Skyline Happenings

By Jancee Dunn

We have reached the seventh and final day of the Happiness Challenge! Congratulations on your efforts to take care of your emotional, psychological, and physical health by building and strengthening your connections. You’ve assessed your social universe, made an eight-minute phone call (or two), chatted up someone you didn’t know, expressed your thanks, reached out to people at work, and put plans on the calendar. (If you missed a day, that’s OK. You can find the previous installments here, then do them at your own pace.)

As I’ve taken this challenge alongside you, I’ve made a vow to prioritize my relationships and view them as a vital component of my overall health. Just like prioritizing exercise, or sleep, I’ve come to understand that my relationships require maintenance.

Now that we have the tools to improve our “social fitness,” the work of sustaining it begins. I called Dr. Bob Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the co-author of “The Good Life” who created this challenge with me and other experts, to get three quick tips for the year ahead.

1. Set specific relationship goals for the year

Dr. Waldinger advised to commit to making strengthening your bonds an ongoing practice. “Be realistic,” he said. “Could you do one small thing a few times a week to promote connections, like send one text or email to someone to say hello? Could your goal be to get together with a friend once each week?” Start small and level up as time allows, he said.

Shasta Nelson, the author of “Frientimacy: How to Deepen Friendships for Lifelong Health and Happiness,” suggested making a list of the people you want to feel closer to a year from now. Having this physical reminder will help you look for opportunities to connect with them throughout the year.

It’s helpful to use that same specificity when making plans, Ms. Nelson added. Replace vague invitations like “We should get together sometime” with “How’s next Tuesday?”

2. Commit to consistency

“This is a hard one,” Ms. Nelson said, “but recognize that you won’t grow closer to people unless, and until, you’re interacting with them consistently. If you are not participating in something where you’re seeing the same people regularly, like a book club, or church, then you have to set up the consistency yourself, and make that happen. That involves scheduling and reaching out and initiating.” The relationships with the people you wrote down on that piece of paper won’t go forward, she added, “if you don’t figure out ways to have more shared experiences and conversations.”

I am haunted by a data point Dr. Waldinger mentioned: Over and over, throughout the lives of participants in the Harvard Study of Adult Development, he saw friendships deteriorate because of neglect.

Being purposeful about investing time and energy in your relationships is critical for your well-being, Dr. Waldinger said. “The frequency and the quality of contact with other people are two major predictors of happiness,” he said.

Dr. Waldinger phones the co-author of “The Good Life,” Marc Schulz, a friend of 30 years, every Friday. “We talk a lot about our research, but also about our families and our travels and all sorts of things, and I cherish it and look forward to it,” he said.

I have decided to focus on my relationships every Saturday, and to make concrete plans with people for the week ahead. Yesterday, I reached out to a friend I hadn’t seen in years, and we have an eight-minute phone date on Wednesday and plans to go to dinner in two weeks.

3. Ritual is key

An easy way to make the habit stick is to transform even mundane activities into rituals. Cassie Holmes, a professor at U.C.L.A.’s Anderson School of Management and the author of “Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most,” said her research showed that “among some folks, ordinary experiences with loved ones at the kitchen table produce as much happiness as extraordinary experiences like that once-in-a-lifetime-vacation.”

A nudge to make you prioritize these ordinary moments with others, Dr. Holmes said, is to routinize them and rebrand them as rituals. Give them a name, she said, like the standing “Thursday morning coffee date” she has with her daughter.

If you have extended family nearby, Dr. Waldinger suggested starting new traditions or solidifying old ones with them. You can try a new inexpensive restaurant together every month, watch backyard movies if the weather allows or have a family trivia night.

In the past few years, a tradition has sprung up in my extended family in which we all converge at one house to help do a hated, frequently-postponed chore in exchange for a meal. Most recently, the task was to pick up stones in my parents’ yard, which had always enraged my dad by damaging his lawn mower. There were a dozen of us, so the task was accomplished quickly and with good humor. In the end, we were rewarded with chicken and biscuits.

Ed note: This challenge takes only a little effort–and is so important for our health and happiness. What ways can you think of to improve our connectedness? Perhaps allowing more singles to walk in to the dining room for lunch or dinner? Bring back line dancing? Women’s “gal talk”? More visiting to and from the Terraces? Laughter therapy? Propinquity (look it up!)? Every Friday happy hour (with no agenda other than social gathering)?

By Jancee Dunn

This is Day 6 of Well’s 7-day Happiness Challenge. To start at the beginning, click here.

Predicting how a future event will make us feel is known in psychology as affective forecasting — and most human beings are pretty lousy at it. “People are terrible at knowing what is good for them,” said Dr. Bob Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, “and we seem particularly bad at forecasting the benefits of relationships.”

It can be tempting to just stay home rather than socialize, said Dr. Waldinger, who is an author of the new book “The Good Life.” “We’ll think, ‘I know I’m going to be happy if I stay home and watch Netflix but not if I go to that party.’”

But interacting with other people, he said, often “improves our mood and makes us happier than we expect it will. Making the choice to go out and be with people involves risk, usually a small one — but offers the possibility for encounters that are enlivening, interesting or just plain fun.”

Happiness Challenge Day 6: Put a social plan on the calendar

Your exercise for today is to make a social plan — a walk with the old friend you never seem to see, lunch with the former co-worker who always made you laugh — and put it on the calendar. If you’ve ever told someone you like that you should get coffee “sometime,” today’s the day to make it official. Do not cancel or postpone.

“Many of us might be out of shape when it comes to socializing,” said Philip Gable, an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Delaware. Motivate yourself to go out by setting small goals instead of larger ones, he suggested. Instead of committing to be at a party for three hours, he said, give yourself a half-hour, or vow that you’ll chat with three people. And of course it doesn’t have to be a party. A face-to-face human interaction of any sort, especially one that might build toward more social dates in the future, is what we’re aiming for today.

There’s a group out there for everybody

A good way to build ties is by joining a group that meets regularly — say, a pickle-ball team at the local gym. Researchers call that regular proximity with other humans propinquity and have shown that the more propinquity we have, the greater the chances are that we’ll form friendships.

To create more propinquity for yourself, get creative. Dig in a neighborhood community garden. Volunteer with a dog-rescue group. Join a local walking club.

A 2016 study found that people who had what the researchers called “multiple group identifications” — such as church communities, hobby groups, support groups or sports teams — had greater levels of happiness. And the more groups they were in, the better. “Overall,” the researchers wrote, “our findings suggest that thinking more about one’s group life (and perhaps putting a plan into action in order to enhance it) could have significant benefits for one’s overall sense of well-being.”

Even introverts need social activities

A 2020 study conducted during the pandemic found that the resulting social isolation was not, as was commonly believed, “an introvert’s paradise.” Even for people who considered themselves introverts, the study authors write, “close human affiliation serves as a protective buffer against social disconnectedness and low mood.”

A self-described introvert, Jenn Granneman, the founder of the online community Introvert, Dear and the author of the upcoming book “Sensitive: The Hidden Power of the Highly Sensitive Person in a Loud, Fast, Too-Much World,” has said that introverts aren’t antisocial but instead selectively social. Introverts can cultivate a sense of belonging by “looking for passions rather than friends,” said Susan Cain, the author of “Quiet: The Power of Introverts In A World That Can’t Stop Talking,” a repudiation of the extrovert ideal. Pursue something that interests you, she said, and “the like-minded friends will come.”

Introverts can summon the resolve to initiate plans by telling themselves they’re “giving the gift of going first,” Ms. Granneman added. “Send the text, ask the question or plan a date. You might be surprised at how much the other person appreciates you reaching out.”

One way Ms. Granneman does this is to buy two tickets, a few months in advance, to any shows or events that catch her eye. When the event rolls around, she said, “having the extra ticket puts some pressure on me, in a good way, to reach out to my network because I want someone to go with me and I don’t want the ticket to go to waste.” Most people are excited to be offered a ticket, she said, and almost always accept.

Here’s a bonus exercise for today: If you receive an invitation this week, say yes when you normally might say no.

Ed note: Although retired, many of us still “work,” that is, we volunteer on committees, in our faith groups or in the community at large. A friend found there will have common loves and interests–another step in personal happiness. It’s also a reminder to put in effort to keep in touch with former work friends.

This is Day 5 of Well’s 7-day Happiness Challenge. To start at the beginning, click here.

I met one of my closest friends at a magazine I worked for years ago. At the time, she was a stranger who sat across from me in the world’s most stupendously boring meeting. I felt her looking at me, and then she rolled her eyes. I smirked. A 30-year friendship was born.

Workplace relationships are often overlooked, said Dr. Bob Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and an author of the new book “The Good Life,” but they are vital.

A 2022 report from Gallup showed that people who have a best friend at work are more engaged than those who do not. They were also more likely to innovate and share ideas, get more work done in less time and report having more fun.

Friendships with colleagues are also “aspects of our work lives that we have some control over,” Dr. Waldinger said. “They have the potential to improve our daily experience immediately, no matter what we do for a living.”

Happiness Challenge Day 5: Get closer to a colleague

This is your exercise today: Reach out to someone at work — or, if you’re a student, at school — whom you would like to know better. If you’re retired or a parent who does not work outside the home, you can still participate: Consider your “workplace” anywhere you might go regularly, whether it’s a class, an organization where you volunteer or even a coffee shop in your neighborhood.

Here are four ways to forge new workplace connections:

For someone you don’t know: One of the best ways to foster a workplace friendship is to follow up about something that a person mentioned in a meeting or a group setting, said Shasta Nelson, a friendship expert and the author of “The Business of Friendship.” “Make a note to yourself about what they mentioned,” she said, “so that a week later, you can say, ‘How did that 5K race go that you said you were going to do?’ Or, ‘I hope your daughter isn’t feeling sick anymore.’” When you follow up, Ms. Nelson said, people “are so surprised and pleased.”

For a colleague you’d like to know better: Invite them to do something casual that only takes a few minutes, along the lines of: “I need to clear my head — do you want to take a quick walk around the block with me?”

Or give them a specific, thoughtful compliment, suggested Gena Cox, an organizational psychologist and executive coach based in Clearwater, Fla. “Recently, someone sent me a note out of the blue and told me why they admired me,” she said. “I was shocked. And I will always feel closer to that colleague as a result of them doing that little thing for me.”

If someone offers you any sort of help at work, whether it’s to fix a computer issue or show you where the best snack machines are, resist the urge “to automatically refuse because you don’t want to inconvenience the person,” Ms. Nelson said. “Instead, say yes. And then be generous back, and ask if there’s something you can do to make their job easier or more fun.”

Editors’ Picks

Day 5: The Importance of Work FriendsFinancial Planning for Retirement: It’s More Accessible, but Be CarefulAnd the 2023 Oscar Nominees Should Be …

If you work remotely: Show up early on a call and make conversation before everyone gets down to business. Give a co-worker a shout-out for their contribution, Dr. Waldinger said, or ask them about an interesting object in their background, or about their pet dozing behind them.

You can also message them and request a quick, friendly chat, Ms. Nelson said. “You can say, ‘I’d love to hear your story about how you came to work here, would you be willing to talk in our own room for ten minutes?’”

If you’re a manager: Before a meeting starts, try a few icebreakers: “What was your first job?” or “What was the worst advice you’ve ever received?” These sorts of exercises “create conditions where friendships naturally blossom,” said Ron Friedman, a social psychologist and the author of “The Best Place To Work.” “Far too many employers leave close connections to chance. That’s a mistake. When we look at the data on why people stay with an employer year after year, often the best predictor is not the size of their paycheck or how well they get along with their manager — it’s how connected they feel to the people on their team.”

What’s your best advice for how to make friends at work? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments.

By Jancee Dunn

This is Day 4 of Well’s 7-Day Happiness Challenge. To start at the beginning, click here.

For today’s exercise, we’re going to get vulnerable and tell an important person in our lives how we feel about them. “Think about what they have done for you in your life,” said Dr. Bob Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the author of the new book “The Good Life.” “Where, or who, would you be without them?”

Happiness Challenge Day 4: Thank someone special

Consider what you would thank this person for if you thought you would never see them again. Take a few minutes and write down what you would tell them, with as many specific examples as possible. Don’t overthink it: It can be both dashed off and straight from the heart. Think of it as a eulogy for the living.

Then send it — by email, text, handwritten note, whatever. The medium doesn’t matter; sending it does.

The happiest people take time to explicitly cherish the people they love, Dr. Waldinger said. Writing a note of appreciation to someone, research has shown, has an immediate positive impact on feelings of well-being and connectedness, for both you and the recipient.

“Something that holds a lot of people back from reaching out is that they might be wondering, ‘Is it weird that I’m reaching out after all this time? What are they going to think?’” said Peggy Liu, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business, who led a 2022 study in which participants sent a short note to someone in their social circle with whom they hadn’t interacted in a while. “But the recipients aren’t thinking about that. They’re thinking, ‘Someone has taken the time to reach out. They thought about me.’”

Bonus exercise: If you have a partner, try a gratitude list

Guy Winch, a psychologist in New York City, author and co-host of the podcast “Dear Therapists,” recommended a similar exercise to strengthen bonds in couples. Without showing your partner, write down 10 specific things they have done — with as much detail as possible — that you appreciate.

When you’re finished, clear some time with your partner, turn to them and then read your list aloud. Look at your partner after you read each item on the list. Talk about how each gesture makes you feel. Then have your partner read their list to you.

Focusing on your partner’s gestures, rather than, say, cataloging their good qualities, “highlights the real and concrete ways your partner shows up for you,” Dr. Winch said. “And many of these small moments get lost and forgotten when we’re in the emotional autopilot of daily life, so curating a list of these gestures is a way to give them the spotlight.”

My husband Tom and I tried this once. As I prepared to read my list aloud to Tom, I was seized with a sudden, uncharacteristic shyness. As I listed his thoughtful gestures — driving me everywhere because I’m timid behind the wheel, cheerfully fixing all of my computer problems — I stopped abruptly on No. 7.

Editors’ Picks

I’m Worried About a Fancy Cat in This Frigid Weather. Help!36 Hours in Steamboat Springs, Colo.Day 4: Why You Should Write a ‘Living Eulogy’

“Painted my parents’ new house last summer, weekend after weekend in the heat.” I had thanked him perfunctorily for his help, but the magnitude of his gesture suddenly overwhelmed me. Every weekend he was up there, teetering on my parents’ rickety ladder. In record humidity. Near a buzzing wasp’s nest. Tears spilled down my face. Helping my elderly parents was a direct act of kindness — toward me.

Dr. Winch said that in his practice, he’s seen that the benefits of this exercise can last months, or even years.

As often as you can, look for these gestures and point them out, Dr. Waldinger said. This is an easy and ongoing way to reinforce your connection with your partner. “I call it ‘catching’ your partner being kind,” he said. “Make a practice of doing it whenever you can.”

Share your experiences: Did you thank a person who made a big impact in your life? What did you hear back? How did it make you feel? 

Often on my daily neighborhood walk, I pass a woman and her dachshund, who used to bark at me frantically. I found it irritating. One day, on a whim, I decided to go beyond our customary nods. I asked her how I could make friends with her dog.

“Oh, Petey gets upset when he sees people wearing hats,” the woman said. “It’s just too tiring to tell everyone.” Because more people wear headgear in winter, she went on, it’s a hard season for Petey.

That was enough to make me fall in love with that dachshund. Now, when I spot Petey in the distance, I quickly pull off my hat. It’s become a bit of a game for me. I can honestly say that if I’d never chatted up this woman, my daily walk would be a lot less fun.

Today’s exercise is to talk to someone you don’t know well. Or to a total stranger. Or to both.

Happiness Challenge Day 3: Chat up someone you don’t know.

As often as you can today, advised Bob Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the author of the new book “The Good Life,” “seek out and notice opportunities for friendly moments of uplift.”

I just had an eight-minute call with my good friend Tina, whom I’ve known for over three decades. I could never seem to connect with her (she has a very demanding job) until I sent her a text last week proposing an eight-minute phone call.

That seems weird, she wrote back.

Come on, I wheedled. You can do it. The president of the United States could probably do eight minutes! I promise not to go long. Name a time.

At the appointed hour, I gave her a ring. In short order, we talked about our mothers’ health, made birthday plans, gossiped about a friend who abruptly quit his job and moved to a tiny Mexican town, traded book recommendations and explored the possibility of an afterlife (verdict: we’re not sure). Intently focused, we knocked out subject after subject, before Tina announced that our eight minutes were up — and besides, she had arrived at the dry cleaner’s.

I hung up, smiling and humming a little tune. I had missed her, and didn’t realize it until I heard her voice. I was also surprised by how much ground we covered without the call feeling rushed. Our connection was brief, but it was real.

Happiness Challenge Day 2: Try the 8-minute phone call

Today your goal is to think of a person you love: someone you miss, someone you wish you connected with more often.

Send that person a quick text asking if they can chat on the phone for eight minutes — ideally today, but if not, schedule it for sometime this week. You can even copy and paste the following:

Hi! I read this in The New York Times and it made me think of you. Want to schedule an eight-minute phone call this week?

After the eight minutes are up, decide together when your next such catch-up will be — and then honor your time commitment and sign off promptly. (Unless your friend is having some sort of crisis, in which case it’s good that you got in touch anyway.) Hang up and enjoy that little glow of well-being.

Dr. Bob Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the author of the new book “The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness,” said that most busy people “tend to think that in some unspecified future, we’ll have a ‘time surplus,’ where we’ll be able to connect with old friends.” That may never materialize, he said, so pick up the phone and invest the time right now.

The value of hearing someone’s voice

Hearing the sound of a loved one’s voice, said Claudia Glaser-Mussen, a psychotherapist in New York City, “is emotionally regulating.”

In eight minutes, she added, “I can call my friend Mary Beth from high school, and say, ‘I love you so much, here’s what’s happening,’ or ‘Listen, I want to run something by you really quickly.’ It’s a short period of time, but you can get a lot in, and it’s deep enough that all the bonding hormones start to hit.”

Have a hard out

A hard out, agreed upon in advance, solves a common conversational issue revealed in a 2021 study. Researchers looked at 932 conversations between pairs of people and found that they almost never ended when both people wanted them to. Some preferred to continue, while others felt that the interaction dragged on too long.

When one person shuts down the conversation too early, the researchers wrote, or chats away while ignoring standard wrap-up cues (such as use of the word “anyway”), the result is what’s known as a “coordination problem.” A clear boundary of eight minutes avoids that.

A study of 240 adults in 2021 found that when participants received brief phone calls a few times a week, their levels of depression, loneliness and anxiety were “rapidly reduced” compared with people who didn’t receive a call. As Dr. Waldinger writes in his book, “a few adjustments to our most treasured relationships can have real effects on how we feel, and on how we feel about our lives — a gold mine of vitality that we are not paying attention to.”

Try an eight-minute phone call and let us know how it goes.

Ed note: When’s the last time you sent a note or visited someone you haven’t connected with for some time? Have you visited a friend in the Terraces? Sent a note of appreciation to someone affecting your life? Or have you simply listened to someone? The NYT in this series has some of the keys to happiness in how we connect with and support others. What’s your story?

In 1938, researchers at Harvard set out to learn what makes a person thrive.

They recruited 724 participants, a combination of students at Harvard College and low-income teenage boys in Boston. All were willing to let the researchers track their lives, from childhood troubles to first loves to final days.

Every five years, the researchers gathered health records from the participants. They asked detailed questions about their lives at two-year intervals, and, in later years, took DNA samples and performed brain scans. Twenty-five of the participants even donated their brains to the study after their deaths.

Now, 85 years later, the Harvard Study of Adult Development has expanded to three generations and more than 1,300 descendants of the original subjects; it is, according to the researchers, the longest-running in-depth study on human happiness in the world.

From all the data, one very clear finding has emerged: Strong relationships are what make for a happy life. More than wealth, I.Q. or social class, it’s the robustness of our bonds that most determines whether we feel fulfilled.

How to build your social bonds for more joy

In a new book, “The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness,” Dr. Bob Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the study’s fourth director, and Marc Schulz, an associate director of the study and a psychology professor at Bryn Mawr College, have distilled the study’s insights.

If you’re going to do one thing this year to ensure your own health and happiness, the authors maintain, find the time to nurture and develop relationships. To help get you started, Dr. Waldinger and I have created this challenge — seven simple exercises, starting with taking today’s quiz.

Dr. Waldinger and Dr. Schulz have coined a term for the process of assessing and treating the health of our relationships: “social fitness.” It’s just as crucial as physical fitness, said Dr. Waldinger, who added that neglected relationships can atrophy, like muscles. “Our social life is a living system, and it needs exercise,” he said. “It’s a choice you make to invest in, week by week, year by year — one that has huge benefits.”

Why ‘social fitness’ matters

The Harvard study is far from the only one to have found a link between our relationships and happiness. Ample research shows that people who are more socially connected live longer and are more protected against stress, depression and declines in memory and language.

Loneliness, on the other hand, damages our physical health. “I believe loneliness is one of the defining public health concerns of our time,” Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told me in an email. While the pandemic exacerbated loneliness, he added, “it also helped many people take stock of their lives and reflect more deeply on how important their relationships are. That means taking steps in our day-to-day lives to invest in them.”

It’s not just your bonds with friends and family that are crucial to happiness. It’s your relationships with romantic partners and community groups. It’s the friendly conversation with your mail carrier or the acquaintance you see at the dog run.

Take the quiz

Today, you will identify the areas of your life in which you would like to be more connected. “Maybe you’ve got lots of people to have fun with, but you don’t have anyone to confide in about really personal, private things,” Dr. Waldinger said. “Or maybe you’ve got lots of people to confide in but don’t have anyone to have fun with.”

A few things before you begin:

There is no right number of friends. Don’t get hung up on numbers, Dr. Waldinger said. It’s the quality of your relationships, not the quantity, so try to discern what is most fulfilling for you (our quiz will help give you some perspective).

You don’t need to be an extrovert to improve your social fitness. While adult friendships require effort, happiness is not out of reach for you if you are shy or introverted, Dr. Waldinger said. You can engage with others in quieter settings around things that you care about. Try small, controlled activities such as a knitting group, a computer programming class, hiking or working in a community garden.

It’s never too late. People often assume that it’s too late for them to build relationships, Dr. Waldinger said, but that’s never the case. He points to many stories in “The Good Life” about people who made connections later in life, like a lonely 68-year-old who joined a gym after he’d retired. Three months later, he had amassed more friends than he’d ever had in his life.How strong are your relationships?Answer these 10 questions to find out.

Start the quiz Get this challenge by email, for Times subscribers only.  You will also receive the Well newsletter, with guidance to live your healthiest life, every week. Get it in your inbox.