Alaska? South Dakota? / Boredom / What Makes Us Happy? - 5/21/09

Thu May 21 22:50:05 EDT 2009

- ALMOST..... ALL PRESENT AND ACCOUNTED FOR
- STUDY: BOREDOM MAY BE WORSE THAN CONFLICT
- WHAT MAKES US HAPPY?

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- ALMOST..... ALL PRESENT AND ACCOUNTED FOR

Interestingly - we have more foreign registrants at this point than last
year - including Russia, Malaysia, Japan, South Africa, South Korea,
Germany, Netherlands, Australia, United Arab Republic, Singapore, and of
course Canada....left a bunch out, but you get the picture.  And we already
have ALL states present and accounted for except for South Dakota and
Alaska.  Feels strange to have South Africa and South Korea and not South
Dakota.  South Dakota has ALWAYS been represented. So has Alaska.  WHERE are
you guys?  

There is a bunch of exciting stuff building for Orlando.  Cannot wait for
you to see/hear all about it.  So many new programs, films, ideas!  We are
going to be so charged - as in plug in and recharge your batteries!  - diane

PS - If anyone needs brochures, I just got a few boxes back from a local
meeting that didn't use all they ordered. I have a few hundred.  Let me know
if you could use them.

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- STUDY: BOREDOM MAY BE WORSE THAN CONFLICT

We will have so many antidotes for this boredom problem.....main one being
to bring your honey with you to this conference to hear about the Sexy Brain
and Mars/Venus in the Bedroom; Mating in Captivity and Couples Sexual Style;
10 Great Dates and Marital Sex as It Ought to Be; Reptiles in Love and
Blending Sexual Meaning; and the Art of Couples Play.  Sorry, but we do have
sex and play as the main menu entré this year....it wasn't planned, just
worked out that way.  And it fits the resort atmosphere.  If you've already
registered, you can still add your spouse/S.O at the early-bird rate just
call 651-789-3738 to add them.   - d
--------------
Dull days wreck a marriage faster than fighting
Battle ennui by doing new, interesting things with your loved one
By Linda Carroll
msnbc.com contributor
Thurs., May 21, 2009
. . .  . 

Experts say that shared challenges and exciting diversions are what make
relationships hot long after the wedding gown has been packed up and stored
away. And the opposite, boredom and a dull, daily routine, can kill a
marriage, squashing intimacy and romance.

In fact, couples who say they are bored tend to grow increasingly unhappy,
according to a study published this month in Psychological Science.

Most research on long-term relationships has focused on eliminating problems
such as conflict and tension, explains the new study¹s lead author, Irene
Tsapelas, a researcher in the psychology department at the State University
of New York at Stony Brook. But surveys have suggested that boredom may be
even more corrosive to a relationship, she adds.

For the new study, Tsapelas and her colleagues followed 123 couples who
applied for a marriage license from Wayne County, Mich. It was the first
marriage for all of them. The couples were interviewed about their
relationships after seven years of marriage and again after 16 years. They
were asked about their marital satisfaction and a series of relationship
questions, such as: ³During the past month, how often did you feel that your
marriage was in a rut (or getting into a rut), that you do the same thing
all the time and rarely get to do exciting things together as a couple?²

The researchers found that boredom at the seven-year mark strongly predicted
future unhappiness and loss of intimacy nine years later.

Such a strong association over so long is surprising, says study co-author
Arthur Aron, a professor of pschology at the State University of New York at
Stony Brook. The researchers also found that bored spouses had higher
tendency to divorce than couples who still found each other entertaining
after seven years.

Bored and ready to bolt
People often show up in Dr. Barbara Bartlik¹s office ready to bolt from a
marriage because they¹re bored. ³I tell them that changing partners isn¹t
going to fix the boredom,² says Bartlik, an assistant professor of
psychiatry at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. ³I
tell them, ŒMake yourself more exciting instead of blaming your partner.
Better yet, see if you can¹t find something that you¹re both passionate
about that you can share.¹². . . .

For the full article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30808963/ns/health-behavior/

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- WHAT MAKES US HAPPY?

We've shared Vaillant's incredible work in several earlier reports, but this
one in the June Atlantic Monthly is a very good read and the whole article
is available on line.   It delves into how this extraordinary and important
LONGITUDINAL study was hatched and funded (barely!) and helps us appreciate
our researchers and their efforts to do longitudinal research and helps us
appreciate how and why longitudinal studies are so critical (and, so rare).
It's also interesting in that it explores the variable of the heart and
motivation (and thus bias) of the researcher.  Why are we so excited about
his findings?  Because he validates our work - and validates the crucial
importance of ATTACHMENT.  (And, do we ever have that handled for you in
Orlando - how to help couples appreciate, cherish, and nurture and cement
their attachment and bonds.)

Here's an early post I sent you on Vaillant's work - this one from the
SmartMarriages list in 9/07:

>> His hundreds of published journal articles and six books based on the study
>> point to the benefits of long, strong marriages; avoidance of cigarettes; and
>> hearty coping mechanisms - "making lemons out of lemonade" - in stacking the
>> odds in one's favor. . .
> 
>> Among his most striking findings was that social class seemed to
>> diminish in importance as the men grew older, while factors such as
>> quality of marriage and coping mechanisms played more important roles in
>> predicting happiness and success. . .
> 
>> "It's also helped us understand how healthy development is aided by the
>> right types of ATTACHMENTS and that sustaining those relationships is a
>> powerful predictor of aging well."

What Makes Us Happy?
Atlantic Monthly, June 2009
by Joshua Wolf Shenk

Is there a formula‹some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation‹for
a good life? For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this
question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through
war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old
age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of
one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history. Its contents,
as much literature as science, offer profound insight into the human
condition‹and into the brilliant, complex mind of the study¹s longtime
director, George Vaillant.

Excerpts from the Atlantic piece:

> What allows people to work, and love, as they grow old?  . . . . seven major
> factors . . . predict healthy aging, both physically and psychologically.
> 
> Employing mature adaptations was one. The others were education, stable
> marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight.
> Of the 106 Harvard men who had five or six of these factors in their favor at
> age 50, half ended up at 80 as what Vaillant called ³happy-well² and only 7.5
> percent as ³sad-sick.² Meanwhile, of the men who had three or fewer of the
> health factors at age 50, none ended up ³happy-well² at 80. Even if they had
> been in adequate physical shape at 50, the men who had three or fewer
> protective factors were three times as likely to be dead at 80 as those with
> four or more factors.
> 
> What factors don¹t matter? Vaillant identified some surprises. Cholesterol
> levels at age 50 have nothing to do with health in old age. While social ease
> correlates highly with good psychosocial adjustment in college and early
> adulthood, its significance diminishes over time. The predictive importance of
> childhood temperament also diminishes over time: shy, anxious kids tend to do
> poorly in young adulthood, but by age 70, are just as likely as the outgoing
> kids to be ³happy-well.² Vaillant sums up: ³If you follow lives long enough,
> the risk factors for healthy life adjustment change. There is an age to watch
> your cholesterol and an age to ignore it.²
> 
> The study has yielded some additional subtle surprises. Regular exercise in
> college predicted late-life mental health better than it did physical health.
> And depression turned out to be a major drain on physical health: of the men
> who were diagnosed with depression by age 50, more than 70 percent had died or
> were chronically ill by 63. More broadly, pessimists seemed to suffer
> physically in comparison with optimists, perhaps because they¹re less likely
> to connect with others or care for themselves.
> 
. . . . 
> One is alcoholism, which he found is probably the horse, and not the cart, of
> pathology. ³People often say, ŒThat poor man. His wife left him and he¹s taken
> to drink,¹² Vaillant says. ³But when you look closely, you see that he¹s begun
> to drink, and that has helped drive his wife away.² The horrors of drink so
> preoccupied Vaillant that he devoted a stand-alone study to it: The Natural
> History of Alcoholism.
> 
> Vaillant¹s other main interest is the power of relationships. ³It is social
> aptitude,² he writes, ³not intellectual brilliance or parental social class,
> that leads to successful aging.² Warm connections are necessary‹and if not
> found in a mother or father, they can come from siblings, uncles, friends,
> mentors. The men¹s relationships at age 47, he found, predicted late-life
> adjustment better than any other variable, except defenses. Good sibling
> relationships seem especially powerful: 93 percent of the men who were
> thriving at age 65 had been close to a brother or sister when younger. In an
> interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant
> was asked, ³What have you learned from the Grant Study men?² Vaillant¹s
> response: ³That the only thing that really matters in life are your
> relationships to other people.² . . .

>. . .  Of course, happiness scientists have come up with all kinds of
> straightforward, and actionable, findings: that money does little to make us
> happier once our basic needs are met; that marriage and faith lead to
> happiness (or it could be that happy people are more likely to be married and
> spiritual); that temperamental ³set points² for happiness‹a predisposition to
> stay at a certain level of happiness‹account for a large, but not
> overwhelming, percentage of our well-being. (Fifty percent, says Sonja
> Lyubomirsky in The How of Happiness. Circumstances account for 10 percent, and
> the other 40 percent is within our control.) But why do countries with the
> highest self-reports of subjective well-being also yield the most suicides?
> How is it that children are often found to be a source of ³negative affect²
> (sadness, anger)‹yet people identify children as their greatest source of
> pleasure?
> 

For the full article and a video clip of Vaillant where he basically ends up
agreeing with the Beatles: All We Need is Love. (Yes, we need it.....come
learn how once we're lucky enough to find it, we can keep it....see you in
Orlando.) 
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200906/happiness

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13th Annual Smart Marriages® Conference, The Shingle Creek,
Orlando, Florida, July 6-12, 2009 (General Conference July 8-11)
Pre-Conference Training Institutes July 6-8
Post-Conference Training Institutes July 12

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information:
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