What Happy People Know

Timism of the day: What Happy People Know

As a therapist, I have to draw on decades of experience and perspective to reveal what happy, healthy people share. I've found few analytical tools to be handier than what I call the long view. When whipsawed by "groundbreaking" research that contradicts studies from, oh, just a few weeks before, I find that if I mix the new information into the old, then sit back and wait patiently while it ferments and settles, eventually something I might call current truth will rise above the mists of the churning scientific cauldron.

The long view reveals other verities as well. I've always been fascinated by people who enjoy truly outstanding physical and mental health. After years of snooping, I've identified certain behaviors and attitudes they all share—a lifestyle, or style of living, that transcends the healthy habits (Eat this, bend that!) we extol. Here's what my notes—and the long view—tell me about the world's most robust inhabitants.

They possess body wisdom:

I interviewed a group of body workers—experts in physical therapies such as the Joseph Piltes, Alexander Technique, Rolfing, and Shiatsu etc… One therapist, Richard, boasted that he knew of an "inner body" trick that rendered him as implacable as a tree. To demonstrate, he stood before me, assumed a casual stance, then imagined (he told me later) that he had roots that extended deep into Earth's molten core. He told me to shove him—again, harder, and again. Finally, I took a couple of steps back and slammed my shoulder into his. Nothing. Though I outweighed him by 30 pounds, I couldn't budge him. He was a redwood. (And I was in pain!) Richard had what I call body wisdom. Although his "trick" was probably as much mental as physical, he had a deep awareness of how his body worked and what it was capable of. I've since met many other people I consider bodywise, and while they're not gifted in the physical-stunt category, they are capable of an equally impressive feat: maintaining truly extraordinary health.

Interestingly, most trace the dawning of their physical self-awareness to a minor injury, like a sprained ankle. A few say they first turned their focus on themselves during a drawn-out struggle with weight, shyness, or stress. What happens next, though, is fairly predictable: They school themselves in basic precepts of nutrition, exercise, and self-healing and design a diet and fitness plan for themselves. As time goes on, they realize that their plan requires regular rethinking—their body is changing, and its needs do, too. With each updating of their routine, they pay closer attention to its results—a process that deepens their body wisdom. Their ultimate payoff is an ability to understand their body's unique language. This fluency enables them to recognize when they are depleted, and they rest. They can quickly identify signs of agitation and calm themselves. Their keen awareness and long experience allows them to visualize how their cells are revitalized by specific foods, how the bunched and inflamed fibers of a calf muscle are elongated and soothed by stretching and kneading, how their flagging brain cells will respond to strong sunlight or a power walk with a mood-boosting squirt of dopamine. They become body savants, as implacable in their commitment to conscious living as Richard the redwood.

They love physical pleasure:

During my college years, I worked one summer, for a little extra money, for a fellow who owned a moving company. Then in his 50s, he loved the heavy work; a short, muscular fireplug of a man, he would often tell me that hard physical labor was one of the great pleasures in life, a belief I've held ever since. As we humped sofas and pianos up and down stairs, he would dispense a torrent of advice in his lilting Irish brogue: Lift with your legs, never eat unless you're hungry, call your parents often, marry young, have as many kids as your wife can bear. A couple of times I almost caused serious injury to us both, I was laughing so hard.

Not long ago, some 20 years after our last moving trip, I visited him during a visit to my parents. He invited me onto his porch and poured us both a couple of fingers of Jameson. He was largely unchanged—spry, still powerfully built, his eyes clear and sparkling as he cracked wise about New England sports teams, town politics, and the stupidity of Twitter, which his grandkids had told him about. I was about to ask him the secret of his remarkable vitality when his wife of untold decades joined us on the porch. As she stood beside him, he affectionately patted her behind, then winked at me. "If I didn't give Mother a little goose now and then, she'd think I was ready for the winding sheet," he said. Question answered.

This is a reasons you should keep "dating" your spouse. Work and love ... Freud said if you can be successful in both—even if the work is really hard—you'll be happy. Healthy, too. The two are intimately connected.

They view good health as a moral obligation:

One (cynical) view of people who take excellent care of themselves, who strive to live as long and well as possible, is that they are narcissists. Certainly, many benefits accrue to someone who pursues an intensely healthful lifestyle—not the least of which is that she'll look really good. But from what I've seen, the superhealthy aren't simply on a competitive mission to outlive their friends or become medical marvels. They consider it wrong, in a moral sense, not to take care of themselves. Life is a gift, they feel—and one that can be rescinded at any time. To live irresponsibly is to dishonor that gift. So at the heart of their zeal for health is genuine, life-affirming joy.
They wring as much pleasure from every day as they can. A wonderful feedback loop results:

To do the things they love, they commit to staying well, get stronger in the process, and end up being able to do even more of the things that enhance their deep appreciation of life. In taking responsibility for their well-being, they're trying to avoid becoming a burden, in their later years, to those they love. But their health quest is munificent in another way, too. Some of the most interesting epidemiological research to emerge in the past couple of years shows that good health habits are infectious.

Scientists have learned, for instance, that if you're a nonsmoker, cheerful, and of a normal weight, your neighbors are likely to be, too. The world's healthiest people lead by example, fostering good habits in others—even though they begin their campaign by focusing on themselves.

They take the hit as a gift:

Several years ago, a good friend, Lisa, then in her early 50s and in seemingly perfect health, learned she had a dreadful cancer. Her prognosis was not good—only about 10 percent of patients diagnosed with her particular tumor make it to the five-year mark. Facing two rounds of chemotherapy sandwiched between a double mastectomy and reconstruction, she thought hard about how to respond to her new circumstance. When she was younger, she had briefly studied the martial art Aikido and recalled a favorite saying of her teacher: "Take the hit as a gift." That is, when you suffer a blow—whether from an opponent on the mat or a cluster of aggressive cancer cells—redirect the energy from the pain you feel to help you handle whatever you're facing. So Lisa devised an active counter-strategy: Immediately after receiving her chemo infusion, she would attend a yoga class to work the "medicine"—she refused to call it poison—deep into her tissues. Then, over the next few days, she would go for long walks in the park, even when nauseated, and visualize the demise of the rogue cells in her body. She would harvest the disease's negative power, turning her fear into resolve, her anxiety into hope and confidence. I've seen other supremely healthy people deploy this strategy in far less extreme circumstances. They view the inevitable upsets and hard knocks in life as "teachable moments"—opportunities to re-examine priorities and strike out in new directions. Some experts would call this resilience, but I prefer to think of it as an ability to take the long view. Change is part of life, and by embracing it we can convert its roiling energy into a source of personal empowerment.

Enlightenment, too: I'll never forget what Lisa told me right after her diagnosis. Processing her new uncertain status was "interesting," she said—she realized, for instance, how full her life had been and was grateful for the insight. She'd had "big love," great kids, a rewarding spiritual life, and a gratifying career. "I've hit all the high notes in life," she told me. "For the sake of my family, I don't want to go, but I'll have no regrets, no unfulfilled yearnings, if I do. The disease has shown me that." She took the hit as a gift—and it keeps on giving. A dozen years later, her life is even fuller than before.

Just sayin. Take it. Test it. Teach it. tim