Happiness and Health

Recent research is turning the relationship of health and happiness on its head; healthy people are ofcourse happier, but more startling is the observation that people who are happy and satisfied with their lives might be healthier.

 Moreover, the benefit comes with a quick turn around time, with greater happiness boosting health in as little as 3 years. Around 10,000 Australian adults were posed 2 questions in a study in 2001: “During the past 4 weeks, have you been a happy person?” to assess happiness, and “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life?” to determine satisfaction. The answers were correlated with physical health parameters in 2001 and 3 years later in 2004. “We found strong evidence that both happiness and satisfaction have an impact on our indicators of health”, says Dr Siahpush, from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, USA. They were associated with excellent or very good physical health, absence of long-term limiting illnesses, and higher levels of physical health 3 years later!

That material wealth and happiness do not go hand in hand is now well known. Bhutan’s King Jigme Singye Wangchuck first coined the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH), an attempt to define quality of life in more holistic and psychological terms than the Gross National Product (GNP), in 1972. He convincingly argued that spiritual development was as important as economic growth and proposed sustainable development, promotion of cultural values, conservation of natural environment and establishment of good governance as the 4 pillars of GNH.

The basic concept has undergone several modifications, but surprisingly, India with its rich history and traditions of spirituality, yoga, secularism and tolerance is struggling way behind? Where did we lose our way and our values? If road rage, and squabbles from parliament to railway platforms are any indicator, we certainly do not appear happy; rather we seem perpetually enraged, demanding, intolerant and violent! Little surprise then, that India is emerging as the international capital for diseases like Diabetes, heart disease and cancers!

A good way to plan 2010 may be by assessing how happy we are at present. You could start by asking yourself the 2 questions posed above, or take a 5 minute test developed by the German scientist Dr. Grossarth-Maticek (http://www.attitudefactor.com/). The next step could be to set a goal to change some of your negative attitudes to positive ones in 2010. A study conducted by the German team showed that those who did that had a thirty times higher chance of being alive and healthy 21 years later than those who persisted with their self-destructive attitudes. It is well worth the effort! Wish you a Merry Christmas and a truely Happy New Year.

You can increase your mental health by the following:

1.Smile and laugh more

2.Don’t take yourself or life so seriously

3.Realize that if you fail, it is not the end of the world

4.Replace anger with forgiveness, greed with compassion, hate with love (or atleast tolerance)