By Dr. Mercola
The feeling of happiness – whether you equate it with
optimism, joy, well-being, personal achievement or all of the
above – goes hand-in-hand with healthier habits. People who are
in good spirits tend to eat better, exercise more frequently and
get better sleep than those who are not. This could be, in part,
because leading a healthy lifestyle helps you achieve your
goals, leading to happiness.
It could also be that such habits lead to better health,
which in turn lends itself to a better mood and happiness.
Beyond these rather common-sense associations, however, is
intriguing research that suggests there's something more
about happiness that makes you healthy.
Beyond its tendency to occur alongside better eating,
exercise, and other healthy habits, it appears a positive mental
state may have a much more direct effect on your body.
Happiness May Influence Your Immune Function and More
Positive thoughts and attitudes are able to prompt changes in
your body that strengthen your immune system, boost positive
emotions, decrease pain and chronic disease, and provide stress
relief. One study found, for instance, that happiness, optimism,
life satisfaction, and other positive psychological attributes
are associated with a lower risk of heart disease.1
It's even been scientifically shown that happiness can alter
your genes! A team of researchers at UCLA showed that people
with a deep sense of happiness and well-being had lower levels
of inflammatory gene expression and stronger antiviral and
antibody responses.2
This falls into the realm of
epigenetics—changing the way your genes function by turning
them off and on.
It could be, however, that the type of happiness
matters. In one study, participants answered questions about the
frequency of certain emotional states, covering two different
categories or types of happiness known to psychologists as:
- Hedonic well-being (characterized by happiness gleaned
from pleasurable experiences, such as sex)
- Eudaimonic well-being (originating with Aristotle, this
form of happiness comes from activities that bring you a
greater sense of purpose, life meaning, or
self-actualization)
Interestingly, while both are positive emotional states
associated with happiness, the gene expressions they produced
were not identical. Those whose sense of happiness was rooted in
the eudaimonic camp were found to have favorable gene-expression
profiles, while hedonic well-being produced gene profiles
similar to those seen in people experiencing stress due to
adversity. As reported by Scientific American:3
"One interpretation is that eudaimonic well-being
benefits immune function directly. But [researcher] Cole
prefers to explain it in terms of response to stress. If
someone is driven purely by hollow consumption, he argues,
all of their happiness depends on their personal
circumstances. If they run into adversity, they may become
very stressed.
But if they care about things beyond themselves —
community, politics, art — then everyday stresses will
perhaps be of less concern. Eudaimonia, in other words, may
help to buffer our sense of threat or uncertainty,
potentially improving our health."
Perhaps people who are happy are less impacted by everyday
stressors, and this ability to deflect stress is responsible for
many of the gains to their health. Past research has also
similarly found that positive emotions –including being happy,
lively, and calm -- appear to play a role in immune function.
One study found that when happy people are exposed to cold and
flu viruses, they're less likely to get sick and, if they do,
exhibit fewer symptoms.4
The association held true regardless of the participants'
levels of self-esteem, purpose, extraversion, age, education,
body mass, or pre-study immunity to the virus, leading the lead
researcher to say:5
"We need to take more seriously the possibility that
positive emotional style is a major player in disease risk."
What Drives Happiness? A Combination of Genetics, Experiences,
and More
Defining happiness is virtually as difficult as defining how
to achieve it, although there is some research to suggest that
some people are naturally happier than others. In one study of
nearly 1,000 pairs of adult twins, researchers at the University
of Edinburgh suggested that genes account for about 50 percent
of the variation in people's levels of happiness.
The underlying determinant was genetically caused personality
traits, such as being sociable, active, stable, hardworking, or
conscientious.6
Further, according to psychologist Nancy Segal, research has
shown that the biggest predictor of happiness in identical twins
is the happiness level of the other twin.7
In separate research, survey data from two million people in
more than 70 countries showed that happiness typically follows a
U-shaped curve. Happiness starts high, trends downward into
middle-age, and then climbs back up among older people if they
do not have severe health problems.8
Studies like these suggest happiness is set in stone, but
there is far more to the picture than this. No one is
pre-determined to be unhappy, and even those who tend to be
naturally negative can decide to change their outlook and become
happier. Further, there are many other indicators of happiness
outside of your genes (or your age). CNN recently highlighted
some of the most interesting research on what makes people
happy:9
- Emotional well-being rises with income (but only up to
$75,000, after which no additional rises are seen)10
- Research suggests experiences make us happier than
possessions; the "newness" of possessions wears off, as does
the joy they bring you, but experiences improve your sense
of vitality and "being alive" both during the experience and
when you reflect back on it
- Older adults tend to have a greater sense of happiness
than younger adults, perhaps because they regulate emotions
better, are exposed to less stress, and have less negative
emotions (and perhaps a diminished negative response)
Self-Acceptance May Be the Key to Happiness (Plus 9 Other Happy
Habits)
There's increasing knowledge that happiness is a goal that
you can actively work toward each and every day, and one way to
do that may be by learning self-acceptance. In a survey of 5,000
people by the charity Action for Happiness in collaboration with
Do Something Different, people were asked to rate themselves
between one and 10 on 10 habits that are scientifically linked
to happiness. While all 10 habits were strongly linked to
overall life satisfaction, acceptance was the strongest
predictor.
Yet, when answering the acceptance question (how often are
you kind to yourself and think you're fine as you are?), nearly
half of the respondents rated themselves at 5 or less (only 5
percent rated themselves a 10). Dr. Mark Williamson, director of
Action for Happiness, said:11
"Our society puts huge pressure on us to be
successful and to constantly compare ourselves with others.
This causes a great deal of unhappiness and anxiety. These
findings remind us that if we can learn to be more accepting
of ourselves as we really are, we're likely to be much
happier. The results also confirm us that our day-to-day
habits have a much bigger impact on our happiness than we
might imagine."
Each of the happy habits included in the survey have been
linked to a more positive emotional state. Trying to practice
these in your own life is just one way to boost your own
personal happiness (together they spell the acronym GREAT
DREAM):
- Giving: do things for others
- Relating: connect with people
- Exercising: take care of your body
- Appreciating: notice the world around
- Trying out: keep learning new things
- Direction: have goals to look forward
to
- Resilience: find ways to bounce back
- Emotion: take a positive approach
- Acceptance: be comfortable with who you
are
- Meaning: be part of something bigger
Men's Happiness Leads to a Healthy Marriage
You've probably heard the saying "happy wife, happy life,"
but new research actually found women's positivity levels had
no impact on the relationship. Instead, the health and
attitude of the husband seemed to play a greater role, with
women married to men with high levels of positivity less likely
to report relationship conflicts.12
On the other hand, women whose husbands scored high on
measures of neuroticism and extraversion were more likely to
report conflict. Overall, married individuals tend to have
better physical and emotional health than people who are not
married, but the benefits likely only extend to overall
happy marriages. The study suggests there are quite
different markers of conflict in marriage among different
genders, including even declining health. Whereas women whose
husbands were in fair or poor physical health were more likely
to report high levels of marital conflict, the same did not hold
true for men whose wives were in poor health.
Happiness on Social Medial Is 'Viral'
Emotions are known to be contagious among people in direct
contact (this is true for friends, acquaintances, and even
strangers), and new research suggests they may also be
contagious via social media. After analyzing over one billion
status updates from Facebook users, the researchers from the
University of California in San Diego found that each happy post
encouraged an additional 1.75 happy updates among their Facebook
friends.13
The researchers suggested social networks may be an important
tool to improve mental, and thereby physical, health:14
"Our study suggests that people are not just choosing
other people like themselves to associate with but actually
causing their friends' emotional expressions to change… We
have enough power in this data set to show that emotional
expressions spread online and also that positive expressions
spread more than negative.
…If an emotional change in one person spreads and
causes a change in many, then we may be dramatically
underestimating the effectiveness of efforts to improve
mental and physical health. We should be doing everything we
can to measure the effects of social networks and to learn
how to magnify them so that we can create an epidemic of
well-being."
Ready to Get Happy? Practice Mindfulness
Practicing "mindfulness" means that you're actively paying
attention to the moment you're in right now, helping you to keep
your internal focus. Rather than letting your mind wander, when
you're mindful you're living in the moment and letting
distracting thoughts pass through your mind without getting
caught up in their emotional implications. Mindfulness can help
to reduce stress-induced inflammation, and it's a strong example
of how you can harness your own sense of power and control to
achieve what you want in life, including a more positive,
happier mental state. Simple techniques such as the following
can help you to become more mindful:
- Pay focused attention to an aspect of sensory
experience, such as the sound of your own breathing
- Distinguish between simple thoughts and those that are
elaborated with emotion (such as "I have a test tomorrow"
versus "What if I fail my test tomorrow and flunk my entire
class?")
- Reframe emotional thoughts as simply "mental
projections" so your mind can rest
Still, for many, happiness can be a poorly defined, elusive
goal. One way to think about happiness is to define it as
"whatever gets you excited." Once you've identified that
activity, whatever it is, you can start focusing your mind
around that so you can integrate more of it into your daily
life. If you feel stuck and don't know where or how to start, I
suggest reviewing these
22 positive habits of happy people.
Copyright 1997- 2014 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.