It’s official – women’s happiness is more recession-proof than men’s. The recent Nielsen Global Happiness Survey found that men are happier with money, while women are happier with friendships and relationships with their children, co-workers and bosses. Nielsen’s Consumer Research VP, Bruce Paul, notes “Because they are happier with non-economic factors, women’s happiness is more recession-proof, which might explain why women around the world are happier in general than men are.”
Of the 51 countries surveyed worldwide, women are happier than men in 48 of them. Only in Brazil, South Africa and Vietnam were men happier than women. Women are also more optimistic about the future, scoring higher than men on predictions of their happiness in the next six months.
According to the survey, the three main drivers of happiness globally are personal financial situation, mental health and job/career. Being happy with your partner is also important for happiness in many nations.
Interestingly, many of the world’s poorer and developing countries outranked developed countries for happiness and satisfaction levels in nearly all aspects of their lives. Nielsen analysed the survey results to find out if a nation’s happiness level was influenced by low income equality, low corruption or peace. Surprisingly, places which performed poorly on these factors were in many cases the happiest countries.
Here comes another science bit … in another study published by the British Medical Journal, an individual’s happiness was found to be related to the happiness of their friends, their friends’ friends and their friends’ friends’ friends, ie three degrees (rather than six) of separation. The study also found that happy people were most likely to be the centre of their social networks and that each additional happy friend increases the probability of being happy by about 9%. In contrast, having an increase in income of $5,000 only raised the probable happiness by 2%.
The same authors – Christakis and Folwer – also undertook a Facebook study where they found that “people who smile tend to have more friends (smiling gets you an average of one extra friend, which is pretty good considering that people only have about six close friends). Not only that, but the statistical analyses confirm that those who smile are measurably more central to the network compared to those who do not smile. That is, if you smile, you are less likely to be on the periphery of the online world. It thus seems to be the case, online as well as offline, that when you smile, the world smiles with you.”
So, what have we learned? It’s not what you’ve got, but how much you appreciate it that determines how happy you’ll be. Valuing more things in life than just money gives you a more sustainable sense of happiness. Hanging out with positive people will improve your own happiness. Smiling makes you a more popular person and a happier one. If you’re happy today you’re more likely to be happy tomorrow, projecting your positive feelings out into the future.
It’s not exactly rocket science, is it? Still, it’s nice to have a survey or two to remind us that common sense still holds true.
This week, make an effort to up your smile ratio, be grateful for what you have and only spend time with upbeat people. Oh, and thank your lucky stars if you’re a girl – you’ve already got a head-start on the happiness biz thanks to your genetics.
Finally, here’s a freebie that’s a total treat. The authors of my favourite guided meditations of all time, Sanaya Roman and Orin, have released some new mp3s for free download to give us all some upliftment in these changing times and to help focus your vision for a positive personal future. You can find them at http://www.orindaben.com/home/wwmeditationpeace.php. There’s also a link on the same page to transcripts of Orin’s meditations, so you can read them beforehand to get a sense of which ones you might prefer before you download them. Enjoy!
Of the 51 countries surveyed worldwide, women are happier than men in 48 of them. Only in Brazil, South Africa and Vietnam were men happier than women. Women are also more optimistic about the future, scoring higher than men on predictions of their happiness in the next six months.
According to the survey, the three main drivers of happiness globally are personal financial situation, mental health and job/career. Being happy with your partner is also important for happiness in many nations.
Interestingly, many of the world’s poorer and developing countries outranked developed countries for happiness and satisfaction levels in nearly all aspects of their lives. Nielsen analysed the survey results to find out if a nation’s happiness level was influenced by low income equality, low corruption or peace. Surprisingly, places which performed poorly on these factors were in many cases the happiest countries.
Here comes another science bit … in another study published by the British Medical Journal, an individual’s happiness was found to be related to the happiness of their friends, their friends’ friends and their friends’ friends’ friends, ie three degrees (rather than six) of separation. The study also found that happy people were most likely to be the centre of their social networks and that each additional happy friend increases the probability of being happy by about 9%. In contrast, having an increase in income of $5,000 only raised the probable happiness by 2%.
The same authors – Christakis and Folwer – also undertook a Facebook study where they found that “people who smile tend to have more friends (smiling gets you an average of one extra friend, which is pretty good considering that people only have about six close friends). Not only that, but the statistical analyses confirm that those who smile are measurably more central to the network compared to those who do not smile. That is, if you smile, you are less likely to be on the periphery of the online world. It thus seems to be the case, online as well as offline, that when you smile, the world smiles with you.”
So, what have we learned? It’s not what you’ve got, but how much you appreciate it that determines how happy you’ll be. Valuing more things in life than just money gives you a more sustainable sense of happiness. Hanging out with positive people will improve your own happiness. Smiling makes you a more popular person and a happier one. If you’re happy today you’re more likely to be happy tomorrow, projecting your positive feelings out into the future.
It’s not exactly rocket science, is it? Still, it’s nice to have a survey or two to remind us that common sense still holds true.
This week, make an effort to up your smile ratio, be grateful for what you have and only spend time with upbeat people. Oh, and thank your lucky stars if you’re a girl – you’ve already got a head-start on the happiness biz thanks to your genetics.
Finally, here’s a freebie that’s a total treat. The authors of my favourite guided meditations of all time, Sanaya Roman and Orin, have released some new mp3s for free download to give us all some upliftment in these changing times and to help focus your vision for a positive personal future. You can find them at http://www.orindaben.com/home/wwmeditationpeace.php. There’s also a link on the same page to transcripts of Orin’s meditations, so you can read them beforehand to get a sense of which ones you might prefer before you download them. Enjoy!
Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column archive by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com/. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk. The I Am Fabulous archives can now be found at http://fabcentral.blogspot.com/. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author.
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