Self-Help Happiness Blog

Happiness Is Hard Work…at least in America.

A new study published in the April issue of the Journal Of Happiness Studies reveals that Americans who work harder tend to be happier. The “Protestant work ethic” is alive and well – and making people happy – in America.

Americans tend to be like Doozers:

Work you cares away,
Dancing’s for another day.
Let the Fraggles play,
Down at Fraggle Rock.

In Europe, the story is completely different. Europeans are happiest working shorter hours.

Europeans tend to be like faggles:

Dance your cares away,
Worry’s for another day.
Let the music play,
Down at Fraggle Rock.

“Those who work longer hours in Europe are less happy than those who work shorter hours, but in the U.S. it’s the other way around,” study author Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn says. It seems that Americans are happiest working and building

The researchers speculate that happiness has less to do with actual hours spent working on each continent than about how people on either side of the ocean view success. The “American Dream” is about how anybody can make it big if they just work hard enough. Europeans seem to focus more on “quality of life”.

Not surprisingly, Europeans are surprised by the results of this study. The UK’s Daily Mail says it all in it’s headline: “America’s bizarre secret to happiness: More work”.

So what contributes to your happiness more – work or off-time?

This post was featured in the Working at Home Blog Carnival.

“Women who mostly ate junk and processed foods were more likely to have depression and exhibit increased psychological symptoms.”

So says  Dr Felice Jacka of Deakin University.  She  ran a research the study that tested more than 1000 women from a cross-section of Australian society, finding that those women who followed the national dietary guidelines were less likely to suffer from depression or anxiety.

The relationship between diet and mental health was strong, even stronger than the relationship between diet and

• socio-economic status
• obesity
• illness
• education
• whether they smoked or not

The World Health Organization has identified 2020 as the year when depression is likely to become the second biggest cause of disability – after cardio-vascular disease.  In addition to all the other benefits of good nutrition, preventing an increase in depression has just been added to the list.

More from Deakin University

There is another excuse – oops, I mean another “reason” – why you should spend some time on Twitter or Digg or FaceBook or MySpace.

A recent study of 268 Michigan State University students reveals that those who use Facebook.com have higher self-esteem than students who don’t because they keep in closer touch with their friends.

Not surprisingly, the benefits of social media participation were most pronounced for thsoe who experience low self-esteem.  Social media gives them a means of entering into more productive interactions than they sometimes encounter in real life.  In fact, it allows them to easily make friends.

Does that mean that virtual friendships should take the place of real friendships?  Not at all.  But a healthy dose of virtual socialization makes a great supplement for people who are not already overly socially extended in real life.  In fact, it’s ideal for people like me who work from home.  But before heading out to Twitter or FaceBook or Digg, you might want to read this work-from-home fasion Q&A.  After all, you don’t want to meet new friends on Twitter wearing the wrong pattern pajamas, do you?

You can read the complete report on social media and self-esteem at http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html .

reTWEET this.

You can diet.  You can work out at the gym.  You can take up martial arts.  But why bother, when laughing is such a fun way to shed those pounds?

A burst of hearty laughter can give your body what neuroscientist Dr Helen Pilcher calls a “mini-aerobic workout”.  It makes your heart beat faster.  It makes your chest heave.  It makes your belly muscles tighten.  Facial muscles tighten (good for keeping the skin looking young). It’s a good all-round workout – a belly laugh can help shrink the belly.

There is some bad news and some good news in this.  The bad news is that you have to laugh heartily for an hour to burn off 100 calories.  The good news, is that an hour of extra laughing each day would be good for us party-pooper adults who forget to laugh throughout our day.  How can we add more laughter?

• Sign up for some humorous email broadcasts. 
• Follow some funny people on Twitter and befriend some funny people on FaceBook.
• Get up from your desk every now and then and drop in on the office clown, or anyone with whom you have found you can share a laugh.
• Tickle somebody (probably best to do this one at home); it often can end in getting very playful.
• Have kids.  Yes, they also can cause a lot of stress, but they give you someone you can repeatedly tickle.

How would you increase the laughter in your day?  Please let us know in the comments below.

By the way, you can tweet this post by clicking here: ReTweet this 

Haven’t I always said it?  Happiness is contagious.  Just smiling at people in a room can pick up the mood of a room…and in the process help you keep your own mood up (because happiness is contagious whether you are giving or receiving).

Dr. Nicholas Christakis, professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School, and James Fowler are co-authors of a 20-year study called Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network.  Here is the abstract of the study

Clusters of happy and unhappy people are visible in the network, and the relationship between people’s happiness extends up to three degrees of separation (for example, to the friends of one’s friends’ friends). People who are surrounded by many happy people and those who are central in the network are more likely to become happy in the future. Longitudinal statistical models suggest that clusters of happiness result from the spread of happiness and not just a tendency for people to associate with similar individuals. A friend who lives within a mile (about 1.6 km) and who becomes happy increases the probability that a person is happy by 25% (95% confidence interval 1% to 57%). Similar effects are seen in coresident spouses (8%, 0.2% to 16%), siblings who live within a mile (14%, 1% to 28%), and next door neighbours (34%, 7% to 70%). Effects are not seen between coworkers. The effect decays with time and with geographical separation.

In other words, it is in your own self-interest to make people around you happy.  Smiles, random acts of kindness, humor, music…adding all these uplifting features to your neighborhood will make your life better.  I wonder why the effect was not seen between coworkers; it really should have been, considering how close many people are to their coworkers, spending huge portions of their day with them and being incredibly affected by their moods.

…is a blank screen.  According to a 31-year study of 30,000 people, TV sucks.  My wife won’t want to hear this, because she is tired of hearing me lecture about how I would rather do things than watch others do things.  Of course, my idea of doing things is not always what the study says will bring most happiness, being somewhat of a hermit…

“TV doesn’t really seem to satisfy people over the long haul the way that social involvement or reading a newspaper does,” says University of Maryland sociologist John P. Robinson, the study co-author. “It’s more passive and may provide escape, especially when the news is as depressing as the economy itself. The data suggest to us that the TV habit may offer short-run pleasure at the expense of long-term malaise.”

Robinson and his research team compared the activities of people who described themselves as happy with peeople who described themselves as unhappy.  The unhappy people watched 20 percent more television than the happy people.  Those who considered themselves to be happy were more likely to:

• be socially active
• attend more religious services
• vote
• read more.   

Interesting, the three articles I read on the study each quote different stats.  Geesh…sloppy journalism.  Here’s the original source:

http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/sociss/release.cfm?ArticleID=1789

“Short people got…no reason.  Short people got…no reason.  Short people got…no reason to live.”

Remember that old Randy Newman song?  Good thing I don’t always pay attention to the lyrics.  And I think this diminutive giant will also ignore the finding of a new Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index study.

The folks at Gallup have come up with data showing that below average height men are angrier, more irritable and more stressed than average.  On the other hand, they found that taller guys feel more happiness and enjoyment in their lives.

Well they didn’t survey me!

Here is a little something the folks at Gallup have to say about height and money:

“Alternatively, each additional inch of height has the same effect on reported life satisfaction as a four percent increase in family income.”

Since we know that money can’t buy happiness for most people, although it does alleviate frustrations and stress for those who are well-below the poverty line, does this mean that a really short person who gains an inch (high heels, anyone?) gets happier, but a taller person would not benefit from growing? 

Probably.  But Gallup doesn’t say.  (Why don’t they ask the really interesting questions?)

What Gallup does say is that taller people make more money than short people  (NEWSFLASH: High ROI from high heels!), so could that explain why they are happier?

“People with more education have higher income and higher status jobs, and they earn more money. Money, in turn, is a powerful predictor of life satisfaction.”

 Gee, Gallup.  Now my education and income aren’t good enough for you either?

Ladies, the news is a little less grim for you, perhaps because you are not expected to be as tall as I am, so at least you have an excuse.  But taller women still get all the good stuff, education, status, income, just with slightly less of a complex if you aren’t named America’s richest man this year.

Read into the report what you want, but I’m not paying attention.  I can make my own happiness.  And you can too!

Yes, it’s official.  People with strong literacy skills are happier than those who struggle with reading.  But I didn’t have to tell you that, right?

A study by the National Literacy Trust shows that men and women alike are less likely to marry, less likely to own a home, more likely to live still with their parents and less likely to feel satisfied with life if they can’t read.

Of course, you always have to be careful, because statistics can say pretty much whatever you want.  Lower literacy means a lower paying job in most cases, which might in turn explain the findings.  Or lower levels of happiness in certain people might lead then to read less and learn less.  Cause and effect are not always easy to establish. 

That being said, literacy facilitates so much that a focus on increasing a person’s literacy should help them in many facets of their lives, most likely also in their happiness (being able to read is very empowering).

And if literacy in one language is empowering, what about literacy in several?  

For those interested in reading the report in its entirety:
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Research/literacy_changes_lives.html

Today’s Los Angeles Times has a feature on happiness, my favorite topic.  The feature helps debunk a lot of myths, mostly that things and circumstances make us happy, sad, angry or whatever.  Here is the paragraph that most people should read:

Lyubomirsky and her colleagues analyzed studies on identical twins and other research and came to the conclusion that happiness is 50% genetic, 40% intentional and 10% circumstantial. “Half of your predisposition toward happiness you can’t change,” she says. “It’s in your genes. Your circumstances — where you live, your health, your work, your marriage — can be tough to change. But most people are surprised that circumstances don’t account for as much of their happiness as they think.”

Just for the record, there really is not an accurate way to measure happiness, because ti is such a subjective issue.  However, a 50-50 divide between genetics and environment is generally considered a good rough estimate by more happiness researchers.  Depending on the effort you make or do not make, I am sure that number is very elastic, but let’s play with that number for now. 

The L.A. Times feature continues on other pages, too.  For instance, there is an excellent list of handy tips for “cultivating happiness” .

 Happy reading.

Over at the Accumulating Peripherals blog, there is a discussion on the pros and cons of happiness research.  Matt offers explains his beef with happiness research and I have commented also on the discussion.

Much of the happiness research out there is based on self reporting.  In other words, it asks you if you feel happy.  OK, so the questions are more complex, but it basically asks for your opinion.  On the one hand, that is poor science, because our perceptions of things are rarely accurate.  A good example is how a couple high-profile crimes can get a city or even a whole country talking about how the crime rate is on the rise and it’s about time we stop the growing menace — even while statistics show that year after year the crime rate has slowly been declining.

On the other hand, happiness is a subjective thing.  It is something we feel, and it could be argued that the only valid measurement of happiness is our perception of it.  Please feel free to go over to Matt’s blog and comment.  And then please come back here and comment, too.