How's Your Social Life?

I had a baby shower at my house a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't a big event, but it was a lot of fun. We were honoring two "mommies-to-be" from our staff who are due within five weeks of each other--one with a girl and the other with a boy. Can you guess which is which from the photos?

Why am I mentioning the baby shower? I guess because it depicts the friendship of several women and co-workers who came together to celebrate the wonder of new life with two people they like and enjoy--the kind of relationships that add to the measure of one's days.

If you've been following the blog the past two weeks you know I've been writing about "9 Lessons for Living Longer" from The Blue Zones by Dan Buettner. According to Buettner and the researchers he chronicles, there are nine "power principles" shared by the people who live the longest, happiest lives. I've already written about the four related to diet and exercise. Last week I talked about purpose. This week I'd like to say a few words about how important relationships, our social life, is to our overall health and well-being.

According to a Gallup-Healthways poll on well-being, the happiest Americans socialize six or seven hours a day--especially with family and friends. Another study by Nicholas Christakis, a social scientist from Harvard, and James Fowler, a political scientist at the University of California in San Diego, among 12,000 people living in a small Massachusetts town, the happiest people were also the most connected. Additionally, the happier one's friends became in this study, the happier their closest associates became. At the same time, other studies have suggested that having a depressed friend increases the likelihood of becoming depressed one's self.

The connection between having a close network of friends and one's personal happiness didn't surprise me. Years ago our family lived in a community of about 25,000 in northern Illinois. We were situated right off the I-90 tollway about 50 miles from the northwest suburbs of Chicago. While we lived there, we witnessed 700-800 new housing starts within two miles of my office. We were an attractive location for people who wanted to get out of the Chicago metropolitan area to a different life in a small city.

Trouble was, our newest residents didn't actually leave the city. Every day they awoke to one or one and one-half hour commute one way, spending a minimum of two to three hours in traffic five days out of seven. This meant that for much of the year they left before dawn and returned after dark. They lived in comfortable homes in pleasant neighborhoods, but they didn't know their neighbors. They didn't have time to connect with people in their new community or to visit regularly with friends and family they left behind in Chicago.

What was the impact? One day I started calculating how many of my clients with marriage, family and mental health problems had moved to the area within the past two years. More than 50%. It occurred to me that the stress of moving and the lack of a good support system might be creating a lot of stress in their family.

According to findings quoted by Buettner, "Recent research has ... shown that we're likely to get more satisfaction from friends with whom we can have a deep conversation. . . Since friends are long-term adventures, surrounding ourselves with the right people, and engineering our lives so we spend more time with those people, should have a profound, long-term impact on our happiness."

There's more I could say, but I think this post is getting long enough. Besides, you might want to consider reading calling a friend or starting a group to discuss the book. There you'll find all kinds of ideas for encouraging friendship and community, thereby enriching and potentially lengthening your life in a very enjoyable way.

Thinking friendly thoughts,

Dr. Jennifer Baker

Peeling with Purpose

Me:  I want to write about purpose, but I just can't get started. Can you help?

Main Man: Why don't you write about making applesauce? You can use my photos.

Me:  They're great photos, but what does applesauce have to do with "purpose?"

Main Man:  Lots--more than you think.

Me: Really? Like what?

Main Man: When you make applesauce you have to be intentional. You have to decide to  do it. You may have other things to do, but you put them aside to focus on the sauce.

Me:  Okay . . . let me give that some thought.

Purpose Perspective
I must admit that my husband and I don't always think alike. In fact, sometimes I find his thoughts downright weird. Where does he come up with this stuff, I wonder. What is going on in his head?

At the same time, I have to admit that when my ruminations get stuck in a rut a fresh perspective is usually helpful. As I considered his suggestion of an analogy between making applesauce and having a sense of purpose, I decided he might actually be on to something.

According to The Blue Zones: Nine Lessons for Living Longer (Buettner, 2012), there is a correlation between having a sense of purpose and living a long, healthy, happy life. In an eleven-year, NIH-funded study led by Dr. Robert Butler, those "individuals who expressed a clear goal in life--something to get up for in the morning, something that made a difference--living longer and were sharper than those who did not" (p.282).

So, if I'm following my Main Man's thinking, intentionally--a decision--is involved with making applesauce and with living with purpose.

Purpose Defined
What is purpose? According to Richard Leider, author of The Power of Purpose, it has a lot to do with your reason for being, your aim in life. Those people who live with purpose are happier and more focused regardless of the challenges they face. It seems the more we can identify and focus on our purpose, the less stress we are likely to experience--in part because we are able to identify and extricate ourselves from choices and activities not in keeping with who we are. We are more likely to know what we want and where we are going.

According to Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, when we live with purpose we are more likely to experience "a sense of freedom, enjoyment, fulfillment, and skill," as well as the experience of losing track of time and related temporal concerns.

And the connection to making applesauce, you say?

Well, when my Main Man is engaged in making applesauce he's living in the moment, especially if he has been given the apples, as he was recently. He's thinking, "I'm making something I love and it's costing me very little." (This is spoken like the truly frugal person he is.)

He's totally absorbed in the process of washing and quartering tart, red Jonathans, simmering them on the stove, filling the kitchen with the sweet smell of warm apples, and pushing them through the puree'er into a large bowl of pink sauce. I might notice an annoying buzz from the dryer in the laundry room or the telephone ringing, but he is totally absorbed in the moment of warm, sweet-smelling applesauce.

And how does this relate to a purpose-driving life?

Perhaps we might think of it this way. If we want to live with purpose, we first must make a decision to do so. It's easy to drift along in life without giving much thought to why we are getting up in the morning, but purpose is necessary for direction. It make take some time to articulate our purpose, i.e., our personal mission statement, but once we have decided, things become easier. We put aside good choices and options for the best ones--the ones most in keeping with our values, identity and passions.

For my Main Man, who highly values frugality and fresh produce, the decision to make applesauce was an easy one. Engagement in the process enabled him to put aside other cares and concerns--a natural stress reliever. The joy of eating a bowl of warm, apple-y goodness made it all even better. 

Maybe he does know something about purpose after all. I may have to listen to him more often. He always likes that.

Saucily yours,

Dr. Jennifer Baker

Living in the Blue Zones

What do Denmark, Singapore, northern Mexico and San Luis Obispo, CA have in common? 

 

According to Dan Buettner, author of Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way, some of the world's healthiest, happiest people live there. Not surprisingly, diet and exercise play a role in the well-being of these people, but these factors are only a fraction of the big picture. The way Buettner describes it, there's much more going on with people who remain healthy and active into the ninth and tenth decades of their life than their activity level and what they eat.

Thrive followed Buettner's first book, The Blue Zones, in which he detailed the things he had learned from people who live in the "blue zones" around the globe.

Even though the people of Denmark, Singapore, northern Mexico and coastal California are very different from each other, they all share a number of qualities that contribute to their health and longevity. They are briefly summarized in the pyramid below, but over the next few weeks I thought it might be fun to spend a little more time on each of the "Power Nine Principles."

According to Buettner, the diets of the healthiest people in the world share these characteristics in common:

1) They're plant-based. Most of the people do eat some meat, but the amount they eat is much less than most Americans. Meat is considered more as a seasoning or favor ingredient rather than a staple to every meal.

2) The healthiest people stop eating when they are no longer hungry, rather than when they're "full." If we want to live longer, we simply must stop eating sooner.

3) Many of the healthiest people drink one to two glasses of red wine a day. This doesn't mean one needs to drink wine to be healthy, but many of the longest living people drink a little wine on a regular basis. It goes without saying that drinking too much can also be very problematic.

What about Exercise?

We hear a lot about exercise, but Buettner found that few of the healthiest, happiest people have a gym membership. Rather, they live in environments that encourage them to be active, e.g., they walk or bike to work, to the store, or regularly for recreation. Too many Americans get most of their activity moving from one sedentary position to another--from bed to table to car to desk at the beginning of the day. At day's end they move from desk to car to table to recliner to bed again. Buettner suggests that we begin to inconvenience ourselves more often in order to include regular activity into our daily schedules.

Beyond Diet and Exercise
It seems to me that nearly every American has heard about the importance of diet and exercise, so if Buettner's book had included only these four factors I wouldn't have found it that compelling. Lots of people talk about that. What made Buettner's book so compelling were the other five factors--the ones that have little to do with food and activity. In the weeks to come I'll spend more time talking about the following:

1) Power of purpose
2) Managing stress
3) Significance of family
4) Importance of friendships
5) Influence of connections

 Thinking "blue" thoughts,

Dr. Jennifer Baker

Giving Them Wings

“Why not Europe,” I questioned? “Other kids go to Europe.”

“I don’t want to be like other kids,” she said. “I want to go to India. I think this is something I’m supposed to do.”

“Besides,” she continued, “I probably won’t be picked. There are a whole bunch of students who want to go and I'm one of the youngest."

Even today I can recall this particular conversation with great clarity. We were driving in the car when she introduced the topic. I was proud and pleased with the young adult she was becoming, but I hadn't prepared myself for this. What should I say? How would I respond? What are parents to do when they strive to raise a confident and independent child, who then announces a decision that causes them to shudder?

The Perils of Protection
I’ve read quite a bit lately about the perils of over-protecting our children. Parents hear so many horror stories these days that it’s easy from them to want to keep their children on 24-hour surveillance long after that sort of supervising is appropriate.

It often begins with a baby monitor signaling them at any moment of the day or night of their child’s discomfort, and continues with cell phones that function almost as an umbilical cord when children go off to college.

While these sorts of inventions have made some kinds of communication easier and more convenient, they also have inadvertently created a context in which it’s more difficult for children to learn to function independently. In some, they have created a “crisis of confidence” in terms of kids learning to problem solve on their own.

 If we want our children to develop into mature, responsible adults, they must be given room and space to make mistakes, to fall down, to pick themselves up, pull themselves together and move on. It’s not always easy to know exactly what kind of latitude a child needs. When does a parent stand back and watch? When does he step in and set some limits? When does she rescue? At what point is, “No,” most appropriate?

We struggled with these same questions when our daughter declared her intention to go to India. I wanted to be the kind of mother my mother had been to me -- sending me off to school several hundred miles from home with lots of encouragement and "you'll be fine." She sent me letters once a week and called occasionally. I'm was homesick, but I lasted until November without a visit. I learned only many years later how much she missed me and how hard it was for her when I left home. She loved me enough to let me go. 

Off to India

Not surprisingly, our daughter was selected as one of eight students from the university to study abroad in India. Eventually, given her willingness to assume a portion of the cost and the oversight we believed would be provided by the university, we said yes to her request – but not without some fear and trepidation. We also endured criticism from a number of other parents: “How could you let her go? It's dirty and dangerous in India. Why not Europe?” 

 

Nevertheless, I took her to the airport in early December and she flew off to India for about five months. She stayed in Nagercoil where roosters awakened her early every morning, ate cereal crawling with ants in Madurai, studied in university classrooms  in Madras where the monkeys stole through open windows and pilfered her lunch, and contracted a nasty intestinal bug requiring a visit to a local hospital in Calcutta with less than ideal standards to get an IV. 

 “I would have told you,” she said in an email, “but I didn’t want you to worry.”

I spent my first Christmas without her, cringing when we received an email saying she had gotten her nose pierced. I worried about her health.

 

In May, she came back home to us safe and sound, looking thin, but better for the experience. She had a much greater appreciation for the struggles of a developing nation. She learned she could do things she never imagined. Her problem solving skills increased exponentially.

Today she is the mother of four adorable little girls. I'm guessing she will have her own struggles with allowing them to be independent, but I hope she’ll have the courage to let them go a few years from now when they want to spread their wings and fly. And then again, given their DNA, she might not have a choice. 

Taking flight,

Dr. Jennifer Baker