Healthsifter by mary desmond pinkowish, since 2003

Happiness is a Contagious Condition

Read about this in the LA Times article about the original study that is in the current issue (Dec 4, 2008) of the British Medical Journal. It's fascinating that electronic contact (phone, web) doesn't spread the love the way that old fashioned face time does. Here's an excerpt from the LA Times:

A happy friend who lives within a half-mile makes you 42% more likely to be happy yourself. If that same friend lives two miles away, his impact drops to 22%. Happy friends who are more distant have no discernible impact, according to the study.

Similarly, happy siblings make you 14% more likely to be happy yourself, but only if they live within one mile. Happy spouses provide an 8% boost -- if they live under the same roof. Next-door neighbors who are happy make you 34% more likely to be happy too, but no other neighbors have an effect, even if they live on the same block.

"We suspect emotions spread through frequency of contact," Fowler said. As a result, he said, people who live too far away to be seen on a regular basis don't have much effect.

You might also enjoy the commentary in the British Medical Journal on social network analysis. You can also read the editorial that goes along with both. So interesting, not so surprising.

How to Be Happy

It's hard to be happy in today's economic and political tumult, right? Maybe not so much. In fact, maybe happiness has very little to do with all that. The San Diego Union-Tribune has a fascinating article about the science of happiness. No matter how much you think you know, you'll find surprises here. Consider this excerpt:

"Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, surveyed two wildly different groups – recent lottery winners and recent amputees. Initially, the winners felt a dramatic rise in happiness; the amputees, a notable loss of happiness. Within three years, though, most winners and amputees had adjusted to their circumstances and were roughly as happy as they had been before their “life-changing” event.

There's also a theory that people blessed with a great increase of wealth, fame or status are plopped onto the “hedonic treadmill.” “You become rich, you move to Rancho Santa Fe,” Christenfeld said. “Now you are the same wealth as all of your neighbors.”

Didn't Abraham LIncoln, who was a wartime president, suffered from depression, lost several young children, and had a mentally unstable wife, say "Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be."