Christmas and Hogmanay is a time when many of us take stock and reassess.
Instead of booking an Easter holiday (guilty), pledging a dry January (guilty) or having a diet relaunch (guilty again) there are other ways in which we can have a much more dramatic impact on our contentment.
The ‘science of happiness’ first caught my attention some 20 years ago and I’ve been keeping across the various research findings ever since. If you have the key to happiness it really is like winning the lottery: a study comparing contented, ordinary people with contented lottery winners found their happiness levels were almost identical. The following suggestions are all the result of published research.
Luckily for the readers of the Press and Journal, one key driver of happiness is available to us in spades: access to green spaces. There is a strong connection between access to green spaces and wellbeing and people in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland are the happiest in Scotland.
Beware though: do not swap green spaces for a longer commute. There is a direct link between commuting time and well-being, with people with longer commutes reporting lower overall satisfaction with life. This is probably due to time pressure – commuters who spend a significant amount of time on the road report heightened levels of stress due to a need to hurry. According to a study of 3,000 Londoners, a short commute boosted people’s happiness more than having sex.
Which brings me on to relationships. You might have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince but once you’ve bagged him (or her) hold onto them. One of the longest studies of adult life found that close relationships were the key not only to happiness but good health too. They have a greater influence than money or fame, lead to general feelings of wellbeing and delayed mental and physical decline. A happy relationship is a better predictor of a long and happy life than social class, IQ or even genetics.
Do not, however, assume that having a family will make your life complete. Those ‘odd’ friends who choose to have dogs rather than children have got it right. Couples with no children report higher happiness levels than couples with children. One study suggested that parents of adopted children are happier than parents who have their own birth children although, having had two years of constant misery with my adopted teenager, I find this hard to believe. Or maybe that’s just teenagers.
The findings on adopted parents might be due to the fact that, even when your children are driving you mad, you are aware that you are going through the misery for a greater good. There is a reason why increasing numbers of billionaires are choosing to give their fortunes to charity. Helping other people gives you a surge of oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine, all of which create good feelings. In a Harvard study, employees who helped others were ten times more likely to be focused at work and 40% more likely to get a promotion. As long as you aren’t over committing yourself, helping others has a positive influence on your mood.
If you have dented your happiness levels by having children, you could restore the balance by listening to what your primary school child is learning in school. Studies have demonstrated that people with a ‘growth mindset’, who embrace new challenges and think, ‘if I try hard, I can do this’ are happier and more successful than those with a fixed mindset. If you have a fixed mindset you are reluctant to change, set in your ways and are more likely to say, ‘I can’t do that’ or ‘I’ll never get over this’. This is why people can be happy even when they have faced tragedy. Happy people are able to recover from life’s ups and downs. The evidence is so strong that it is now part of the school curriculum.
Given the sheer variety of jobs out there, most studies are not large enough to give us real insight into what jobs make us happy, although one study of 40,000 people reached the amusing conclusion that the most unhappy of all are life coaches. However, workers who like their colleagues, feel appreciated and feel that what they are doing is making a difference are much happier overall. Having a work-life balance is also important. A very senior BBC correspondent -who is still on-air today – once told me, ‘Don’t do what I did. Don’t pursue your career at the expense of everything else. I have no relationship. I have no life other than work.” I took his advice, left London, moved back to Scotland and never looked back.
So you might want to think of some alternative New Year’s resolutions: work closer to home or move closer to work, choose a job in the countryside where you are valued and can be useful and do something to help other people. You won’t have children because you won’t need sex due to your short commute. And remember what a Macmillan nurse once told me: nobody lies on their deathbed wishing they’d spent more time at work.
Eleanor Bradford is a former BBC Scotland Health Correspondent and now works in communications in the education sector
