Happiness Studies
Polls show Americans are no happier today than they were 50 years ago despite significant increases in prosperity, decreases in crime, cleaner air, larger living quarters and a better overall quality of life.
Happiness is 50 percent genetic, says University of Minnesota researcher David Lykken.
10 percent of American women 18 and older and 4 percent of men take antidepressants, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Money that lifts people out of poverty increases happiness, but after that, the better paychecks stop paying off sense-of-well-being dividends, research shows.
Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California at Riverside has discovered that the road toward a more satisfying and meaningful life involves a recipe repeated in schools, churches and synagogues. Make lists of things for which you’re grateful in your life, practice random acts of kindness, forgive your enemies, notice life’s small pleasures, take care of your health, practice positive thinking, and invest time and energy into friendships and family.
The happiest people have strong friendships, says Ed Diener, a psychologist University of Illinois. His research finds that most people are slightly to moderately happy.
“There are selfish reasons to behave in altruistic ways,” says Gregg Easterbrook, author of The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse. “Research shows that people who are grateful, optimistic and forgiving have better experiences with their lives, more happiness, fewer strokes, and higher incomes.”
“The Keys to Happiness, and Why We Don’t Use Them” by Robin Lloyd