One of the keys to a happy married life is to have a happy partner. While it’s true that happy people tend to marry each other, it’s also the case that happiness is transferable from one partner to the other. As reported in their bestselling book Connected, Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler discovered in their studies that it’s not only ideas and obesity that are contagious: happiness can also spread like wildfire. For instance, they found that, on average, we would become 8% happier with our life if our coresident partner became happier with his or her life. It's just one more reason to treat our loved one well.
Good health
One of the largest determinants of happiness in almost every data set is health. Having a healthy mind and body contributes a great deal to a happy life, and the lack of it can cause us great misery. However, what is perhaps less known is that our perception of whether we are healthy or not depends partly on the number of people who share our health problems. Apparently, we do not feel as bad from an illness if a lot of our friends also suffer from the same illness. This also partly explains the evidence that patients fare better in terms of mental well-being and future recovery time while waiting for a coronary bypass operation when they share a room with a cardiac patient than with a non-cardiac patient, or do not share a room at all.
Friends
How much money would you have to give someone who hasn’t seen his friends for almost a year in order for him to be just as happy -- no more, no less -- as a person who gets to see his friends every day? $500? A couple thousand? Actually, it’s closer to $300,000. That’s how much seeing friends every day is worth in terms of happiness for an average person. The specific monetary value of friendship can be explained partly by the fact that money itself buys very little happiness. But it’s mainly because time spent with friends is the kind of activity that produces a constant and large flow of serotonin, one of the two hormones responsible for making us happy.
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