us How To Invest In Happiness | Micro Loan Nexus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cI\u2019ve been rich and I\u2019ve been poor, and I prefer rich,\u201d my friend Jim Stovall told me. 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