75 Year Harvard Study just released: “What Men Need to Live a Happy Life"

In 1938, Harvard University began following 268 male undergraduate students and kicked off the longest-running longitudinal studies of human development in history.  The study’s goal was to determine as best as possible what factors contribute most strongly to human flourishing.

The astonishing range of psychological, anthropological, and physical traits — ranging from personality type to IQ to drinking habits to family – indicates just how exhaustive and quantifiable the research data has become.

Recently, George Vaillant, who directed the study for more than three decades, published the study’s findings in the 2012 book Triumphs of Experience and the following is the book’s synopsis:
Marriages bring much more contentment after age 70, and physical aging after 80 is determined less by heredity than by habits formed prior to age 50.  As you can imagine, the study’s discoveries are bountiful, but the most significant finding of all is that “Alcoholism is a disorder of great destructive power.”

In Triumphs of Experience, Vaillant raises a number of factors more often than others, but the one he refers to most often is the powerful correlation between the warmth of your relationships and your health and happiness in your later years.
In Vallant’s own words, the #1 most important finding from the Grant Study is this: “The seventy-five years and twenty million dollars expended on the Grant Study points to a straightforward five-word conclusion: Happiness is love.  Full stop.”

A recent John’s Hopkins study showed that better hearing can help better memory. In this study, since loving relationships was the most important factor to create a fulfilling life, and without good communication, loving relationships are more difficult, and without being able to hear others well, communication is affected, good hearing may be one of the key factors to help nourish loving relationships.

Call Kimball B Forbes, MCD, Clinical Audiologist at 435-688-8866 for a hearing evaluation if you feel your loving relationships may be affected by a hearing loss.  http://www.hearingaiddoctor.com/

Kimball B. Forbes, MCD, has been in the St. George area for the past 27 years and is a co-owner of Advanced Hearing and Balance Specialists. His wife’s name is Jonna and they are the proud parents of 8 children and 4 grandchildren. Kimball is passionate and enjoys helping to build better relationships through better hearing. He is the longest tenured Audiologist in southern Utah. In his early years in practice in southern Utah and Nevada, he established 11 hearing clinics which are thriving today under his direction and leadership. Kimball graduated with his Master’s of Communication Disorders in Audiology from Brigham Young University in 1982. He specializes in:

• Hearing Aid Sales, Service and Counseling Specialist
• Earmold and Hearing Protection Specialist
• Diagnostic Medical Hearing Assessments for Adults and Children