Happiness is known to correlate with better health. But now, researchers have identified a happiness threshold above which people are less likely to die prematurely of chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

By comparing data from 123 countries over 15 years, researchers pinpointed a threshold at which mortality declined as well-being increased. Every incremental improvement in well-being above this level was tied to a corresponding drop in the risk of death.

Cancer, heart disease, asthma and other chronic diseases accounted for 75% of non-pandemic related deaths in 2021, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In the U.S., they're collectively the leading causes of illness, disability and death.

Overall chronic disease mortality decreased in the U.S. between 2010 and 2019, but its prevalence increased among Americans ages 20 to 45 years old, according to a study published in The Lancet earlier this year.

A tipping point

Although previous research assumed a positive association between happiness and health, the goal for this new study, which was published Monday (Oct. 20) in the journal Frontiers of Medicine, was to identify a tipping point at which a higher level of well-being would be associated with measurable health improvements — namely, a reduction in premature deaths due to chronic disease.

To do that, the researchers looked at yearly happiness scores in 123 countries, which they averaged to estimate the national level of subjective well-being.

Related: Can faking a smile make you feel happier?

Respondents from the happiness datasets used in the study were asked to visualize a ladder, with the top representing the best possible life and the bottom the worst. They were then asked to rate their present satisfaction and assess their future on a scale of 0 (bottom of the ladder) to 10 (top of the ladder). This tool, known as the Cantril's life ladder scale, is a well-known social science tool used to gauge life satisfaction.

Researchers then compared this measure of national well-being with chronic disease mortality rates in each country over a period of 15 years (2006 to 2021).

The study identified a happiness threshold of 2.7 on the life ladder scale. Above that threshold, every 1% increase in happiness was associated with a 0.43% decrease in premature deaths from chronic disease.

The average life ladder score among the 123 countries studied was 5.45 between 2006 and 2021, so a 2.7 score suggests participants were "barely coping," study co-author Iulia Iuga, a professor at 1 Decembrie 1918 University in Romania said in a statement.

Health effects of subjective well-being

Although the new study doesn't establish a strict cause-and-effect relationship, scientists have identified several ways well-being could have health benefits.

For one, happiness could reduce the impact of stress, which is strongly associated with the development of many chronic diseases.

"We find that positive emotion can serve as a buffer for stressful experiences," said John Hunter, an assistant professor of psychology at Chapman University in California who was not involved in the research."When you have more positive emotion, you have less stress reactivity, which means that when a stressor hits you, you react less severely," Hunter said. "Your heart rate spikes a little bit less; your blood pressure spikes a little bit less. The way that you release stress hormones also changes."

In addition, people with higher levels of positive emotion often maintain stronger relationships and healthier habits.

"People who are optimistic, people who are happy, people who have a more dynamic, happy social life, people who have a strong sense of life purpose [...] tend to be more proactive about their health," said Dr. Alan Rozanski, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who was not involved in the study. "They tend to exercise more. They tend to have better diets. They tend to sleep better."

A useful tool for policymakers

The new study could help policymakers think of happiness as a "public health resource" and use it alongside other key factors to mitigate the impact of chronic diseases on their population, the study authors said in a statement.

Policymakers should aim to push their population’s average well-being above the Cantril threshold while addressing trends and environmental conditions that can worsen chronic conditions, such as obesity, alcohol consumption and pollution, Iuga told Live Science in an email.

In places where well-being is lower, focusing on financing healthcare and improving governance is necessary to unlock the positive health effects of increased happiness, Iuga added.

Because the well-being data used in this study is self-reported, it could be subject to measurement errors, the study noted. In addition, various cultures might assess their level of subjective happiness differently.

The life ladder scale used in this study could also be interpreted as a measure of status rather than emotional happiness, Hunter said. So the question may be capturing people’s economic state and living conditions, rather than their emotional state, he said.

What does it mean to live a good life? For centuries, philosophers, scientists and people of different cultures have tried to answer this question. Each tradition has a different take, but all agree: The good life is more than just feeling good — it's about becoming whole.

More recently, researchers have focused on the idea of flourishing, not simply as happiness or success, but as a multidimensional state of well-being that involves positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment — an idea that traces back to Aristotle's concept of "eudaimonia" but has been redefined within the well-being science literature.

Flourishing is not just well-being and how you feel on the inside. It's about your whole life being good, including the people around you and where you live. Things such as your home, your neighborhood, your school or workplace, and your friends all matter.

We are a group of psychological scientists, social scientists and epidemiologists who are all contributors to an international collaboration called the Global Flourishing Study. The goal of the project is simple: to find patterns of human flourishing across cultures.

Do people in some countries thrive more than others? What makes the biggest difference in a person's well-being? Are there things people can do to improve their own lives? Understanding these trends over time can help shape policies and programs that improve global human flourishing.

Related: What is mental health?

What does the flourishing study focus on?

The Global Flourishing Study is a five-year annual survey of over 200,000 participants from 22 countries, using nationally representative sampling to understand health and well-being. Our team includes more than 40 researchers across different disciplines, cultures and institutions.

With help from Gallup Inc., we asked people about their lives, their happiness, their health, their childhood experiences, and how they feel about their financial situation.

The study looks at six dimensions of a flourishing life:

1. Happiness and life satisfaction: how content and fulfilled people feel with their lives.
2. Physical and mental health: how healthy people feel, in both body and mind.
3. Meaning and purpose: whether people feel their lives are significant and moving in a clear direction.
4. Character and virtue: how people act to promote good, even in tough situations.
5. Close social relationships: how satisfied people are with their friendships and family ties.
6. Financial and material stability: whether people feel secure about their basic needs, including food, housing and money.

We tried to quantify how participants are doing on each of these dimensions using a scale from 0 to 10. In addition to using the Secure Flourish measure from Harvard's Human Flourishing Program, we included additional questions to probe other factors that influence how much someone is flourishing.

For example, we assessed well-being through questions about optimism, peace and balance in life. We measured health by asking about pain, depression and exercise. We measured relationships through questions about trust, loneliness and support.

Who is flourishing and why?

Our first wave of results reveals that some countries and groups of people are doing better than others.

We were surprised that in many countries young people are not doing as well as older adults. Earlier studies had suggested well-being follows a U-shape over the course of a lifespan, with the lowest point in middle age. Our new results imply that younger adults today face growing mental health challenges, financial insecurity and a loss of meaning that are disrupting the traditional U-shaped curve of well-being.

Married people usually reported more support, better relationships and more meaning in life.

People who were working — either for themselves or someone else — also tended to feel more secure and happy than people who were seeking jobs.

People who go to religious services once a week or more typically reported higher scores in all areas of flourishing — particularly happiness, meaning and relationships. This finding was true in almost every country, even very secular ones such as Sweden.

It seems that religious communities offer what psychologists of religion call the four B's: belonging, in the form of social support; bonding, in the form of spiritual connection; behaving, in the cultivation of character and virtue through the practices and norms taught within religious communities; and believing, in the form of embracing hope, forgiveness and shared spiritual convictions.

But some people who attend religious services also report more pain or suffering. This correlation may be because religious communities often provide support during hard times, and frequent attendees may be more attentive to or more likely to experience pain, grief or illness.

Your early years shape how you do later in life. But even if life started off as challenging, it doesn't have to stay that way. Some people who had difficult childhoods, having experienced abuse or poverty, still found meaning and purpose later as adults. In some countries, including the U.S. and Argentina, hardship in childhood seemed to build resilience and purpose in adulthood.

Globally, men and women report similar levels of flourishing. But in some countries there are big differences. For example, women in Japan report higher scores than men, while in Brazil, men report doing better than women.

Where are people flourishing most?

Some countries are doing better than others when it comes to flourishing.

Indonesia is thriving. People there scored high in many areas, including meaning, purpose, relationships and character. Indonesia is one of the highest-scoring countries in most of the indicators in the whole study.

Mexico and the Philippines also show strong results. Even though these countries have less money than some others, people report strong family ties, spiritual lives and community support.

Japan and Turkey report lower scores. Japan has a strong economy, but people there report lower happiness and weaker social connections. Long work hours and stress may be part of the reason. In Turkey, political and financial challenges may be hurting people's sense of trust and security.

One surprising result is that richer countries, including the United States and Sweden, are not flourishing as well as some others. They do well on financial stability but score lower in meaning and relationships. Having more money doesn't always mean people are doing better in life.

In fact, countries with higher income often report lower levels of meaning and purpose. Meanwhile, countries with higher fertility rates often report more meaning in life. These findings show that there can be a trade-off. Economic progress might improve some things but weaken others.

The big picture

The Global Flourishing Study is helping us see that people all over the world want many of the same basic things: to be happy, healthy, connected and safe. But different countries reach those goals in different ways. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to flourishing. What it means to flourish can look different from place to place and from one person to another.

One challenge with the Global Flourishing Study is that it uses the same set of questions in all 22 countries. This method, known as an etic approach, helps us compare results across cultures. But it can miss the nuance and local meanings of flourishing. What brings happiness or purpose in one country or context might not mean the same thing in another.

We consider this study to be a starting point. It opens the door for more emic studies — research that uses questions and ideas that fit the values, language and everyday life of specific cultures and societies. Researchers can build on this study's findings to expand how we understand and measure flourishing around the world.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Simon Boas, who wrote a candid account of living with cancer, passed away on July 15 at the age of 47. In a recent BBC interview, the former aid worker told the reporter: "My pain is under control and I'm terribly happy — it sounds weird to say, but I'm as happy as I've ever been in my life."

It may seem odd that a person could be happy as the end draws near, but in my experience as a clinical psychologist working with people at the end of their lives, it's not that uncommon.

There is quite a lot of research suggesting that fear of death is at the unconscious centre of being human. William James, an American philosopher, called the knowledge that we must die "the worm at the core" of the human condition.

But a study in Psychological Science shows that people nearing death use more positive language to describe their experience than those who just imagine death. This suggests that the experience of dying is more pleasant — or, at least, less unpleasant — than we might picture it.

In the BBC interview, Boas shared some of the insights that helped him come to accept his situation. He mentioned the importance of enjoying life and prioritizing meaningful experiences, suggesting that acknowledging death can enhance our appreciation for life.

Despite the pain and difficulties, Boas seemed cheerful, hoping his attitude would support his wife and parents during the difficult times ahead.

Related: What is the key to happiness? We look at the science behind it.

Boas's words echo the Roman philosopher Seneca who advised that: "To have lived long enough depends neither upon our years nor upon our days, but upon our minds."

A more recent thinker expressing similar sentiments is the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl who, after surviving Auschwitz, wrote Man's Search for Meaning (1946) in which he lay the groundwork for a form of existential psychotherapy, with the focus of discovering meaning in any kind of circumstance. Its most recent adaptation is meaning-centered psychotherapy, which offers people with cancer a way to improve their sense of meaning.

How happiness and meaning relate

In two recent studies, in Palliative and Supportive Care and the American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care, people approaching death were asked what constitutes happiness for them. Common themes in both studies were social connections, enjoying simple pleasures such as being in nature, having a positive mindset and a general shift in focus from seeking pleasure to finding meaning and fulfillment as their illness progressed.

In my work as a clinical psychologist, I sometimes meet people who have — or eventually arrive at — a similar outlook on life as Boas. One person especially comes to mind — let's call him Johan.

The first time I met Johan, he came to the clinic by himself, with a slight limp. We talked about life, about interests, relationships and meaning. Johan appeared to be lucid, clear and articulate.

The second time, he came with crutches. One foot had begun to lag and he couldn't trust his balance. He said it was frustrating to lose control of his foot, but still hoped to cycle around Mont Blanc.

When I asked him what his concerns were, he burst into tears. He said: "That I won't get to celebrate my birthday next month." We sat quietly for a while and took in the situation. It wasn't the moment of death itself that weighed on him the most, it was all the things he wouldn't be able to do again.

Johan arrived at our third meeting supported by a friend, no longer able to grip the crutches. He told me that he had been watching films of him cycling with his friends. He had concluded that he could watch YouTube videos of others cycling around Mont Blanc. He had even ordered a new, expensive mountain bike. "I've wanted to buy it for a long time, but was tightfisted," he said. "I may not be able to ride it, but thought it would be cool to have in the living room."

For the fourth visit, he arrived in a wheelchair. It turned out to be the last time we met. The bike had arrived; he had it next to the couch. There was one more thing he wanted to do.

"If by some miracle I were to get out of this alive, I would like to volunteer in domestic care services — one or two shifts a week," Johan said. "They work hard and it gets crazy sometimes, but they make such an incredible contribution. I wouldn't have been able to get out of the apartment without them."

My experience of patients with life-threatening disease is that it's possible to feel happiness alongside sadness, and other seemingly conflicting emotions. Over a day, patients can feel gratitude, remorse, longing, anger, guilt and relief — sometimes all at once. Facing the limits of existence can add perspective and help a person appreciate life more than ever.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

When you're feeling down and don't have time for your typical pick-me-ups, you may follow the classic advice to fake a smile to trick yourself into happiness.

But can forcing a smile actually cheer you up?

The question has been controversial among scientists, Marie Cross, an assistant teaching professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State, told Live Science. But in the past few years, research has revealed what she said feels like a clear answer: At least in a laboratory setting, making yourself smile can improve your mood.

A 2019 meta-analysis published in the journal Psychological Bulletin found that grinning could not only amplify happiness but create it.

"This is like the difference between smiling while looking at a picture of a puppy and smiling while staring at a blank wall," said Nicholas Coles, a research scientist at Stanford University who investigates emotions and lead author of the study. "It appeared that smiles could not only increase how happy you felt about the puppies but could also make you feel happy in an otherwise neutral context where you have no actual reason to feel happy."

Related: What happens in our brains when we 'hear' our own thoughts?

However, the meta-analysis findings weren't strong, Coles said, because it was based mostly on old, questionable research. "There's an analogy in meta-analysis called crap in, crap out. And unfortunately, you don't know if the previous evidence is crappy or not," he told Live Science, because you can't talk to the scientists who found it.

Moreover, a high-quality paper published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science in 2016 came to a conflicting conclusion when it failed to replicate a seminal study's findings.

Based on these two factors, Coles wasn't entirely sold on his own review's findings. So he gathered an international team of researchers with differing viewpoints on the subject, dubbed The Many Smiles Collaboration. They designed a study, published in Nature Human Behaviour in 2022 that looked at more than 3,800 participants from 19 countries.

For the study, the researchers had participants pose a smile in three different ways: by looking at a photo of a smiling person and copying their expression, by following muscle-by-muscle instructions on how to smile, or by holding a pen in their mouth. Some looked at positive images, like puppies, while grinning, and some did not.

With the first two methods, happiness increased regardless of whether participants were looking at a positive picture, but the results were unclear with the pen-in-mouth method. Overall, however, the study made it clear that faking a grin makes people report being happier.

The idea that facial expressions can influence emotions is known as the facial feedback hypothesis. This isn't true only with smiling; scowling, for example, can make people feel angrier, as Coles' meta-analysis found. Other bodily experiences, like clenching muscles, could make someone feel more tense through a similar type of so-called sensorimotor feedback.

But exactly how this plays out in the brain is unclear. Some experts think posing an expression like a smile triggers a specific happiness-related neural pathway that "creates a full-blown bodily response," Coles said, and the brain interprets this response as happiness. But this idea is highly controversial, he added. Others suggest that the brain simply interprets the smile as a clue that you're happy. Additional theories include that facial feedback impacts how you process other emotional information or makes people think of memories associated with a particular expression and emotion, according to a 2022 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Unfortunately, experts aren't sure whether the results carry over from the lab to the real world, because in real life, there are a lot more inputs to your brain than there are in the lab. If your face is telling your brain that you're happy but everything else is telling it that you're not, smiling might not move the needle on your emotions, Cross said. However, she added, "I definitely don't think it would hurt to smile a few times over the course of the day to see if it affects your mood."

A new technique for manifesting one's goals has gone viral on TikTok. So-called "lucky girl syndrome" may sound like a condition most people would like to have, but the psychology behind it is shaky at best and misleading at worst. 

To be a "lucky girl," you must pronounce yourself to be lucky, prosperous and a magnet for good things, according to proponents of the trend. In one TikTok video, user iambrifields repeats the affirmation, "Everything I want and need is on its way to me right now. I am open to receive." The trend isn’t limited to TikTok — Instagram user hothighpriestess posted a reel in which she states, "I am powerful and in control of my reality. I attract all that is good in this universe. I find myself in a state of perpetual happiness." 

As Vox writer Rebecca Jennings recently pointed out, the idea is reminiscent of "the law of attraction" and other philosophies described in the influential self-help book "The Secret" (Simon & Schuster, 2006), written by Rhonda Byrne. 

The law of attraction taps into the idea that people can manifest whatever they want in life by simply speaking it into existence; similarly, lucky girl syndrome encourages individuals to repeat mantras such as "Things are always working out for me, no matter how it looks in any point in time" and "I will attract everything I desire."

Related: What is the key to happiness? 

Lucky girl TikTok videos may currently be racking up millions of views, but Robert West, a psychologist and emeritus professor of behavioral science and health at University College London in the U.K., told Live Science that this technique is something that's been seen countless times before. 

"The 'lucky girl syndrome' appears to be just the latest in a long history of magical thinking that we humans find so bewitching," West said. In the Encyclopedia Britannica, magical thinking is defined as "the belief that one's ideas, thoughts, actions, words or use of symbols can influence the course of events in the material world." 

"Like most forms of magical thinking, [lucky girl syndrome] draws on a grain of truth but rapidly turns into fantasy," West said. "The grain of truth is that 'people make their own luck.' The flight into fantasy comes from the idea that we can have any impact on the world around us just by imagining." The only way humans can have any influence on their fate is through their own actions, West said.

That's not to say that it's inherently bad to have a positive outlook on life, said West. "But that is different. The danger of believing that we can achieve things just by imagining them is that it actually stops us doing the things that would make our lives, and those of other people, better," he said.

If one potential consequence of lucky girl syndrome is that people fail to take action, another is that they'll make poor decisions, banking on the idea that everything will work out in the end. That's because the philosophy may encourage "positive illusion," defined by the American Psychological Association (APA) as "a belief about oneself that is pleasant or positive and that is held regardless of its truth."  

A 2015 review in the journal Frontiers in Psychology outlines some of the risks of holding positive illusions, listing unrealistic optimism and an overly inflated sense of self belief as potential problems. The review considered the impacts this bias would have on high-stakes decision making and how the illusion of control can lead to negative consequences. For instance, one might be more likely to be reckless in gambling with the positive illusion that their chances of winning are higher than they are in reality, the authors suggest.

And if by chance, a person's risky gamble does pay off, they may attribute the result to the power of magical thinking.

The human brain is hardwired to look for patterns and will sometimes interpret two events as linked when they're actually unrelated; this phenomenon is called "causal illusion," according to a 2017 paper in the journal Consciousness and Cognition. Pattern recognition is helpful in cases where a pattern truly does exist; for instance, you can recognize that a plant grows best under certain conditions and nurture its growth accordingly. However, a 2020 paper in the British Journal of Psychology suggests that causal illusion makes it more likely that people will believe pseudoscientific theories, such as the lucky girl phenomenon.

"Lucky girl syndrome is not much different from the gambler's 'lucky streak' or 'gut feeling,'" West said. "In both cases, the insidious thing about them is that people can point to examples where they appear to have been borne out. Someone wins the lottery using some magical thinking and claims that it was the magical thinking that did it. Of course it didn't, and millions of other people are testimony to the fact that magical thinking didn't work for them." 

In some ways, lucky girl syndrome also echoes a concept called "learned optimism," said Leslie Gutman, a professor of Applied Developmental and Health Psychology at University College London in England. 

"[This] is a learned habit of viewing ourselves and the world in a positive light. It is the belief that good things will continually happen in all areas of our life," she told Live Science. Those with learned optimism see problems as transient and usually attributable to specific, external factors, rather than immutable aspects of their lives or themselves, according to the APA.

On one hand, research suggests that optimistic people tend to be more motivated than pessimistic people and show more goal-focused behavior, which can lead to greater success in their careers, Gutman said. "What is important, however, is those who consider themselves 'lucky' do not attribute their success to luck but understand that their hard work plays a key role in their achievement," she said. In that respect, lucky girl syndrome could feed into harmful biases, perpetuating the idea that "when successful, women are simply lucky, which downplays their ability and hard work," she noted.

Learned optimism may come more easily to those with social privilege — when things usually go well for you, there’s no big mental leap required to be optimistic. The opposite phenomenon, learned helplessness, tends to be prevalent in impoverished communities. A 2014 report published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science suggests that childhood poverty has long term effects on mental health and those who experienced childhood poverty displayed a greater susceptibility to learned helplessness later in life.

In short, while optimism and good self esteem can help us to achieve our goals, it is important not to fall into the trap of magical thinking or positive illusions. Experts say it's better to foster and take pride in your own abilities than to rely on the mystical power of manifestation.

"Dopamine fasting" may be Silicon Valley's latest wellness trend — but does this sciency-sounding fad actually have evidence to back it up?   

During a so-called dopamine fast, extreme practitioners abstain from any experience that brings them pleasure, including but not limited to sex, food, exercise, social media, video games and talking, according to Vox. Some people go so far as to avoid making eye contact, chatting with friends or even performing moderately-fast movements, all in an effort to avoid stimulation, the New York Times reported. 

By taking a break from sins and small pleasures, fasters attempt to "reset" the brain's reward system, a network wired, in part, by a chemical called dopamine. After a fast, they report feeling more focused and finding more joy in the activities they'd avoided, according to Business Insider. 

Despite its supposed benefits and good intentions, dopamine fasting has stirred up controversy. 

Dr. Cameron Sepah, a psychologist who helped popularize dopamine fasting, has argued that some people have pushed the practice to an unfounded extreme and attracted attention from "clickbait journalists" bent on "mocking Silicon Valley." Meanwhile, some recent news articles have argued that the trend oversimplifies the role of dopamine in the brain to the point of being inaccurate.

To clear up any confusion, Live Science spoke with experts about the neurobiology of addiction, tried-and-tested therapeutic practices and the many roles of dopamine in the brain. The take-home message is that "dopamine fasting," though perhaps poorly named, grew out of established methods in addiction therapy and may be beneficial — if executed properly.    

Related: 10 Things You Didn't Know About the Brain 

First of all, what does dopamine do? 

First and foremost, dopamine is a neurotransmitter — a chemical passed between neurons like hand-written notes between schoolchildren. Neighboring neurons pass these "notes" through intricate networks in the brain. By exchanging neurotransmitters, brain cells work together to process information and direct behavior, according to BrainFacts.org. Many brain networks rely on dopamine to function properly, including a collection of brain structures seated in the center of the organ known as the "mesolimbic reward pathway." This evolutionarily ancient pathway helps control our response to rewards, like food, sex, and drugs, according to the Incahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.. From this pathway, dopamine ventures out to other brain regions that shape our memory, expectations, emotions and reactions about rewards.

Although often described as a "feel-good" chemical, dopamine doesn't work by triggering feelings of pleasure and happiness in the brain's reward center, Michael Treadway, a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist at Emory University, told Live Science.   

"This is still hotly debated … but I think most dopamine researchers today would agree that dopamine is not about pleasure," Treadway said. Instead, dopamine may be more about motivation, the willingness to expend effort to reach goals and gain rewards, he said. But that said, the chemical serves many functions in the brain.  

The exact action of dopamine depends on which neurons send and receive the chemical, and where those cells sit in the brain. But generally speaking, dopamine acts as a kind of "switchboard" that tunes how different brain areas handle incoming information, Treadway said. The chemical helps direct our attention, budget our energy levels and literally move our bodies through space. 

It's not actually possible to completely "fast" or eliminate dopamine from your body with lifestyle changes, which is lucky because doing so would likely have serious consequences.

"Obviously, if you were actually to fast from dopamine it would probably be fatal," he added.

No one is actually fasting from dopamine 

It's important to note that, despite the name, the original idea behind dopamine fasting is not to literally lower dopamine levels.

"The goal is not to reduce dopamine or elicit functional brain changes," Sepah, who is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, told Live Science in an email. Instead, dopamine fasting encourages people to reduce the "time spent on problematic behavior," he said. 

Still, research shows there is a connection between dopamine and problematic behavior, such as drug abuse.

When the brain picks up clues that it may soon receive a reward — whether that reward be food, illicit drugs or likes on social media — a flash of dopamine zaps the reward pathway, according to Slate. Another hit of dopamine comes with the reward itself. Addictive substances and behaviors repeatedly bombard the reward pathway with huge surges of dopamine, and over time, the brain morphs in response.            

"When we image [drug users'] brains, we find that in the immediate aftermath of using they actually have less dopamine and fewer dopamine receptors than those who don't use drugs," said Dr. Anna Lembke, an associate professor and medical director of addiction medicine at Stanford University. 

All addictive drugs cause dopamine levels to spike in one way or another, Lembke said, and in response, the brain weakens or eliminates the receptors built to respond to the chemical. That means drug users need more of the substance to elicit the same surge of dopamine, and that other rewards, like food and social interaction, steadily lose their appeal. 

By any other name 

As a clinician, Lembke recommends that her patients with drug addictions enter a "period of abstinence" in order to reset the brain's reward system. By its rpurest definition, a period of abstinence is not unlike a dopamine fast, in which people abstain from problematic behaviors.

"I call them detox periods," Dr. David Greenfield, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, told Live Science. "We go through a period where we allow those receptors to calm down."

Greenfield treats a destructive behavior that may impact the Silicon Valley folks drawn to dopamine fasting: compulsive internet and technology use. Dopamine surges in the brain's reward system each time we so much as glance at a smartphone or laptop screen, he said, and rewarding notifications and media pop up unpredictably whenever we go online. People grow addicted to devices, just as they do to drugs, Greenfield said. Lembke said she has witnessed the phenomenon, too.

"People are coming into my clinic with severe, pathological, compulsive use of these interfaces," she said. Although internet and video-game addictions have yet to be recognized as true disorders in the bible of mental health disorders, the DSM-5, experts recognize that both substance use and excessive screen time wreak similar havoc in the brain. And just like drug addiction, the goal of treatment "is to detox from the most problematic sites and content," Greenfield wrote in a 2018 article on internet and video game addiction.

But after the initial period of abstinence, the real work begins, he added.

Related: 7 Ways to Short-Circuit Kids' Mobile Addiction

What happens after a fast? 

The buzz around dopamine fasting blew up around what people do (or don't do) during the fast itself. But in the long term, fasters must take additional steps if they aim to overcome their problematic behaviors.  

"One of the things that happens when people initially cut themselves off from these rewards ... is that they suddenly become aware of themselves and their bodies in a new way," Lembke said. Without substances, screens or other stimuli to distract them, people suddenly become reacquainted with themselves, she said. "That, in fact, can be terrifying for people." 

To move past these withdrawal periods and avoid relapse, people must address the roots of their addictive behaviors, Greenfield said. For example, people practicing compulsive internet use must learn how to place healthy limits on their use of the technology. Just like those addicted to drugs, they must come to recognize and cope with triggers that push them toward destructive behavior. 

Mental health professionals can guide people through this process using standardized techniques like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a protocol that helps people re-evaluate their patterns of thinking and behavior, and better cope with difficult situations, according to the American Psychological Association. (Sepah claims his recommended version of dopamine fasting is actually based on CBT techniques aimed at empowering people to overcome unhelpful impulses.)  

"The idea is to ... temper our consumption" of rewards, Lembke said. In an age in which we enjoy easy access to addictive substances and a million other distractions pull at our attention, sometimes, we must "consciously abstain" from behaviors that could spiral out of control, she said.

That said, you probably shouldn't cut out all pleasurable experiences from your life, Greenfield added.

"I don't think it's realistic, and I'm not even sure it's healthy" to completely eliminate all pleasurable experiences, he said. "I am not familiar with any programs that advocate for that, and that's certainly not within the realm of typical medical treatment." 

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Originally published on Live Science.

It manifests in small gestures like giving up your seat on the subway, as well as large acts like volunteering your time to rebuild homes and feed the hungry in the wake of disaster. Scholars at the University of California, Los Angeles, are pooling their efforts to study an elusive phenomenon that pulls humanity together — kindness.

The university received $20 million from The Bedari Foundation, a private family foundation, to establish the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute, a center designed to probe the "evolutionary, biological, psychological, economic, cultural and sociological" basis of kindness, according to an announcement. Previously, separate groups of UCLA researchers have tackled questions regarding the nature of kindness: How does kindness spread between people? How does kindness shape our brains and behavior? How can unkind people be compelled to change their ways?

"In the midst of current world politics, violence and strife, the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute seeks to be an antidote," Darnell Hunt, dean of the UCLA division of social sciences, said in the statement. 

The scholars have settled on a definition of kindness, according to the Los Angeles Times: Kindness is "an act that enhances the welfare of others as an end in itself." Though performing acts of kindness reportedly benefits the do-gooder by reducing their stress levels and risk of succumbing to infection or serious illness, good deeds should be intended to benefit the recipient alone. Kindness requires selflessness, and humans require kindness to succeed as a species, said Daniel Fessler, UCLA anthropology professor and the institute's inaugural director. 

Related 8 Human-Like Behaviors of Primates 

"Our species is a hyper-cooperative one. No other species is engaged in such a large level of cooperation among individuals who are not kin," Fessler told the LA Times. Fessler asserted that humankind came to dominate the world largely thanks to its ability to work together and get along.

The institute aims to promote kindness through online programs, lectures and educational materials in addition to wellness apps like the meditation assistant UCLA Mindful. The university's resident sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists and neurobiologists plan to share their findings with the world at large in order to "build more-humane societies," according to the UCLA announcement.

"My end goal is to have a broad platform to promote empathy and help people think about kindness," Matthew Harris, UCLA alumnus and co-founder of The Bedari Foundation, told the LA Times. "It is, in terms of the perpetuation of our species and the ability to live with each other and nature, critically important."

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Originally published on Live Science. 

The world isn't feeling so hot — emotionally, that is.

A new survey of people's daily emotions found that, worldwide, reports of negative emotions — including sadness, worry and stress — have increased over the last decade, reaching a record high in 2017.

What's more, reports of positive emotions dipped slightly in 2017 compared with the previous year, according to the survey, from Gallup, the analytics and advice company.

The survey also revealed that, based on reports of positive emotions, the "happiest" country in 2017 was Paraguay, marking the third year in a row that the South American country has claimed the top spot. The least happy country was Afghanistan. [11 Tips to Lower Stress]

Feeling worried and stressed

For the survey, researchers interviewed more than 154,000 people in 147 countries throughout 2017.

Participants were asked whether they had certain positive or negative emotions or experiences the day before. For example, for positive experiences, they were asked whether they felt well rested, were treated with respect, smiled or laughed a lot or enjoyed themselves the day before. For negative experiences, they were asked whether they felt worry, sadness, stress, anger or physical pain on the previous day.

Gallup then used these responses to create an "index score" of positive and negative experiences for each country and for the world overall. The score has a cap of 100.

The 2017 survey found that, overall, people all over the world had a negative-experience score of 30, which is the highest negative-experience score measured by Gallup since the company began conducting the survey in 2006. (For comparison, in 2016, the global negative-experience score was 28; and in 2006, it was 24.)

"Collectively, the world is more stressed, worried, sad and in pain today than we've ever seen it," Mohamed Younis, Gallup's managing editor, said in the report.

The increase was driven by an uptick in reports of worry, stress, sadness and physical pain.

At a country level, most countries with high negative-experience scores were grappling with war or other turmoil in 2017.

The country with the highest negative-experience score, the Central African Republic (CAR), experienced renewed fighting between armed groups that forced thousands of people from their homes in 2017, Gallup said. CAR's score of 61 is the highest such score Gallup has recorded in the last decade. Other countries with high negative-experience scores include Iraq, with a score of 59; South Sudan, with a score of 55; and Chad, with a score of 54.

The United States had a negative-experience score of 32, which is slightly higher than the global average. Among high-income countries that are members of the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), the U.S. had the fourth-highest negative-experience score, tied with two other countries (Chile and Turkey). About 49 percent of Americans said they had been feeling "stressed a lot" the previous day, which is higher than the global average of 37 percent.

Positive emotions

The global score for positive experiences in 2017 was 69 out of 100, which is down slightly from a score of 70 in 2016 and 71 in 2015. However, 2017's positive-experience score "is not out of line for scores in the past decade," Gallup said.

At a country level, Paraguay ranked first with a score 85, followed by Colombia, El Salvador and Guatemala, which all tied with a score of 82. Gallup noted that Latin American countries tend to dominate the list of "happiest" countries, which may partly be due to "the cultural tendency in the region to focus on life's positives," Gallup said.

The U.S. had a positive-experience score of 78, which is above the global average. That score places the United States fourth among OECD members, tied with Finland.

About 82 percent of Americans said they had "smiled or laughed a lot" the day before and 92 percent said they were treated with respect.

"Regardless of where a country may fall on the Positive or Negative Experience Indexes … all leaders need to be monitoring the emotional temperature of the people they lead," Younis said. "Leaders cannot effectively lead their societies, seek better opportunities for their citizens and ensure that future generations will live better lives than previous ones without closely tracking how citizens evaluate their lives and understanding the local realities they face."

Original article on Live Science.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The new World Happiness Report again ranks Denmark among the top three happiest of 155 countries surveyed – a distinction that the country has earned for seven consecutive years.

The U.S., on the other hand, ranked 18th in this year's World Happiness Report, a four-spot drop from last year's report.

Denmark's place among the world's happiest countries is consistent with many other national surveys of happiness (or, as psychologists call it, "subjective well-being").

Scientists like to study and argue about how to measure things. But when it comes to happiness, a general consensus seems to have emerged.

Depending on the scope and purpose of the research, happiness is often measured using objective indicators (data on crime, income, civic engagement and health) and subjective methods, such as asking people how frequently they experience positive and negative emotions.

Why might Danes evaluate their lives more positively? As a psychologist and native of Denmark, I've looked into this question.

Yes, Danes have a stable government, low levels of public corruption, and access to high-quality education and health care. The country does have the the highest taxes in the world, but the vast majority of Danes happily pay: They believe higher taxes can create a better society.

Perhaps most importantly, however, they value a cultural construct called "hygge" (pronounced hʊɡə).

The Oxford dictionary added the word in June 2017, and it refers to high-quality social interactions. Hygge can be used as a noun, adjective or verb (to hygge oneself), and events and places can also be hyggelige (hygge-like).

Hygge is sometimes translated as "cozy," but a better definition of hygge is "intentional intimacy," which can happen when you have safe, balanced and harmonious shared experiences. A cup of coffee with a friend in front of a fireplace might qualify, as could a summer picnic in the park.

A family might have a hygge evening that entails board games and treats, or friends might get together for a casual dinner with dimmed lighting, good food and easygoing fun. Spaces can also be described as hyggelige ("Your new house is so hyggeligt") and a common way of telling a host thank you after a dinner is to say that it was hyggeligt (meaning, we had a good time). Most Danish social events are expected to be hyggelige, so it would be a harsh critique to say that a party or dinner wasn't hyggelige.

Research on hygge has found that in Denmark, it's integral to people's sense of well-being. It acts as a buffer against stress, while also creating a space to build camaraderie. In a highly individualized country like Denmark, hygge can promote egalitarianism and strengthen trust.

It would be fair to say that hygge is fully integrated into the Danish cultural psyche and culture. But it has also become a bit of a global phenomenon – Amazon now sells more than 900 books on hygge, and Instagram has over 3 million posts with the hashtag #hygge. Google trends data show a big jump in searches for hygge beginning in October 2016.

Nor is Denmark the only country that has a word for a concept similar to hygge – the Norwegians have koselig, the Swedes mysig, the Dutch gezenlligheid and the Germans gemütlichkeit.

In the U.S. – which also places a high value on individualism – there's no real cultural equivalent of hygge. Income is generally associated with happiness; yet even though the country's GDP has been rising and its unemployment rates have been declining, levels of happiness in the U.S. have been steadily decreasing.

What's going on?

Income inequality continues to be an issue. But there's also been a marked decrease in interpersonal trust and trust toward institutions like the government as well as the media. In the end, more disposable income doesn't hold a candle to having someone to rely on in a time of need (something that 95 percent of Danes believe they have).

At its core, hygge is about building intimacy and trust with others.

Americans could probably use a little more of it in their lives.

Marie Helweg-Larsen, Professor of Psychology, Dickinson College

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates — and become part of the discussion — on Facebook, Twitter and Google +. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.

Residents of the Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island metro area reported the highest scores on a Gallup-Sharecare's survey of well-being, conducted in 2016 and 2017. The survey included people in 186 U.S. metro areas, and the scores were averaged over a two-year period.

Overall, the Naples metro area scored 67.6 out of 100 on the survey's measure of well-being. Runners-up in the poll include Barnstable Town, Massachusetts, in the second position, and Boulder, Colorado, in third, according to Gallup-Sharecare. [The Happiest US Communities: Full List]

The Naples metro area is no stranger to the top spot — the area also had the highest well-being scores in the 2014-2015 poll and the 2015-2016 poll.

What's more, well-being scores in the Naples area have continued to improve, despite recent declines in well-being in the state of Florida overall, and in the nation. (Last year was a particularly bad one for Americans' happiness, with a record number of states reporting declines in their residents' well-being in 2017, according to another recent Gallup-Sharecare poll.)

"The continued strong well-being measured in the Naples, Barnstable Town and Boulder communities is impressive and illustrates that well-being locally can remain high amid declines nationally or regionally," Dan Witters, research director for the Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index, said in a statement.

The rankings are based on interviews with more than 337,000 U.S. adults in all 50 states, conducted from January 2016 through December 2017. The researchers calculated a well-being score for each community based on the participants' answers to questions about different aspects of their well-being, including their sense of purpose, social relationships, financial lives, community involvement and physical health.

Many of the nation's top cities for well-being were concentrated in five states: California was home to seven of the top 25 communities in the well-being rankings, while Florida was home to four, Gallup-Sharecare said. Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia each had two communities in the top 25.

In contrast, the lowest-ranking communities for well-being in the 2016-2017 poll were Gulfport–Biloxi–Pascagoula, Mississippi; Canton–Massillon, Ohio; and Fort Smith, which is on the border of Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Some communities stood out for having relatively high well-being scores, despite being located in states that ranked low in well-being out of the 50 states. For example, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, were among the top 25 well-being communities, despite being located in states that placed in the bottom half of state well-being rankings in 2017, Gallup-Sharecare said.

Communities with high well-being scores tended to share certain attributes; for example, they tended to have low scores for obesity, smoking and daily pain, and high scores for regular excise, healthy eating and "liking what you do each day," Gallup-Sharecare said. Residents in the Naples area had some of the lowest scores for worry, depression and stress (meaning they experienced little of those negative emotions), and they also scored highly on "making time for regular vacations or trips with family and friends," the poll found.

"Beyond being bright spots within our nation, the top well-being cities…are well positioned to serve as examples for communities all across the rankings list," Ashlin Jones, vice president of research and data sciences at Sharecare, said in a statement.

"No two communities are exactly alike; each one has its own unique strengths, challenges and identity," Jones said. "As we look to improve well-being locally, it's important for leaders and well-being experts to collaborate and share best practices, while tailoring approaches to meet the distinct needs of each community," she said.

Original article on Live Science.

Money may not buy you love, but it turns out that the green stuff can bring happiness, to a point: New research finds that there's a limit to how beneficial a lofty income is to an individual's well-being.

And that sweet spot in income, the new study revealed, is largely related to where a person lives.

"That might be surprising, as what we see on TV and what advertisers tell us we need would indicate that there is no ceiling when it comes to how much money is needed for happiness, but we now see there are some thresholds," lead study author Andrew Jebb, a doctoral student in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University, said in a statement.

Jebb and his colleagues used survey data from the Gallup World Poll collected from more than 1.7 million adults ages 15 and older from 164 countries. Participants answered questions related to life satisfaction and well-being, as well as purchasing power. Whereas emotional well-being refers to a person's day-to-day feelings of happiness, excitement, sadness and anger, overall satisfaction in life is largely influenced by higher goals and a comparison of one's belongings with others' stuff. [5 Wacky Ways To Quantify Happiness]

On average, the research revealed the ideal income point, or "satiation," is $95,000 for overall life satisfaction and $60,000 to $75,000 for emotional well-being. The highest satiation income related to one's overall life evaluation was found in Australia and New Zealand, where happiness increased up until about $125,000. By contrast, the satiation income in Latin America and the Caribbean, was $35,000. In North America, however, the threshold for happiness was reached with an income of $105,000. This data suggests that income matters more to individuals living in wealthier nations, according to the study.

"Again, this amount is for individuals and would likely be higher for families," Jebb said in the statement. "And there was substantial variation across world regions, with satiation — the point beyond which no more happiness is gained and, in fact, satisfaction goes down — occurring later in wealthier regions for life satisfaction. This could be because evaluations tend to be more influenced by the standards by which individuals compare themselves to other people."

However, once an individual reaches that threshold of happiness, additional increases in income resulted in reduced life satisfaction and a lower level of emotional well-being, according to the study. The researchers said this is likely because money fulfills basic needs, such as purchasing necessities and paying bills, but after people's needs are met, they are driven by material gains and social comparisons that may ultimately lower their well-being.

"At this point, they are asking themselves, 'Overall, how am I doing?' and 'How do I compare to other people?'" Jebb said in the statement. "The small decline puts one's level of well-being closer to [that of] individuals who make slightly lower incomes, perhaps due to the costs that come with the highest incomes."

The researchers also examined the influence of gender and education on an individual's optimal income. Overall, there was no significant evidence suggesting the link between income and happiness was stronger for men or women. However, income satiation did vary based on an individual's level of education. Specifically, individuals with a higher education reported a more positive life evaluation and emotional well-being in relation to a higher income. This is likely due to income aspirations and social comparisons with different groups of people, the researchers said.

The study builds on previous findings that suggest people with higher incomes devote more time to working, commuting and/or child care and, as a result, feel more stress and tension in their daily lives than those in lower income brackets.

"These findings speak to a broader issue of money and happiness across cultures," Jebb said. "Money is only a part of what really makes us happy, and we're learning more about the limits of money."

The research was published Jan. 8 in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

Originally published on Live Science.

Last year was not a good one for Americans' happiness — a record number of states saw declines in their residents' well-being, according to a new poll.

The poll, from Gallup-Sharecare, found that residents' well-being declined in 21 states in 2017, compared with the levels in 2016. That's the largest number of states to see a drop in well-being over a single year since Gallup-Sharecare began the poll 10 years ago.

For comparison, during the Great Recession in 2009, 15 states saw declines in their residents' well-being, compared with the year before, Gallup said in a statement.

What's more, for the first time in the history of the poll, no state saw an increase in well-being in 2017, according to Gallup.

The poll is based on interviews with more than 160,000 U.S. adults in all 50 states, conducted from January to December 2017. The researchers calculated a "well-being score" for each state based on participants' answers to questions about different aspects of well-being, including their sense of purpose, social relationships, financial lives, community involvement and physical health. [See the Full List of the Happiest U.S. States]

Overall, the nation's well-being score dropped from 62.1 out of 100 in 2016 to 61.5 out of 100 in 2017, the largest year-over-year decline in the well-being score in the last 10 years, Gallup said.

States that saw declines in their well-being score in 2017 were primarily located in the South and West.

The declines were mostly driven by worsening scores in some measures of purpose and social well-being, as well as in mental health, Gallup said. For example, among states with declines in overall well-being, residents tended to report an increase in experiencing significant worry on any given day, a decline in reports of receiving "positive energy" from friends and family members, and an increase in clinical diagnoses of depression.

Amidst this decline, two states — South Dakota and Vermont —  led the nation's well-being rankings for the first time in the history of the Gallup-Sharecare poll. Both states had a well-being score of 64.1 out of 100 in 2017, placing them at the top of the list above Hawaii, which ranked third. (Hawaii has claimed the top spot in the poll six times in the last 10 years, including in 2016.)

Scores for both South Dakota and Vermont were unchanged in 2017 compared to 2016, which gave these states an advantage in the rankings at a time when many states saw declines, Gallup said. At the bottom of the rankings were Arkansas and Louisiana, followed by West Virginia, which has had the lowest well-being score in the nation for nine consecutive years..

State and business leaders should be concerned with this year's drop in well-being, Gallup said, because previous research has shown that workers with higher well-being perform better at work and are less likely to take unplanned time off, compared to workers with lower well-being.

In addition, people with higher well-being can better adapt to change and contribute to the success of their organizations and communities, Gallup said.

"State and community leaders can study and adopt best practices from states with consistently high well-being scores, such as Hawaii, South Dakota and Vermont, in order to maximize the chances that their own constituents are best able to lead a life well lived," the statement said.

Original article on Live Science.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

We'd all like to be a little happier.

The problem is that much of what determines happiness is outside of our control. Some of us are genetically predisposed to see the world through rose-colored glasses, while others have a generally negative outlook. Bad things happen, to us and in the world. People can be unkind, and jobs can be tedious.

But we do have some control over how we spend our leisure time. That's one reason why it's worth asking which leisure time activities are linked to happiness, and which aren't.

In a new analysis of 1 million U.S. teens, my co-authors and I looked at how teens were spending their free time and which activities correlated with happiness, and which didn't.

We wanted to see if changes in the way teens spend their free time might partially explain a startling drop in teens' happiness after 2012 – and perhaps the decline in adults' happiness since 2000 as well.

A possible culprit emerges

In our study, we analyzed data from a nationally representative survey of eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders that's been conducted annually since 1991.

Every year, teens are asked about their general happiness, in addition to how they spend their time. We found that teens who spent more time seeing their friends in person, exercising, playing sports, attending religious services, reading or even doing homework were happier. However, teens who spent more time on the internet, playing computer games, on social media, texting, using video chat or watching TV were less happy.

In other words, every activity that didn't involve a screen was linked to more happiness, and every activity that involved a screen was linked to less happiness. The differences were considerable: Teens who spent more than five hours a day online were twice as likely to be unhappy as those who spent less than an hour a day.

Of course, it might be that unhappy people seek out screen activities. However, a growing number of studies show that most of the causation goes from screen use to unhappiness, not the other way around.

In one experiment, people who were randomly assigned to give up Facebook for a week ended that time happier, less lonely and less depressed than those who continued to use Facebook. In another study, young adults required to give up Facebook for their jobs were happier than those who kept their accounts. In addition, several longitudinal studies show that screen time leads to unhappiness but unhappiness doesn't lead to more screen time.

If you wanted to give advice based on this research, it would be very simple: Put down your phone or tablet and go do something – just about anything – else.

It's not just teens

These links between happiness and time use are worrying news, as the current generation of teens (whom I call "iGen" in my book of the same name) spends more time with screens than any previous generation. Time spent online doubled between 2006 and 2016, and 82 percent of 12th-graders now use social media every day (up from 51 percent in 2008).

Sure enough, teens' happiness suddenly plummeted after 2012 (the year when the majority of Americans owned smartphones). So did teens' self-esteem and their satisfaction with their lives, especially their satisfaction with their friends, the amount of fun they were having, and their lives as a whole. These declines in well-being mirror other studies finding sharp increases in mental health issues among iGen, including in depressive symptoms, major depression, self-harm and suicide. Especially compared to the optimistic and almost relentlessly positive millennials, iGen is markedly less self-assured, and more are depressed.

A similar trend might be occurring for adults: My co-authors and I previously found that adults over age 30 were less happy than they were 15 years ago, and that adults were having sex less frequently. There may be many reasons for these trends, but adults are also spending more time with screens than they used to. That might mean less face-to-face time with other people, including with their sexual partners. The result: less sex and less happiness.

Although both teen and adult happiness dropped during the years of high unemployment amid the Great Recession (2008-2010), happiness didn't rebound in the years after 2012 when the economy was doing progressively better. Instead, happiness continued to decline as the economy improved, making it unlikely that economic cycles were to blame for lower happiness after 2012.

Growing income inequality could play a role, especially for adults. But if so, one would expect that happiness would have been dropping continuously since the 1980s, when income inequality began to grow. Instead, happiness began to decline around 2000 for adults and around 2012 for teens. Nevertheless, it's possible that concerns about the job market and income inequality reached a tipping point in the early 2000s.

Somewhat surprisingly, we found that teens who didn't use digital media at all were actually a little less happy than those who used digital media a little bit (less than an hour a day). Happiness was then steadily lower with more hours of use. Thus, the happiest teens were those who used digital media, but for a limited amount of time.

The answer, then, is not to give up technology entirely. Instead, the solution is a familiar adage: everything in moderation. Use your phone for all the cool things it's good for. And then set it down and go do something else.

You might be happier for it.

Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology, San Diego State University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Don't worry, be happy

There's no single formula for happiness. But scientists continue to investigate aspects of our lives that may affect our well-being, including social media use, exercise and even our posture.

Here are eight interesting things we learned in 2017 about the factors that may influence happiness and lower your odds of stress and depression.

How sharing can make kids happy

For young children, sharing can bring happiness, but only if they do it voluntarily, a study from China suggests.

The study looked at groups of 3- and 5-year-olds who were either pressured to share objects — in this case, stickers — or were given the opportunity to share voluntarily.

The researchers found, judging by facial expressions, that the kids were happier when they shared voluntarily, compared with when they kept the stickers for themselves. In contrast, the kids did not experience the same happiness boost when they were pressured to share.

The study suggested that children can experience a positive mood when they share voluntarily, which may lead to further sharing, the researchers said.

The study was published in the May issue of the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

Meditation could lower the body's stress signals

Practicing meditation could help your body handle stress better.

In one study, people with anxiety disorder who took a course in mindfulness meditation showed reduced levels of stress hormones and markers of inflammation during a stressful event, compared with how their bodies reacted before taking the meditation course. In contrast, participants who did not learn mindfulness meditation, but instead took a course in stress management, did not show similar reductions in the same measures during a stressful event.

Mindfulness meditation helps people learn to focus on the present moment, and accept difficult thoughts or feelings.

The study findings suggest that mindfulness meditation "may be a helpful strategy to decrease biological stress reactivity" in people with anxiety disorder, the researchers wrote in their study, which was published Jan. 24 in the journal Psychiatry Research.

Exercise may boost your mood

Even a little exercise may help combat symptoms of depression..

The study analyzed information from nearly 34,000 Norwegian adults, who were asked about their level of exercise as well as their symptoms of depression, and were followed for 11 years.

The study found that people who said that they never exercised at all at the beginning of the study were 44 percent more likely to develop depression, compared with those who said they exercised 1 to 2 hours per week.

The researchers estimated that, if all participants had exercised for at least 1 hour a week, 12 percent of cases of depression could have been prevented.

The researchers conclude that modest changes in a population's level of exercise could have substantial mental health benefits.

The study was published Oct. 3 in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Hawaii is the happiest state … again

Could moving to Hawaii make you happier? Residents of the Aloha State certainly seem to know a thing or two about happiness — Hawaii frequently tops the list of happiest U.S. states in an annual poll.

Residents of Hawaii scored highest on Gallup-Healthways' annual survey of well-being in 2016, with a score of 65.2 out of 100. The results for the 2016 survey were released in February 2017. These results marked the sixth time that Hawaii has come out on top in the poll since Gallup-Healthways began conducting it in 2008.

The rankings are based on interviews with more than 177,000 U.S. adults in all 50 states. The researchers calculated a well-being score for each state, based on participants' answers to questions about different aspects of well-being, including their sense of purpose, social relationships, financial lives, community involvement and physical health.

Swipe right? Tinder could hurt self-esteem

Online dating apps aim to boost your love life, but the process may take a toll on your mental health, early research suggests.

In a recent study, researchers analyzed information from more than 800 college-age students who either used the online dating app Tinder, or didn't use the app. Participants were asked questions about their mood, self-esteem and body satisfaction levels.

The study found that Tinder users were more likely than nonusers to report negative feelings, such as feeling pressure to look a certain way, or experiencing negative moods.

Still, this doesn't mean you have to get off Tinder. To curb possible negative effects from online dating, the researchers recommend that people do not use Tinder as a means of self-validation — in other words, you shouldn't judge yourself by the number of matches you get. Users should also keep in mind that the photos they see of others are often selected to show a person at their very best, rather than in their day-to-day life.

The study was presented Aug. 3 at the American Psychological Association's annual meeting.

Tip for a better mood: Sit up straight

Simply sitting up straight may improve your mood, at least over the short term, a preliminary study from New Zealand suggests.

The study involved 61 people whose scores on a survey indicated that they had mild to moderate symptoms of depression. About half of the participants received instructions on how to adopt a good posture (sitting up straight), and the researchers also applied sports tape to the participants' backs in a manner that's been shown to improve posture. The other half of the participants were not given any instructions about posture, and had a few pieces of tape applied to their backs in a random manner.

The participants were then asked to fill out a survey about their mood. The results showed that people in the upright-posture group reported feeling more enthusiastic, more excited and stronger and less fatigued than the people in the regular-posture group.

Future work is needed to investigate the long-term effects of posture changes on mood, and whether adopting an upright posture could actually aid in treating depression, the researchers said.

The study was published in the March 2017 issue of the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry.

Sleep troubles may affect depression risk

Trouble sleeping is often thought of as a symptom of other mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety. But recent research suggests that lack of sleep itself may actually contribute to these mental health conditions. What's more, the findings suggest that improving sleep could aid in easing depression and anxiety.

The study involved more than 3,700 college students in the United Kingdom who had insomnia. Participants answered questions about their sleep and other mental health conditions at the beginning of the study and after a 10-week treatment for insomnia called cognitive behavioral therapy.

The study found that those who received the insomnia treatment had decreased levels of depression and anxiety, and improved psychological well-being, compared with those who didn't receive the treatment.

"For many people, insomnia can be part of the complex package of causes of mental health difficulties," the researchers said. The findings suggest that doctors who treat mental health conditions should give a higher priority to treating sleep difficulties than they currently do, the researchers said.

The study was published Sept. 6 in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry.

Too much Facebook may harm mental health

Many people jokingly lament that they spend "too much time on Facebook." But could overdoing it on the "likes" actually harm your mental and physical health?

A recent study suggests it might. The study, which analyzed Facebook data from more than 5,200 people, found that more activity on Facebook was linked with reduced well-being. For example, people who reported "liking" a lot of things on Facebook, or who updated their status more often, tended to report having worse mental health, than those who liked fewer things on Facebook or updated their status less often.

Although it's possible that people with worse mental health may seek solace in Facebook, the results held even after the researchers took into account people's reports of mental health at the beginning of the study, and their number of "real-world" friendships.

The findings suggest that, in some cases, Facebook use may be contributing to reduced well-being. Individual social media users might do well to curtail their use of social media and focus instead on real-world relationships," the researchers concluded.

Still, not all studies have found detriments to Facebook use, so some experts recommend that, until further research is conducted, people use social media sites in moderation.

After three years of improvement, the well-being of Americans ticked downward in 2017, according to a new poll, though some demographics were spared.

The overall well-being of U.S. adults dropped to a score of 61.5 on a scale of 100, down 0.6 points from 62.1 in 2016, according to the latest Gallup-Sharecare survey, which was published yesterday (Nov. 8).

The score, called the Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index, ranges from zero to 100, with zero representing the lowest possible well-being and 100 representing the highest.

To calculate the Well-Being Index, the researchers looked at five metrics: whether a person felt a sense of purpose in daily life, whether they enjoyed supportive relationships, their level of financial security, whether they felt safe and happy in their community and whether they were in good physical health, according to Gallup. [Find Out Where Your Country Ranks on the Happiness Index (Infographic)]

Though the overall findings show a decrease in well-being, the effects weren't felt across all demographics. For example, the survey found that both men and Republicans fared just as well in 2017 as they did in 2016. But women's well-being dropped by 1.1 points from 2016 to 2017, and Democrats' well-being decreased by 0.9 points in the same time period. Black and Hispanic people had larger declines in well-being than other groups, at 1.3 and 1.0 points, respectively.

Only one group surveyed reported having a better Well-Being Index score in 2017, the researchers found: people making over $120,000 per year. For individuals in this group, the score increased by 0.3, but the researchers noted that the increase may fall within the margin of error for the survey, meaning the difference between 2016 and 2017 was too small to definitively say that there was a real change. Similarly, the very small drop in well-being for white people in the United States also may have fallen within the margin of error.

Compared with 2016, Americans said they worry more on a daily basis, according to the results. Of all the people who responded, the number of people who said that, at least some days each week, they have little interest or pleasure in doing things went up by 7.4 percentage points, from 33.7 percent in 2016 to 41.1 percent in 2017. Overall, the survey revealed that a smaller percentage of people felt that their community leaders fostered a feeling of enthusiasm about the future, and a smaller percentage of people in 2017 said they enjoyed their daily lives, compared with the percentage in 2016.

The survey results are based on telephone interviews with more than 135,000 U.S. adults from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., conducted from Jan. 2 to Sept. 30 of this year.  

Originally published on Live Science.

Two advice-filled notes Albert Einstein wrote to a bellboy in Japan 95 years ago, including one that advocated for "a calm and modest life," fetched more than $1.5 million at an auction on Tuesday (Oct. 24).  

In October 1922, Einstein was traveling to Japan to deliver a series of lectures when he received a telegraph announcing that he had won the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics. The physicist was hardly ever short on groundbreaking theories, but found himself short on cash when he wanted to tip a bellboy who had delivered an item to his room at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.

In lieu of a monetary tip, Einstein gave the bellboy two thoughtful notes he had just written on hotel stationary. Einstein told the bellboy to keep the letters, "as their future value may be much higher than a standard tip," according to Winner's Auctions and Exhibitions, in Jerusalem, which auctioned the letters. [8 Ways You Can See Einstein's Theory of Relativity in Real Life]

The longer note, popularly called the "happiness letter," reads: "A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness." (The original German reads, "Stilles bescheidenes Leben gibt mehr Glueck als erfolgreiches Streben, verbunden mit bestaendiger Unruhe.")

A bidding war for the letter lasted 25 minutes, and ended with an anonymous buyer purchasing it for $1,560,000, a price that includes an additional charge known as the buyer's premium.

The other note Einstein gave the bellboy says, "Where there's a will there's a way." (The original German says, "Wo ein Wille ist, da ist auch ein Weg.") Another anonymous buyer purchased that note for $240,000, an amount that also includes the buyer's premium, according to the auction house.

Despite an invitation to the Nobel Prize ceremony, Einstein opted to continue his journey in Japan, which is why he didn't travel to Stockholm that December to receive his award in person, auction officials said.

Original article on Live Science.

It's a tough world out there, a new report on the emotional well-being of people worldwide shows.

In the survey, pollsters asked nearly 150,000 people in 142 countries to rate their levels of emotional positivity and negativity. They found that people's reports of their positive emotions have stayed relatively constant over the past 10 years, but reports of negative emotions have slowly crept up, reaching an all-time high in 2016, according to the Gallup Global Emotions Report.

The report also revealed that the world's happiest country is Paraguay, which placed first for the second year in a row. The least happy country was Yemen. [7 Things That Will Make You Happy]

Researchers conducted the survey over the phone or by face-to-face interviews with people ages 15 or older. Syria, the least happy country in 2015, was not included this year because its ongoing civil war was a security issue, Gallup reported.

To learn about participants' positive experiences, pollsters asked people questions including whether they felt well-rested, respected and enjoyed themselves the day before. For negative experiences, they asked about feeling physical pain, worry, sadness, stress and anger the day before. Gallup used these results to formulate an index score for each country.

Happy as a clam

More than 70 percent of people worldwide reported that they smile or laugh a lot, and that they felt enjoyment, well-rested and treated with respect, Gallup reported.

Latin America and South America have many of the world's happiest countries, partly because "the cultural tendency in the region to focus on life’s positives," according to the Gallup report. Here are the world's happiest nations, with their positive experience index scores:

• Paraguay, 84
• Costa Rica, 83
• Panama, 82
• Philippines, 82
• Uzbekistan, 82
• Ecuador, 81
• Guatemala, 81
• Mexico, 81
• Norway, 81
• Chile, 80
• Colombia, 80

The United States ranked 38, with an index score of 75, tying with eight other countries: Luxembourg, Germany, Bolivia, Brazil, Austria, the United Kingdom, Mali and South Africa, Gallup reported.

Countries experiencing conflicts, including Ukraine, Iraq, Yemen and Turkey, reported the lowest  levels of positive emotions.

Historically, the countries in the Middle East and North Africa have ranked lowest on the positive-experience index; however, six countries there reported higher-than-average happiness levels in 2016, Gallup reported. Also ranking low in positivity in 2016 were the post-Soviet states. [11 Tips to Lower Stress]

Negative experiences

Iraq had the highest negativity index score, with 58 points. This is the fifth time in recent years that Iraq has topped the list.

Greece was the most stressed-out country, with 67 percent of Greek participants saying they felt stressed the day before. This may be because of high unemployment rates there, Gallup said.

Worry was highest in the civil-war-torn Central African Republic (72 percent); anger was highest in Iran (50 percent); and sadness was highest in Liberia (55 percent).

Kyrgyzstan had the lowest (and therefore the least negativity), with a score of 12. The United States ranked 57th with a score of 32, tying with the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Macedonia and South Africa, Gallup reported.

Worldwide, 36 percent of people said they experienced worry, while 35 percent reported stress, and 30 percent reported physical pain, Gallup found.

The countries with the highest negative experiences include:

• Iraq, 58
• South Sudan, 55
• Iran, 52
• Liberia, 52
• Central African Republic, 48
• Togo, 48
• Chad, 47
• Sierra Leone, 47
• Uganda, 46
• Gabon, 43

Overall, Ecuador, El Salvador and Liberia were the most emotional countries in 2016, with almost six out of 10 residents in these countries saying they felt either positive or negative emotions the day before. Countries with ties to Russia and the former Soviet Union were the least emotional, with just four out of 10 residents experiencing any of the feelings the pollsters asked about in the survey.

Original article on Live Science.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.Homo sapiens is a very moody species. Even though sadness and bad moods have always been part of the human experience, we now live in an age that ignores or devalues these feelings.

In our culture, normal human emotions like temporary sadness are often treated as disorders. Manipulative advertising, marketing and self-help industries claim happiness should be ours for the asking. Yet bad moods remain an essential part of the normal range of moods we regularly experience.

Despite the near-universal cult of happiness and unprecedented material wealth, happiness and life satisfaction in Western societies has not improved for decades.

It’s time to re-assess the role of bad moods in our lives. We should recognise they are a normal, and even a useful and adaptive part of being human, helping us cope with many everyday situations and challenges.

A short history of sadness

In earlier historical times, short spells of feeling sad or moody (known as mild dysphoria) have always been accepted as a normal part of everyday life. In fact, many of the greatest achievements of the human spirit deal with evoking, rehearsing and even cultivating negative feelings.

Greek tragedies exposed and trained audiences to accept and deal with inevitable misfortune as a normal part of human life. Shakespeare’s tragedies are classics because they echo this theme. And the works of many great artists such as Beethoven and Chopin in music, or Chekhov and Ibsen in literature explore the landscape of sadness, a theme long recognized as instructive and valuable.

Ancient philosophers have also believed accepting bad moods is essential to living a full life. Even hedonist philosophers like Epicurus recognized living well involves exercising wise judgement, restraint, self-control and accepting inevitable adversity.

Other philosophers like the stoics also highlighted the importance of learning to anticipate and accept misfortunes, such as loss, sorrow or injustice.

What is the point of sadness?

Psychologists who study how our feelings and behaviors have evolved over time maintain all our affective states (such as moods and emotions) have a useful role: they alert us to states of the world we need to respond to.

In fact, the range of human emotions includes many more negative than positive feelings. Negative emotions such as fear, anger, shame or disgust are helpful because they help us recognise, avoid and overcome threatening or dangerous situations.

But what is the point of sadness, perhaps the most common negative emotion, and one most practising psychologists deal with?

Intense and enduring sadness, such as depression, is obviously a serious and debilitating disorder. However, mild, temporary bad moods may serve an important and useful adaptive purpose, by helping us to cope with everyday challenges and difficult situations. They also act as a social signal that communicates disengagement, withdrawal from competition and provides a protective cover. When we appear sad or in a bad mood, people often are concerned and are inclined to help.

Some negative moods, such as melancholia and nostalgia (a longing for the past) may even be pleasant and seem to provide useful information to guide future plans and motivation.

Sadness can also enhance empathy, compassion, connectedness and moral and aesthetic sensibility. And sadness has long been a trigger for artistic creativity.

Recent scientific experiments document the benefits of mild bad moods, which often work as automatic, unconscious alarm signals, promoting a more attentive and detailed thinking style. In other words, bad moods help us to be more attentive and focused in difficult situations.

In contrast, positive mood (like feeling happy) typically serves as a signal indicating familiar and safe situations and results in a less detailed and attentive processing style.

Psychological benefits of sadness

There is now growing evidence that negative moods, like sadness, has psychological benefits.

To demonstrate this, researchers first manipulate people’s mood (by showing happy or sad films, for example), then measure changes in performance in various cognitive and behavioral tasks.

Feeling sad or in a bad mood produces a number of benefits:

• better memory In one study, a bad mood (caused by bad weather) resulted in people better remembering the details of a shop they just left. Bad mood can also improve eyewitness memories by reducing the effects of various distractions, like irrelevant, false or misleading information.
• more accurate judgements A mild bad mood also reduces some biases and distortions in how people form impressions. For instance, slightly sad judges formed more accurate and reliable impressions about others because they processed details more effectively. We found that bad moods also reduced gullibility and increased scepticism when evaluating urban myths and rumours, and even improved people’s ability to more accurately detect deception. People in a mild bad mood are also less likely to rely on simplistic stereotypes.
• motivation Other experiments found that when happy and sad participants were asked to perform a difficult mental task, those in a bad mood tried harder and persevered more. They spent more time on the task, attempted more questions and produced more correct answers.
• better communication The more attentive and detailed thinking style promoted by a bad mood can also improve communication. We found people in a sad mood used more effective persuasive arguments to convince others, were better at understanding ambiguous sentences and better communicated when talking.
• increased fairness Other experiments found that a mild bad mood caused people to pay greater attention to social expectations and norms, and they treated others less selfishly and more fairly.

Counteracting the cult of happiness

By extolling happiness and denying the virtues of sadness, we set an unachievable goal for ourselves. We may also be causing more disappointment, some say even depression.

It is also increasingly recognized that being in a good mood, despite some advantages, is not universally desirable.

Feeling sad or in a bad mood helps us to better focus on the situation we find ourselves in, and so increases our ability to monitor and successfully respond to more demanding situations.

These findings suggest the unrelenting pursuit of happiness may often be self-defeating. A more balanced assessment of the costs and benefits of good and bad moods is long overdue.

If feelings of sadness persist, contact your GP, Lifeline 13 11 14, beyondblue 1300 22 4636 or SANE Australia 1800 18 7263.

Joseph Paul Forgas, Scientia Professor of Psychology, UNSW

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Despite the intangible sadness that imbues the face of "Mona Lisa," she is unquestionably smiling, a new small study suggests.

Researchers showed 12 people the original portrait of "Mona Lisa," as well as eight additional versions that had digital tweaks showing her mouth either more upturned or downturned.

The original and all of the "positive" Mona Lisa images were perceived as "happy" almost 100 percent of the time, the researchers found. [In Photos: Leonardo Da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa']

The portrait of "Mona Lisa," painted by Leonardo da Vinci sometime between 1503 and 1507, is famous for its "emotional ambiguity," according to the English essayist Walter Pater. "Mona Lisa" first reveals a "promise of an unbounded tenderness," but that expression can change to a "sinister menace" when the viewer's eyes linger on her, Pater said.

Likewise, the English art historian Ernst Gombrich wrote that "sometimes she seems to mock at us, and then again we seem to catch something like sadness in her smile."

To get to the bottom of the "Mona Lisa" mystery, the study researchers asked participants whether they thought she was happy or sad, and to rate the confidence of their answers.

"We were very surprised to find out that the original 'Mona Lisa' is almost always seen as being happy," study senior researcher Jürgen Kornmeier, a scientist at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany, said in a statement. "That calls the common opinion among art historians into question."

In the first of two experiments — in which participants saw the original "Mona Lisa" and the eight additional versions in random order — the individuals rated the happy faces faster and more accurately than the sad faces, the researchers found.

"It appears as if our brain is biased to positive facial expressions," the study's lead researcher, Emanuela Liaci, said in the statement. Liaci is a scientist at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health.

However, the researchers still had questions about the "sad" Mona Lisa images. So, they took the original version and the saddest version, and made seven intermediates. Then, they asked the participants to rate the images.

Surprisingly, when the range of images was sadder, people also tended to perceive the images as "sad," with the exception of the original painting, they said.

"The data show that our perception, for instance, of whether something is sad or happy, is not absolute but adapts to the environment with astonishing speed," Kornmeier said.

The researchers plan to continue their research into perception by comparing the perceptual reactions of the general public with people who have autism or psychological disorders, they said.

"Our senses have only access to a limited part of the information from our environment, for instance, because an object is partially hidden or poorly illuminated," Kornmeier said. "The brain then needs to use this restricted and often ambiguous sensory information to construct an image of the world that comes as close to reality as possible."

The study was published online Friday (March 10) in the journal Scientific Reports.

Original article on Live Science.

Despite the popularity of horoscopes, most people don't really want to know their futures, a new study from Europe suggests. That's particularly true if future events are negative, such as the person's death, the study found.

The research, which surveyed more than 2,000 adults in Germany and Spain, found that 85 to 90 percent of participants said they wouldn't want to know about certain future negative events in their lives, and 40 to 70 percent said they wouldn't want to know about certain future positive events.

Just 1 percent of participants always said that they wanted to know what the future held for them.

"In Greek mythology, Cassandra, daughter of the king of Troy, had the power to foresee the future. But, she was also cursed, and [so] no one believed her prophecies," study author Gerd Gigerenzer, of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, said in a statement.

"In our study, we've found that people would rather decline the powers that made Cassandra famous, in an effort to forgo the suffering that knowing the future may cause, avoid regret and also maintain the enjoyment of suspense that pleasurable events provide," Gigerenzer said. [7 Things That Will Make You Happy]

Participants were asked whether, hypothetically, they would want to know about 10 future events, which ranged from serious to mundane. These included: when they or their partner would die, what they would die of, whether they would get divorced, what they were getting for Christmas, and the outcome of a soccer game they were going to watch.

For nearly every question, the majority of participants said they wouldn't want to know the answer. There was one exception: When asked whether they would want to know the sex of their unborn child, most people said they would want to know (only 37 percent said they would not want to know.)

The researchers hypothesized that people choose "deliberate ignorance" because they anticipate that they will regret knowing the answer. By choosing not to know about future events, people can avoid negative these feelings of regret that they predict will come with having learned about future undesirable events, the researchers said. The individuals can also maintain positive feelings of surprise that come with desirable events, the scientists said.

The researchers also found that people who usually chose "deliberate ignorance" were more likely to avoid risks, and also more likely to buy nonmandatory insurance, such as life insurance. An anticipation of regret motivates both of these actions (avoiding risks and buying insurance), and so the results support the idea that anticipation of regret also motivates deliberate ignorance, the investigators said.

The researchers noted that they don't know whether the results would generalize to other life events not addressed in the study, or if the same results would be found among people in other countries.

Still, the researchers said their study shows "that deliberate ignorance exists … [and] is a widespread state of mind when dealing with issues such as death and divorce as well as the pleasurable events."

The study is published in the March issue of the journal Psychological Review.

Original article on Live Science.

8 Things We Learned About Human Nature in 2016

Does telling one lie make you more likely to tell another? During which season are couples most likely to divorce? And what prompts the victims of long-ago sexual assaults to finally speak out? This year, researchers have explored these questions and more, delivering fascinating insights into human nature. Here are eight of the most intriguing stories on human nature from this year.

Scientists discover human sociability genes

In a study that was published in the journal Nature in August, researchers identified some of the genes responsible for social behavior. The study involved people with Williams syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that makes people hypersociable, and that involves the deletion of a set of 25 genes on chromosome 7.

"I was fascinated on how a genetic defect — a tiny deletion in one of our chromosomes — could make us friendlier, more empathetic and more able to embrace our differences," Alysson Muotri, the study’s co-senior author and an associate professor of pediatrics and cellular and molecular medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine, said when the study was published.

The researchers found that some neurons in the brains of those with Williams syndrome had increased branching, which might explain their gregarious nature. Muotri told Live Science that researchers still don't know why this enhanced connectivity is related to sociability — and not intelligence or memory.

Forcing a smile may not make you happier after all

Scientists may finally have disproved a landmark 1988 study that indicated that faking a smile could actually make people feel happier (or, at the least, make them rate cartoons as funnier). In the new work, which was published in October in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, a 17-lab effort that included 1,894 participants found no evidence for the so-called facial-feedback hypothesis. The facial-feedback hypothesis suggested that the body’s movements could affect mood, and not just the other way around.

However, the original researcher on the 1988 study, psychologist Fritz Strack of the University of Würzburg in Germany, argued that the replication study changed his original experiment to such an extent that it was no longer a faithful replication. "I’m not sure what we’ve learned other than the effect is not very strong," Strack told Live Science. [25 Scientific Tips for Raising Happy (& Healthy) Kids]

Lies may breed more lies

After you tell a lie, your brain may become desensitized to dishonesty, according to a study that was published in October in the journal Nature Neuroscience. In the study, researchers asked 80 adults to advise a second person about the amount of money in a glass jar that was full of pennies — and, in several trials, the participants were incentivized to lie. For example, the researchers promised them a higher reward if their partner overestimated the number of pennies in the jar.

When the researchers looked at the participants' brain activity, they observed patterns that suggested that the brain grows less sensitive to self-serving dishonest behavior.

"The study is the first empirical evidence that dishonest behavior escalates," Neil Garrett, the lead author of the study and an experimental psychology researcher at University College London, said at a news conference that was held at the time of the study's publication. Over time, the participants appeared to show "a reduced emotional response to these [dishonest] acts," Garrett said.

Why sexual assault victims wait to speak out

During the election, numerous women accused Donald Trump, now the President-elect, of sexual assault, leading some to wonder: Can we trust the allegations of those who waited so long to come forward? But Yolanda Moses, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, and a consultant and trainer for preventing sexual harassment and sexual assault, said that just because women wait to come forward doesn’t mean that their stories are untrue.

In fact, she told Live Science, the blame society places on female victims for what happens to them may be one reason women don't speak out sooner. Women may also want to avoid the shame that might come with telling their story and the pain that comes with reliving their experience, Moses said. [5 Misconceptions About Sexual Assault]

How gender ratio affects marriage rates

Looking to get married? If you're a woman, you may have better luck if you live in a county with more men than women. In a studythat was published earlier this year, researchers examined U.S. Census data from 2,800 counties in all 50 states, looking at gender ratio, marriage rates and more. They found that in counties where men made up 55 percent of the population, the percentage of adults who were married was about 10 percent higher, on average, compared with counties where women were 55 percent of the population.

The study's lead author, Ryan Schacht, who is a postdoctoral researcher in anthropology at the University of Utah, said that the researchers suspect that this was because of what is termed the mating-market theory. "If you're the rarer sex, you have more bargaining power; you have greater leverage in terms of what you demand out of a partner," Schacht said.

Number of divorces may be affected by season

A 14-year study of divorce filings in Washington state showed that the rate of filings peaks twice a year — in March and in August. The researchers who conducted the study examined data from 2001 to 2015, and speculated that the pattern they found may be caused by troubled couples' hopes that they can fix their relationships during winter and summer holidays. The findings were published in August.

"People tend to face the holidays with rising expectations, despite what disappointment they might have had in years past," Julie Brines, an associate sociology professor at the University of Washington and one of the study’s co-authors, said when the study was published.

After the holidays, however, people may become disillusioned, and that may make them more likely to divorce. The reason for the delay after the holidays? The researchers said it might be that unhappy partners are getting their finances in order or gearing themselves up for the divorce before finally filing a few months later.

Cheating may be more likely at certain ages

People are twice as likely to cheat at the "danger age" of 39 than they are at other ages, a report in August suggested. The report also found that people are more likely to have affairs during the last years of other decades, such as at ages 29 or 49, than at other times.

Previously, a 2014 study from researchers at New York University and the University of California, Los Angeles, had found something similar, determining that users of an online dating site geared toward infidelity had a disproportionate number of adult users whose ages ended in the number 9 (29, 39, 49, etc.). The researchers in that study also surveyed the site users and found that those whose ages ended in 9 were also more likely to be preoccupied with aging, and to wonder whether their lives were meaningful. 

Taking risks could be contagious

Risky behavior might be contagious, a small study that was published in March showed. In the study, 24 people faced a gambling scenario: They were given 4 seconds to decide whether they wanted a sure reward of $10 or a chance at getting a higher amount. Occasionally, they were asked to observe others who were faced with the same choice.

The scientists found that, when they were not watching other people, most participants behaved cautiously and chose the safe $10. But when they observed others engaging in risk-taking behavior, the participants were more likely to take the riskier bet.

"Our present findings indicate that when an individual has the opportunity to consistently observe the risky behavior of another agent, one's own risk-preference can be directly influenced," the scientists concluded.

Originally published on Live Science.

A new poll shows how older Americans fare in terms of their well-being in all 50 states.

According to the poll, from Gallup-Healthways, older adults living in Hawaii have the best well-being, with an average score of 67 out of 100 on the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index in 2015.

Gallup-Healthways calculated this well-being score based on participants' answers to questions about different aspects of well-being, including how they rated their sense of purpose, social relationships, financial lives, community involvement and physical health.

Here's the full list of state rankings according to the well-being score of residents ages 55 and older. Rankings are from highest to lowest.

1. Hawaii 67.0

2. Arizona 65.2

3. New Hampshire 65.2

4. North Dakota 65.2

5. Colorado 65.1

6. Alaska 64.9

7. Minnesota 64.9

8. Wisconsin 64.9

9. Iowa 64.7

10. South Dakota 64.7

11. Florida 64.5

12. Oregon 64.3

13. Montana 64.2

14. Nebraska 64.0

15. Rhode Island 63.9

16. South Carolina 63.9

17. Idaho 63.9

18. Pennsylvania 63.9

19. Connecticut 63.9

20. Maine 63.8

21. Utah 63.8

22. North Carolina 63.8

23. Mississippi 63.8

24. California 63.7

25. Virginia 63.7

26. Washington 63.7

27. Texas 63.7

28. New Mexico 63.6

29. Kansas 63.6

30. Delaware 63.6

31. Nevada 63.6

32. Massachusetts 63.6

33. Wyoming 63.5

34. Michigan 63.5

35. Maryland 63.4

36. Louisiana 63.3

37. Alabama 63.2

38. Illinois 63.2

39. New York 63.0

40. Tennessee 63.0

41. New Jersey 62.9

42. Arkansas 62.9

43. Missouri 62.9

44. Georgia 62.9

45. Vermont 62.7

46. Indiana 62.7

47. Ohio62.5

48. Oklahoma 62.0

49. Kentucky 61.2

50. West Virginia 59.9

Original article on Live Science.

There is an upside to aging: Older Americans tend to be happier, according to a new poll.

In the poll, from Gallup-Healthways, older adults in the United States scored higher on a survey of well-being than did their younger counterparts.

On average, adults ages 55 and older scored 63.6 out of 100 on the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index in 2015, which is 3 points higher than the average score of adults younger than 55, Gallup-Healthways said. [7 Things That Will Make You Happy]

Gallup-Healthways calculated this well-being score based on participants' answers to questions about different aspects of well-being, including how they rated their sense of purpose, social relationships, financial lives, community involvement and physical health.

As Americans get older, they tend to report greater satisfaction with their standard of living and increased financial stability, as well as less worry and stress, the survey found. For example, in 2015, 40 percent of Americans ages 18 to 54 said they were worried about money, compared with 25 percent of Americans ages 65 and older, the survey showed.

In addition, 45 percent of Americans ages 18 to 55 reported feeling stress, compared with 20 percent of those ages 65 and older.

Although adults ages 55 to 64 reported higher rates of obesity and depression than younger adults, those people ages 65 and older reported lower rates of these conditions.

The poll also ranked well-being among older adults in all 50 states. The state with the highest well-being among older adults in 2015 was Hawaii, where adults ages 55 and older achieved a well-being score of 67, on average. The runners-up were Arizona, New Hampshire and North Dakota, where older adults scored 65.2, on average, in each state. [ Best & Worst States for Older Adults' Well-Being: The Full List]

On the flip side, West Virginia had the lowest well-being score among seniors, with older adults in that state scoring 59.9, on average. Also near the bottom were Kentucky, Oklahoma and Ohio, where older adults had well-being scores of 61.2, 62 and 62.5, respectively.

The findings are based on interviews with more than 177,000 U.S. adults, including more than 93,000 adults ages 55 and older, in all 50 states, Gallup said.

Original article on Live Science.

Alcohol is known to impair people's judgment, but downing a beer may actually enhance one ability: A small new study suggests that imbibing may improve people's ability to recognize certain emotions, like happiness.

Though "many people drink beer and know its effects through personal experience, there is surprisingly little scientific data on its effects on the processing of emotional social information," study co-author Matthias Liechti, a professor of psychopharmacology at the University of Basel in Switzerland, said in a statement.

In the study, 60 people ages 18 to 50 drank either regular beer that contained alcohol or nonalcoholic beer, over the course of 15 minutes. The people in the study drank about 17 ounces (500 milliliters) of beer, on average. For the people in the group that was given regular beer, that amount of beer that was meant to make them drunk enough to potentially alter their ability to recognize emotions but not too drunk to perform tasks in the study.

The participants were unaware of whether they were drinking beer with alcohol or nonalcoholic beer, according to the researchers. About 30 minutes after the people drank the beer and began experiencing its effects, the researchers started their experiments. In one of them, the researchers showed the participants pictures of faces representing the six basic emotions — fear, sadness, disgust, happiness, anger and surprise — and asked them to identify which emotion each face represented. [Raise Your Glass: 10 Intoxicating Beer Facts]

It turned out that the people who were given regular beer were better at recognizing the faces that expressed happiness, compared with those who drank nonalcoholic beer, according to the findings, presented Sept. 19 at the annual meeting of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) in Vienna and published in the journal Psychopharmacology.

"We found that drinking a glass of beer helps people see happy faces faster and enhances concern for positive emotional situations," Liechti said.

However, there were no other differences in how fast the people in the two groups recognized other emotions, according to the study.

In other experiments conducted in the study, the researchers found that people who drank alcoholic beer expressed a greater desire to spend time in the company of other people than those who drank the nonalcoholic variety. This effect was more pronounced in women than in men. [Busted! 6 Gender Myths in the Bedroom & Beyond]

Participants who imbibed the alcoholic beer were also more interested in viewing sexually explicit images compared with the people who drank the nonalcoholic beer, and that effect was also more pronounced in women than in men, the researchers found.

The effects may have been more pronounced in women because consuming the same dose of alcohol may lead to different blood concentrations of alcohol in men and women, and thus may affect them differently, Wim van den Brink, a professor of psychiatry and addiction at the University of Amsterdam who was not involved in the study, said in a statement.

However, the authors of the new study noted that it had certain limitations. For example, the researchers used relatively low doses of alcohol in the study, which means that the findings may not apply to people who drink more alcohol than the doses used in the study.

Originally published on Live Science.

Once women hit age 60, those who are married and those who have never been married are equally happy, new research finds.

In a survey of more than 51,000 adults in the United States, married people generally reported the highest happiness levels, and people who were widowed, divorced or never married reported lower happiness levels.

But the exception was older, never-married women.

"Married people are happier than others, but there are plenty of exceptions to that," said study co-researcher Gary Ralph Lee, a professor emeritus of sociology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. [6 Scientific Tips for a Successful Marriage]

The survey didn't reveal why older women comprise one of these exceptions, but it could be that these women have found paths to happiness through their careers, friends or family, Lee said.

Marriage and happiness

Lee and his co-author, Krista Payne, a family and marriage research analyst at Bowling Green, did the investigation because although there are countless studies showing that married people are happier than nonmarried people, there is less research about the relative happiness levels of widowed and divorced adults, Lee said.

The researchers used data gathered over 38 years from the General Social Survey, an ongoing nationally representative survey conducted by researchers at the University of Chicago. Survey participants answered the question, "Taken all together, how would you say things are these days — would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy or not too happy?"

The researchers compared the reported happiness levels of different groups of men and women: married, unmarried, divorced and widowed people. Also, because widowed and divorced people are often older, on average, than married people, the researchers did a separate analysis for people age 60 and older.

Happy as a clam

The researchers were surprised to find that the reported happiness levels of "never-married, older women are, in a lot of years [of the survey], indistinguishable from [those of] married, older women," Lee said.

That trend didn't hold for older, never-married men, who reported less happiness than older, married men did, Lee noted.

"The never-married, older men are, in general, significantly less happy than the married men and generally not distinguishable from the divorced and widowed [men]," Lee said.

Furthermore, while widowed and divorced people tended to be less happy than married people were, widows and divorcees were at pretty much the same happiness levels as one another, Lee said.

"In some years, the divorced were a little better off than the widowed, and in other years that was reversed," Lee said. "The overall message is that being formerly married, whether it's [due to] divorce or widowhood, is associated with lower levels of happiness."

He added that it's not clear why married people tend to be happier. It could be that happy people get married or that marriage makes people happy, Lee said.

He presented the research at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting, which took place this year in Seattle in August. The study has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Original article on Live Science.

Eating fruits and vegetables may help you feel happier, a new study from Australia suggests.

Researchers found that people who switched from eating almost no fruit and vegetables in their daily diets to eating eight portions of fruit and vegetables a day experienced an increase in life satisfaction equivalent to what an unemployed person feels after finding a job.

The improvements in the people's life satisfaction occurred within two years of the changes to their diets. [6 Easy Ways to Eat More Fruits and Vegetables]

"Eating fruit and vegetables apparently boosts our happiness far more quickly than it improves human health," study co-author Redzo Mujcic, a health economics research fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia, said in a statement.

Previous research has shown that eating more fruits and vegetables leads to improvements in people's physical health, but these benefits typically occur over longer periods of time, the researchers said.

"People's motivation to eat healthy food is weakened by the fact that physical-health benefits, such as protecting against cancer, accrue decades later," Mujcic said.  In contrast, improvements in psychological well-being may happen faster, he added.

In the study, researchers looked at more than 12,000 people in Australia, following them for two years. The researchers asked the people whether they normally ate fruit and vegetables, and how much they ate. Investigators also asked the study participants how satisfied they were with their lives, on a scale from 0 to 10. The researchers then tracked the people's diets, including whether they had increased their consumption of fruits and vegetables during the study period, and their life satisfaction levels for two years.

Results showed that in the people who began eating more fruit and vegetables per day during the study period, the levels of life satisfaction increased by the end of the study.  

The relationship between higher levels of life satisfaction and increased fruit and vegetable intake persisted even after the researchers accounted for changes in the people's income or other life circumstances, according to the study, which will be published in the August issue of the American Journal of Public Health. And previous research has suggested that it isn't likely that the link works the other way — that people who start feeling happier start eating more fruits and vegetables, the researchers said.

It is not clear why eating more fruit and vegetables would be linked to greater levels of life satisfaction, the researchers said. However, previous research has suggested that greater levels of pigments called carotenoids, found in some fruits and veggies such as carrots, are linked to higher levels of optimism. Studies have also suggested that an increased intake of vitamin B12, also present in fruits and vegetables, may boost a neurotransmitter in the brain called serotonin, which plays a role in regulating mood, the researchers said.

The new findings may help doctors convince people to eat more fruits and vegetables, Mujcic said. "Perhaps our results will be more effective than traditional messages in convincing people to have a healthy diet," he said. "There is a psychological payoff now from fruit and vegetables, not just a lower health risk decades later."

"The results showed that there was a direct impact in terms of the amount of fruits and vegetables someone had and their overall well-being," said Antonella Apicella, nutritionist at Lenox Hill Hospital, in New York City, who was not involved in the study. The relationship between nutrition and emotional health is a new, hot research topic that should be studied further in the future, she said.

Originally published on Live Science.

Money really can buy happiness — if you buy things that "match" your personality, a new study from the United Kingdom suggests.

Researchers analyzed more than 76,000 purchases that 625 people made over a six-month period, and grouped the purchases into categories based on how they might be tied to a personality trait. For example, purchases involving "eating out in pubs" were tied to the personality trait of extroversion (a person who is sociable and outgoing), while purchases involving "charities" and "pets" were tied to the personality trait of agreeableness (a person who is compassionate and friendly).

Then, the study participants completed a personality test and life-satisfaction survey, and their transactions were anonymously linked to their test results.

The researchers found that overall, people tend to spend money in ways that match their personality. For example, extroverted people spent an average of 52 British pounds ($73) more per year on "pub nights" than introverted people, and people who ranked high in conscientiousness (meaning they are disciplined and organized) spent an average of 124 British pounds ($174) more per year on "health and fitness" purchases than the people who ranked low in conscientiousness.

Moreover, the study showed that the people who made more purchases that matched their personality reported higher levels of life satisfaction than people whose purchases didn't match their personalities, the researchers said.

"Historically, studies had found a weak relationship between money and overall well-being," Joe Gladstone, an author of the study and a behavioral economics researcher at the University of Cambridge in England, said in a statement. "Our study breaks new ground by mining actual bank-transaction data and demonstrating that spending can increase our happiness when it is spent on goods and services that fit our personalities and so meet our psychological needs." [10 Fitness Apps: Which Is Best for Your Personality?]

In a second experiment, the researchers gave the study participants a gift card for either a bookstore or a bar. The extroverts who spent gift cards for a bar were happier than introverts who spent the bar gift card. And the introverts who spent the bookstore gift cards were happier than the extroverts who spent them.

While the first experiment showed a link, or an association, between purchases and happiness, the results of the second experiment suggest that spending money in ways that match personality may actually cause an increase in people's happiness, the researchers said.

A better understanding of the links between spending and happiness could lead to more personalized advice on "how to find happiness through the little consumption choices we make every day," said study researcher Sandra Matz, a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of Cambridge.

The study was published online today (April 7) in the journal Psychological Science.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

The happiest country in the world is famous for its butter cookies, Lego bricks and fairy-tale writer Hans Christian Andersen — it's Denmark, according to the 2016 World Happiness Report.

Denmark's top spot isn't exactly a surprise. The country ranked first in the 2013 World Happiness Report and third in the 2015 report. In fact, most of the top 10 happiest countries have retained their spots from last year, "although there has been some swapping of places," the new report said.

The new report comes out just before World Happiness Day on March 20, and was released at the Bank of Italy during a conference on happiness and subjective well-being today (March 16). [See the Top 20 and Bottom 20 Happiest Countries of 2016]

Denmark scored a happiness rating of 7.526 out of a possible 10 points, with Switzerland (7.509), Iceland (7.501) and Norway (7.498) close on its heels. The United States (7.104) placed 13th — up two spots from last year, when it ranked 15th out of 158 countries.

Promote well-being

In an effort to foster sustainable development, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon commissioned the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) in 2012, with goals such as ending world hunger and poverty, ensuring healthy lives, and promoting well-being. The network of leaders from academia, governments and the private sector published their first happiness report in 2012 and every year after that except for 2014 because at first the report was published with18-month intervals.

The 2016 Happiness Report includes the rankings of 157 countries based on survey data from 2013 to 2015. Each country had an average sample size of 3,000 people who answered questions pertaining to six variables: gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, generosity and absence of corruption.

The top 10 countries are "all small or medium-sized Western industrial countries, of which seven are in Western Europe," according to the report. Surprisingly, the top 10 countries averaged a happiness score of 7.4 — more than double the 3.4 average of the bottom 10 countries, according to the report.

The least-happy countries include Benin (3.484), Afghanistan (3.360), Togo (3.303), Syria (3.069) and Burundi (2.905).

Ministry of happiness

The rankings are telling, as they account for more than just the economics of a country, said Jeffrey Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and co-editor of the report. [5 Weird Ways to Measure Happiness]

"Measuring self-reported happiness and achieving well-being should be on every nation's agenda as they begin to pursue the Sustainable Development Goals," Sachs said in a statement. "Indeed, the goals themselves embody the very idea that human well-being should be nurtured through a holistic approach that combines economic, social and environmental objectives."

In fact, five governments (Bhutan, Ecuador, Scotland, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela) have appointed "ministers of happiness," according to the report. However, it's unclear how much these ministers have helped to boost happiness. Though Venezuela created the position in 2013, the country dropped from the 20th- to 23rd-happiest country between 2013 and 2015, according to CNN.

Venezuela isn't the only country to move up or down the blissful ladder. The authors of the report compared data from 2005-2007 with that from 2013-2015, and found that out of 126 countries, 55 showed significant increases in happiness while 45 showed significant decreases. The remaining 26 countries had no significant change, the researchers found.

"The rankings show both consistency and change," said study co-editor John Helliwell, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of British Columbia. "The consistency at the top reflects mainly that life evaluations are based on life circumstances that usually evolve slowly, and that are all at high levels in the top countries.

"The year-to-year changes are also moderated by the averaging of data from three years of surveys in order to provide large sample sizes," he added. "However, when there have been long-lasting changes in the quality of life, they have led to large changes in life-evaluation levels and rankings, as shown by the many countries with large gains or losses from 2005-2007 to 2013-2015."

Overall, average happiness worldwide is 5.1, the researchers found. They added that people tend to be happier in societies that have more equal levels of happiness among its people.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

The index shows six key variables that contribute to the total score, relative to a hypothetical country called “Dystopia” representing the worst scores from the 2013-2015 index.

Dystopia is an imaginary country with the world’s least-happy people. Dystopia would have the lowest incomes, lowest life expectancy, lowest generosity, most corruption, least freedom and least social support.

Top 20 Happiest:

1. Denmark (7.526)

2. Switzerland (7.509)

3. Iceland (7.501)

4. Norway (7.498)

5. Finland (7.413)

6. Canada (7.404)

7. Netherlands (7.339)

8. New Zealand (7.334)

9. Australia (7.313)

10. Sweden (7.291)

11. Israel (7.267)

12. Austria (7.119)

13. United States (7.104)

14. Costa Rica (7.087)

15. Puerto Rico (7.039)

16. Germany (6.994)

17. Brazil (6.952)

18. Belgium (6.929)

19. Ireland (6.907)

20. Luxembourg(6.871)

Bottom 20:

138. Comoros (3.956)

139. Ivory Coast (3.916)

140. Cambodia (3.907)

141. Angola (3.866)

142. Niger (3.856)

143. South Sudan (3.832)

144. Chad (3.763)

145. Burkina Faso (3.739)

146. Uganda (3.739)

147. Yemen (3.724)

148. Madagascar (3.695)

149. Tanzania (3.666)

150. Liberia (3.622)

151. Guinea (3.607)

152. Rwanda (3.515)

153. Benin (3.484)

154. Afghanistan (3.360)

155. Togo (3.303)

156. Syria (3.069)

157. Burundi (2.905)

When it comes to well-being, the top-rated community in the U.S. is in southern Florida, on the state's Gulf Coast: the metro area of Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island, according to new findings from a Gallup-Healthways survey of people living in 190 metro areas, conducted in 2014 and 2015.

Other top metro areas for well-being included Salinas, California; North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida; and Fort Collins, Colorado. The community of Provo-Orem, Utah — which ranked No. 1 in Gallup-Healthways' previous survey, in 2012-2013 — fell to spot 14 in the new rankings.

The lowest-ranked community in the country for residents' well-being is now Charleston, West Virginia. Fort Smith (a metro area that spans parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma); Hickory-Lenoir Morganton, North Carolina; and Huntington-Ashland (which spans parts of West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio) were also among the lowest-ranked communities. (However, Huntington-Ashland did rise up three places, to rank 187th in the new findings, from its last-place ranking in the previous survey.) [Full List: US Communities Ranked by Residents' Well-Being]

Just four states (Florida, California, Colorado and Texas) were home to 14 of the top 20 communities, but the lowest-ranked communities were generally more spread out across the country, Gallup said. (Ohio, however, was home to five of the 20 lowest-ranking well-being communities.)

The top-ranking Naples community scored 65.0 out of 100 on the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Health Index, while the last-place Charleston community scored 57.1.

For the rankings, Gallup-Healthways scored communities' well-being based on their residents' responses to questions on five aspects of their lives: their sense of purpose, social relationships, financial security, connection to their communities and physical health.

The Naples community ranked No. 1 in the community well-being category, and also ranked highly in sense of purpose and social relationships, according to the survey. The top community for physical well-being was Boulder, Colorado, while the top community for financial well-being was North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida. Corpus Christi, Texas, was the top-ranked community in both sense of purpose and social relationships.

The survey also provided information about how communities ranked on offering access to health care. In 2015, the nation's rate of "health care insecurity," or the percentage of people who don't have enough money to pay for their health care, reached its lowest point since Gallup began tracking the metric in 2008, in part due to an increase in health care coverage beginning in 2013, Gallup said.

However, the survey results indicate that there are still large gaps in health care coverage. For example, 95.5 percent of people in the community of Norwich-New London, Connecticut, have health insurance, while only 62.1 percent of people in the metro area of McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, said they had access to health care, according to the survey.

The survey results are based on telephone interviews with more than 353,000 adults in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, conducted between Jan. 2, 2014, and Dec. 30, 2015.

Follow Sara G. Miller on Twitter @SaraGMiller. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.

A poll from Gallup-Healthways shows which states had the highest well-being in 2015. The well-being score, which is ranked on a scale of 0 to 100, is based on survey data from 2.3 million people. The index is rated based on people's sense of purpose, social relationships, sense of financial security, sense of community and physical health. [Read the whole story on the happiest states]

1.    Hawaii: 64.8

2.    Alaska: 64.1

3.    Montana: 63.8

4.    Colorado: 63.6

5.    Wyoming: 63.5

6.    South Dakota: 63.5

7.    Minnesota: 63.3

8.    Utah: 63.1

9.    Arizona: 63.0

10.California: 62.7

11.Texas: 62.7

12.Florida: 62.4

13.Wisconsin: 62.4

14.Iowa: 62.4

15.North Dakota: 62.3

16.New Mexico: 62.2

17.Virginia: 62.2

18.Connecticut: 62.2

19.South Carolina: 62.2

20.Nebraska: 62.1

21.New Hampshire: 62.1

22.Maine: 62.1

23.North Carolina: 62.1

24.Washington: 62.0

25.Kansas: 62.0

26.Rhode Island: 61.9

27.Delaware: 61.9

28.Alabama: 61.8

29.Vermont: 61.8

30.Massachusetts: 61.8

31.Oregon: 61.7

32.New Jersey: 61.6

33.Pennsylvania: 61.6

34.Maryland: 61.5

35.Illinois: 61.5

36.Idaho: 61.5

37.Tennessee: 61.5

38.Nevada: 61.5

39.Michigan: 61.3

40.New York: 61.2

41.Georgia: 61.2

42.Louisiana: 61.1

43.Mississippi: 60.9

44.Arkansas: 60.9

45.Missouri: 60.8

46.Indiana: 60.5

47.Ohio: 60.4

48.Oklahoma: 60.4

49.Kentucky: 60.3

50.West Virginia: 58.5

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitterand Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. 

Being happy is nice and all, but don't count on happiness to add years to your life — a new study finds that how happy you are doesn't seem to affect your risk of dying early.

The study did find that being unhappy was linked with an increased risk of early death, but it turned out that this was actually because people in poor health also tend to be unhappy. In other words, poor health, and not unhappiness, was the true cause of early death, the researchers said.

"Illness makes you unhappy, but unhappiness itself doesn't make you ill," study researcher Bette Liu, of the University of New South Wales in Australia, said in a statement. "We found no direct effect of unhappiness or stress on mortality." [7 Things That Will Make You Happy]

For the study, the researchers analyzed information from more than 700,000 U.K. women whose average age was 59. The researchers asked the women to rate their happiness, and then followed up with them for 10 years.

The researchers found that 39 percent of the women said they were happy most of the time, 44 percent said they were usually happy and 17 percent said they were usually unhappy.

The women who were unhappy were 29 percent more likely to die over the 10-year period, compared with the women who were happy most of the time.

However, poor health at the start of the study was strongly associated with unhappiness, and the researchers found that, after they took into account the women's health, the link between unhappiness and early death went away.

The study also found that some unhealthy habits, such as smoking, were linked with unhappiness, which also partly explained the link between unhappiness and early death.

"Many still believe that stress or unhappiness can directly cause disease, but they are simply confusing cause and effect," Richard Peto, a co-author of the study and a professor ofmedical statistics and epidemiology at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. The new study "shows that happiness and unhappiness do not themselves have any direct effect on death rates."

Because the study included only women, it's not clear whether the results apply to men as well. In fact, previous studies suggested that men and women may define happiness differently and that it's possible that happiness may be linked more strongly with an early death among men, Philipe de Souto Barreto and Yves Rolland, of the Institute of Ageing at University Hospital of Toulouse in France, wrote in an editorial accompanying the study in the journal.

More research is needed in both men and women, as well as in children and older adults, to examine the link between happiness and health, they said.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

It's a good time to be an American teenager — but not so much an American adult.

Happiness levels are on the rise in adolescents, new research finds, but adults over age 30 are becoming less happy over time. Though people used to report greater happiness with age, that correlation vanished after 2010, study researcher Jean Twenge, a psychologist at the University of California, San Diego, told Live Science. The results may explain, or at least illuminate, a finding in another recent study — that the death rate for white Americans ages 45 to 54 is on the rise, even as death rates fall for other age groups.   

"My conclusion is that our current culture is giving teens what they need, but not mature adults what they need," Twenge said. [7 Scientific Tips for Living a Happier Life]

Missing happiness

Twenge, the author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before" (Free Press, 2006), became interested in studying changes in happiness after seeing several conflicting papers on the topic. She and her co-authors analyzed data from several nationally representative samples of 1.32 million Americans who participated in either the General Social Survey, an ongoing study of adults; or the Monitoring the Future study, an ongoing study that includes teens, between the 1970s and 2014.

Both of these studies include questions about happiness (and, in the case of the Monitoring the Future study, questions about the related measure of life satisfaction, how people feel about their lives as a whole). Very quickly, Twenge said, a pattern emerged: The eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders of today are happier than the eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders of previous decades. Meanwhile adults have been getting steadily unhappier since the 1970s. [5 Weird Ways to Measure Happiness]

A closer look at the adult data found that 18- to 29-year-olds have fairly stable happiness rates, and that the real decline occurs in people over 30.

"That group goes up to people in their 90s," Twenge said. "So, in that group of folks, happiness has declined, particularly since 2000."

The findings represent a sea change in happiness trends. Traditionally, researchers have found that people get happier as they age, up to around 65. There is some debate about the trend, but it's always been fairly consistent, Twenge said. Since 2010, though, mature adults have reported less happiness than youth, reversing old notions of how happiness changes across the life span.

There are two possible explanations for the change. One could be that there's a particularly gloomy generation moving through life, decreasing the happiness of their age group as they pass through it. But this doesn't account for the new study results, Twenge said.

Instead, the second explanation seems to be at play: Some sort of cultural shift is affecting everyone at the same time. Regardless of whether you're a baby boomer, a Gen Xer or even a millennial, young people are getting happier, and older people less so.

Those changes are likely to be noticeable in day-to-day life. The influence of this time-period trend is similar to the size of happiness changes from being married versus single, feeling healthy versus not, having children versus not or spending time volunteering versus not, Twenge and her colleagues reported online Nov. 5 in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. For teens, the happiness boost over time is equivalent to the change in happiness you'd expect if you moved from a poor country to a rich country.

Social struggles

Figuring out why happiness is trending upward for teens and downward for adults is tougher than simply seeing the pattern. There's no way to conduct unbiased experiments on the effects of being born at one time or another, so scientists have to rely on correlations.

Some correlations may hold hints as to the causes of this happiness change, though. Twenge and her team conducted analyses, which were not included in the final paper, on factors like economic indicators, unemployment, median income, poverty rate, income inequality, the marriage rate, birthrate and people living alone. They also looked at measures of individualism, such as people choosing unique names for their babies, individualistic language in books and expectations of future achievement.

The clearest trend was that as the marriage rate declined (more people than ever have never been married), so did adult happiness. Rising income inequality also tracked with the decline in happiness among older adults. Meanwhile, high schoolers have reported higher expectations for their future educational attainment and job titles — about twice as high as seen in the 1970s, Twenge said, even though that actual achievement is basically unchanged since then.

"Expectations have grown, while reality has stayed about the same," she said.

High expectations may make teens feel good, she said, but when those expectations hit against reality in adulthood, the resulting disappointment could account for the evaporation of happiness.

A recent study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published Sept. 17, may reveal one factor at play. That research showed that while death rates have declined for all other age groups, white Americans between the ages of 45 and 54 saw a reversal of progress: Their death rates ticked upward about a half a percent each year between 1999 and 2013. The cause of this increase was a spike in suicide, chronic liver disease, and drug and alcohol overdose.

"It was basically death due to mental health problems," Twenge said — a finding that "maps pretty well" onto her research on a decline in happiness in older age.

"It suggests that there is a really deep dissatisfaction in the country right now, at least among those over age 30," she said. These people are struggling, whether that's economically, or with relationships, or probably both. It's this double whammy of income inequality and the breakdown of relationships at the same time that our culture promotes these very high expectations."

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

A new report reveals how 96 countries rank for older people's wellbeing. The ranking, called the Global AgeWatch Index 2015, is based on four domains: older adults' income security, health status, capability (including their employment and educational status) and whether a country has an enabling environment (that promotes physical safety, civic freedoms and access to public transportation). [Full Story: The Best Country To Live in If You're Over 60]

Here is the full ranking of the 96 countries included in the Global AgeWatch Index 2015:

1.           Switzerland

2.           Norway

3.           Sweden

4.           Germany

5.           Canada

6.           Netherlands

7.           Iceland

8.           Japan

9.           United States

10.      United Kingdom

11.      Denmark

12.      New Zealand

13.      Austria

14.      Finland

15.      Ireland

16.      France

17.      Australia

18.      Israel

19.      Luxembourg

20.      Panama

21.      Chile

22.      Czech Republic

23.      Estonia

24.      Belgium

25.      Spain

26.      Slovenia

27.      Uruguay

28.      Costa Rica

29.      Georgia

30.      Cyprus

31.      Argentina

32.      Poland

33.      Mexico

34.      Thailand

35.      Latvia

36.      Colombia

37.      Italy

38.      Portugal

39.      Hungary

40.      Slovakia

41.      Vietnam

42.      Mauritius

43.      Armenia

44.      Ecuador

45.      Romania

46.      Sri Lanka

47.      Malta

48.      Peru

49.      Bulgaria

50.      Philippines

51.      Kyrgyzstan

52.      China

53.      Albania

54.      El Salvador

55.      Bolivia

56.      Brazil

57.      Nicaragua

58.      Tajikistan

59.      Guatemala

60.      South Korea

61.      Croatia

62.      Dominican Republic

63.      Lithuania

64.      Belarus

65.      Russia

66.      Serbia

67.      Bangladesh

68.      Montenegro

69.      Paraguay

70.      Nepal

71.      India

72.      Mongolia

73.      Ukraine

74.      Indonesia

75.      Turkey

76.      Venezuela

77.      Moldova

78.      South Africa

79.      Greece

80.      Cambodia

81.      Ghana

82.      Honduras

83.      Lao PDR

84.      Morocco

85.      Jordan

86.      Nigeria

87.      Iraq

88.      Uganda

89.      Rwanda

90.      Zambia

91.      Tanzania

92.      Pakistan

93.      West Bank & Gaza

94.      Mozambique

95.      Malawi

96.      Afghanistan

Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.

The sunny skies of Florida and Arizona may be a draw for older Americans, but Switzerland is the best place to be if you're 60 and over, according to a new report.

According to the Global AgeWatch Index 2015, which measures the social and economic wellbeing of older people across the globe, Switzerland ranks as the No. 1 country in the world to live for older people.

Norway and Sweden came in second and third, respectively. The U.S. managed to snag a spot in the top 10, coming in at No. 9, according to the report. [See Full Rankings: The Best Countries for Older Adults]

The new report included 96 countries and represented 91 percent of the world's people who are ages 60 and over.

Currently, there are approximately 901 million people worldwide who are 60 and over, according to the report. By the 2050, this number will reach 2.1 billion people, or 21.5 percent of the world's population.

The rankings were based on how well countries scored in four domains: older adults' income security, health status, capability (which included employment and educational status) and enabling environment (which included people's physical safety, civic freedoms and access to public transportation). The scores were calculated from a number of international data sources, including the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization.

"This Index is vital in representing the lives of older people in countries around the world as it enables us to compare not just their pension income and health but also the age-friendly environments in which they live," Ashar Zaidi, a professor at the Center for Research on Aging at the University of Southampton in England and developer of the Index, said in a statement.

The authors of the report attributed Switzerland's high score in part to the country's policies and programs that promote older adults' health and an enabling environment. Afghanistan, on the other hand, which came in last, has few local or national policies aimed at promoting the wellbeing of older people, the authors write.

In addition to the countries' rankings, the report also revealed additional information about the world's aging populations.

For example, the researchers found that the gap in life expectancy at age 60 (meaning how long on average a person who reaches that age lives beyond it) has widened between top-ranking countries and bottom-ranking countries, from a gap of 5.7 years in 1990 to 7.3 years in 2012. Japan still has the longest life expectancy at age 60, while Afghanistan has the lowest.

The report also noted that women are at greater risk of poverty than men in old age, due to a combination of gender discrimination and the inequality of old age. Less than half of women ages 55 to 64 around the world work, compared with nearly three-quarters of men, according to the report. And because "women working out of the home usually earn less than men … opportunities to save for later life are limited," the authors wrote in the report.

Ninety-eight countries are missing from the report, due to a lack of data on older populations, the authors said. Forty-three African countries are missing, along with a number of countries in the Caribbean, Pacific and Middle Eastern regions.

Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.

How happy is your country? A new report used interviews with more than 146,000 people around the world to rank 145 countries by the well being of their residents.

Participants answered questions about five aspects of their well-being: their sense of purpose, social relationships, financial situations, community involvement and physical health. Based on their responses, participants were considered "thriving," "struggling" or "suffering" in each of those five aspects.

Here's the full list of rankings, in order of the percentage of people who were thriving in three or more aspects of well-being:

Panama tops the rankings of the world's happiest countries for the second year in a row, according to a new report.

In 2014, people living in the Central American country known for it's man-made canal scored the highest on a yearly survey of global well-being created by Gallup-Healthways. In contrast, Afghanistan scored the lowest out of the 145 ranked countries.

In the survey, researchers asked more than 146,000 people all over the world questions about five aspects of their well-being: their sense of purpose, social relationships, financial situations, community involvement and physical health. Based on their responses, participants were considered "thriving," "struggling" or "suffering" in each of those five aspects.

In Panama, 53 percent of residents were thriving in at least three aspects of their well-being — the highest percentage of all the countries surveyed. Part of the reason for Panama's high ranking may be that people there, and in Latin America in general, tend to report experiencing positive emotions more often, and negative emotions less, compared with people in other parts of the world, said Dan Witters, research director at Gallup-Healthways. Panama also had a growing economy in 2014, and is relatively politically stable.

The other countries in the top 10, ranked by the percentage of people who were thriving in three or more aspects of well-being, were:

• Costa Rica: 47.6 percent
• Puerto Rico: 45.8 percent
• Switzerland: 39.4 percent
• Belize: 38.9 percent
• Chile: 38.7 percent
• Denmark: 37.0 percent
• Guatemala: 36.3 percent
• Austria: 35.6 percent
• Mexico: 35.6 percent

The lowest ranking country, Afghanistan, had 0 percent of residents thriving in at least three aspects of their well-being, according to the findings. Other countries at the bottom of the rankings included:

• Bhutan: 3 percent
• Cameroon: 3.1 percent
• Togo: 3.9 percent
• Tunisia: 4.0 percent
• Congo Kinshasa: 4.1 percent
• Ivory Coast: 4.5 percent
• Benin: 4.8 percent
• Haiti: 5.3 percent
• Ghana: 5.6 percent

The United States saw a drop in its ranking, falling from the No. 12 spot in 2013 to the No. 23 spot in 2014. However, there was only a small absolute change in the country's well-being score — it dropped from having 33 percent of its residents thriving in three or more aspects of well-being in 2013 to 30 percent in 2014.

"Overall, the decline in well-being was not substantial, but it was enough to lower [the U.S.] in a list of 145 countries," Witters said. [World's Happiest Countries (The List)]

For cultural reasons, there may be some differences among countries in how people interpret the questions asked in the Gallup survey, the researchers noted. However, Gallup takes a number of steps to reduce the effects of misinterpretation, including translating questions so that they are as close to the original meaning as possible, and conducting interviews face-to-face or over the phone, rather than using a paper survey, Witters said.

To some extent, a country's level of wealth correlates with well-being, but this is only true up to a point, Witters said. For example, Guatemala is a poorer country, yet it scored among the top 10 in overall well-being, he said.

Well-being is an important measure to consider, because studies show that people with higher well-being are healthier, more productive and more resilient in the face of challenges, Gallup says.

"Many countries struggle to achieve high well-being. This represents a huge opportunity for country and community leaders, employers, insurers and any population health stakeholder," said Peter Choueiri, president of Healthways International. "There are proven interventions that these leaders can and should leverage to improve the health and well-being of their population," Choueiri said.

For example, community organizations might create volunteering opportunities or walkathons, and encourage people to take part, Witters said. Employers might also find ways to coax people to be healthier, such as providing health insurance incentives, or replacing unhealthy food in the lunchroom with healthy food, he said.

"There's lots of smart tactical things that organizations can do that can help create this culture of well-being," Witters said.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. FollowLive Science @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science.

If you're looking for a boost in happiness, having more sex may not be your best bet. New research suggests that upping the frequency of sex can make individuals less happy under some circumstances.

Researchers divided couples into two groups, asking one group to double how many times they had sex every week, while asking the control group to stay the course and have as much sex as they normally would. By the end of the three-month study, the people who increased their sexual forays were actually less happy than they were at the beginning of the study, the researchers found.

"The findings were a surprise and a disappointment," said the study's lead researcher, George Loewenstein, a professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "We were expecting that the people who had more sex would enjoy it a lot and would be happier, and it would be good for the relationship. [The Sex Quiz: Myths, Taboos and Bizarre Facts]

"Instead, what we found was that the group who had more sex enjoyed it less, they wanted it less and they reported lower levels of happiness," Loewenstein told Live Science.

However, the finding doesn't necessarily mean that more sex makes people unhappy, he said. It could be that being ordered to have sex puts a damper on it.

"Whether you do something because you want to or because you are instructed to can have a huge impact on how much you enjoy it," Loewenstein said.

Countless studies show a link between sex and happiness. For instance, one analysis of 16,000 American adults found that people who had more sex had high levels of self-reported happiness. Another study found that people who have more active sex lives also reported having happier relationships.  

But both of these studies are correlational; it's not clear whether sex directly causes happiness, or whether other factors, such as health or personality, are at play.

The researchers of the new study attempted to determine a more direct connection between sexual frequency and happiness, they said.

They recruited 128 healthy people between the ages of 35 and 65 who were in married heterosexual relationships. The participants completed a number of surveys on their personalities, emotions and libidos at the beginning and end of the study, as well as a daily survey to help the researchers monitor changes throughout the 90-day study.

Contrary to Loewenstein's expectations, the couples who were directed to have more sex reported lower levels of happiness by the study's end.

Still, sex is crucial to any healthy marriage, he said.

"A lot of people rate sex as the number one most pleasurable activity," Loewenstein said. "It's good for your health and it burns some calories."

The study was published online May 4 in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

This story was updated April 27 at 8:10 a.m. EDT.

The happiest country in the world isn't in the tropics, as you might expect, but is known for its snow-covered peaks and delicious chocolate: Switzerland took the top spot in the 2015 World Happiness Report, a ranking of 158 countries by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), a network of leaders from academia, governments and the private sector that was launched with the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2012 to address sustainable development.

Switzerland is trailed by Iceland, Denmark and Norway. All four countries scored between 7.5 and 7.6 out of 10 for well-being, and the differences in the scores are not statistically significant, the researchers found. Rounding out the top 10 happiest countries are Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia, all of which scored 7.2 or higher.

The United States placed 15th, with a score of 7.1, according to the report. [See a List of the Most and Least Happy Countries]

The U.N. happiness report, published every year since 2012, shows that happiness and well-being are critical indicators of a country's economic and social development, according to a statement from the SDSN. What's more, the 2015 report, released Thursday (April 23), serves as a guide and reminder that world leaders should consider the happiness of their citizens whenever they make policy decisions, the U.N. statement said.

"The aspiration of society is the flourishing of its members," Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, said in a statement. "This report gives evidence on how to achieve societal well-being. It's not by money alone, but also by fairness,honesty,trustand good health. The evidence here will be useful to all countries as they pursue the new sustainable development goals."

The results come from 2012-2015 Gallup polling data, which included between 2,000 and 3,000 people in each country. Participants were asked to rate their satisfaction with their life on an imaginary ladder, on a scale from 0 (the bottom rung of the imaginary ladder, or the worst possible life), to the top rung, a 10, or the best possible life.

Most of the differences in happiness among countries could be explained by six factors: levels of gross domestic product (GDP), life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom and level of corruption, the researchers found.

Using survey data, the researchers calculated scores for each of these six factors in each country. Take Brazil's life expectancy, for example. First, they calculated how much longer life expectancy is in Brazil versus in the country with the lowest life expectancy. Then, the researchers multiplied the answer by an estimated number for life expectancy based on all of the countries.

The result of that calculation shows the average amount that the overall happiness score is higher in Brazil because of life expectancy, the researchers said.

After calculating the scores, the researchers found that people's well-being, including their emotions and life evaluations, are influenced strongly by social norms and institutions. The same held true on  neighborhood and national levels.

Individuals received better happiness scores if they reported having supportive family and friends. At the neighborhood and community levels, better happiness scores were tied to the presence of trust and empathy. At the national level, governmental power and social norms determined the quality of life.

Social factors enhanced happiness when they were rooted and readily available. Those factors also made communities and nations more resilient, the researchers said. [7 Things That Will Make You Happy]

"As we consider the value of happiness in today's report, we must invest early on in the lives of our children so that they grow to become independent, productive and happy adults, contributing both socially and economically," said Richard Layard, a professor at the London School of Economics and director of the school's Well-Being Programme.

The results of the new report differ from those of a poll Gallup released in March, which found that Paraguay was the happiest of 143 countries. In that survey, Gallup researchers focused on daily positive emotions rather than overall life satisfaction. In that survey, participants answered questions about how happy they felt the day prior to the survey.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to show that the Sustainable Development Solutions Network published the report, not the United Nations.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

If you're looking to move to a happy place, you might want to check out the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida, area: The region reported the highest well-being out of the 100 most populous communities in the country, according to a new poll.

The top five happiest metro areas also included urban Honolulu, Hawaii; Raleigh, North Carolina; Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, California; and El Paso, Texas, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, a measure based on factors such as feelings of purpose and physical health.

The metro areas with the lowest well-being score were Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, Ohio-Pennsylvania; Toledo, Ohio; and Knoxville, Tennessee, the poll found. Ohio also had three other communities that ranked in the bottom 10 for well-being: Dayton, Columbus and Cincinnati. [See the Full List of Happiest U.S. Metro Areas]

From January through December 2014, Gallup-Healthways researchers conducted telephone interviews with a random sample of more than 176,000 adults living in metropolitan areas in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. These areas were defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Well-being was calculated on a scale of 0 to 100 (where 0 represented the lowest possible well-being and 100 represented the highest). The metric took into account overall well-being, as well as five essential elements of well-being, including daily feelings of purpose, loving relationships, financial security, safety and pride in one's community, and physical health.

The survey found big differences between communities with the highest and lowest well-being scores. Compared with people who live in the highest-scoring areas, those in the lowest-scoring regions were 55 percent less likely to enjoy what they do each day, and 58 percent more likely not to feel pride in their community.

People from such "sad" communities were also 35 percent more likely than people from those with the highest well-being to have experienced food insecurity in the last year, and 32 percent less likely to have someone in their lives encouraging them to make healthy choices. Residents of low well-being areas were also 26 percent more likely than those of high well-being areas to be obese and 68 percent more likely to smoke, according to the survey findings.

Although North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida, had the highest overall well-being score, it did not score the highest in any individual element of well-being. El Paso, Texas, scored the highest for both purpose and physical well-being. Provo-Orem, Utah, had the highest community well-being. Urban Honolulu had the highest financial well-being, and Chattanooga, Tennessee-Georgia, had the highest social well-being, poll results showed.

By contrast, Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, spanning Ohio and Pennsylvania, reported the lowest well-being in both purpose and social well-being, while Toledo had the lowest community well-being. Residents of Columbia, South Carolina, had the lowest financial well-being for large communities, and those of Knoxville had the lowest physical well-being.

The regional findings are consistent with statewide reports of happiness, which show that well-being is generally highest in the Northern Plains, the mountainous West and the West, and lowest in the South and the industrial Midwest.

States with the highest well-being also tended to have the lowest use of drugs for relaxation purposes, the poll found.

In general, residents of places with the highest well-being were more likely to score well across multiple elements, which likely had a synergistic effect, the researchers said.

"This may reflect what is perhaps the most important factor separating the nation's high well-being communities from those with lower well-being: a holistic view of well-being," the researchers said in a statement. 

Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Paraguay is the happiest country in the world, according to a new Gallup poll of people in 143 countries.

The newly released 2014 Gallup Positive Experience Index surveyed about 1,000 people in each country and asked them five questions about how they felt the day before, including whether they laughed or smiled, felt well rested and felt as if they were treated with respect. Participants also answered whether they had learned something interesting yesterday, and whether they felt enjoyment. Gallup officials then used the answers to calculate each country's "positive experience index score." [Read the full story on the 2014 happiest country ratings]

Below is a graph showing how the countries ranked.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+.

For the first time in a decade, the top 10 happiest countries in the world are all in Latin America, according to the 2014 Gallup Positive Experience Index.

Paraguay placed first out of 143 countries, with its people reporting the most positive emotions on a daily basis, according to the survey. Gallup researchers released the results for the United Nations' third annual International Day of Happiness today (March 20).

To gauge happiness levels around the world, researchers interviewed about 1,000 people in each country, either in person or over the phone. All of the participants were age 15 or older, and answered questions about how happy they felt the day before. [See how each of the 143 countries placed on the 2014 list]

More than 70 percent of the respondents worldwide said they experienced enjoyment; smiled or laughed; felt well rested; and thought they were treated with respect, the poll found. What's more, half of the participants said they had learned or did something interesting the day before the interview, according to the poll.

Gallup researchers compiled a "positive experience index score" for each country based on the responses to these five questions. Overall, the world has an average index score of 71 out of 100, but all of the Latin American countries that ranked in the top 10 scored higher than that.

Here are the 10 happiest countries, listed with their positive experience index scores:

• ŸParaguay, 89
• ŸColombia, 84
• Ecuador, 84
• Guatemala, 84
• Honduras, 82
• ŸPanama, 82
• Venezuela, 82
• Costa Rica, 81
• El Salvador, 81
• Nicaragua, 81

The United States received a score of 79, making it the 15th happiest country in the world, tied with 11 other countries, including Argentina and Canada.

People reported feeling happy even in war-torn countries, "perhaps testimony of the resiliency of the human spirit," Gallup officials said in a statement.

The rankings did not include Syria, the country with the lowest ranking last year, because Gallup released the report before Syria's score could be finalized. [7 Things That Will Make You Happy]

Here are the 10 lowest-ranked countries for 2014, listed with their positive experience index scores:

• ŸSudan, 47
• ŸTunisia, 52
• ŸBangladesh, 54
• ŸSerbia, 54
• ŸTurkey, 54
• ŸBosnia and Herzegovina, 55
• ŸGeorgia, 55
• ŸLithuania, 55
• ŸNepal, 55
• ŸAfghanistan, 55

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries had a positive emotion index average score of 59, the lowest regional score in the world. With the exception of Saudi Arabia, all of the countries in this region have scores lower than the global mean, Gallup researchers found. In fact, Tunisia received a score of 52, which is almost 20 points lower than the global average.

However, data has yet to be added from five countries in the Persian Gulf, including the United Arab Emirates, a country that has scored well in the past, Gallup officials said.

Emotional spectrum

People in the MENA countries also reported the highest negative emotions in the world. Last year, the MENA region included four of the world's top five countries for negative emotions, including Iran, which ironically made headlines this year when four young people were arrested for filming themselves dancing to the song "Happy" by American singer Pharrell Williams.

But people who report low positive emotions don't necessarily feel negative. For example, former Soviet Union countries often report some of the lowest positive and the lowest negative emotions worldwide, the poll found. This suggests that people in this region simply don't report many emotions at all, Gallup officials said.

The poll did not measure each country's gross domestic product (GDP), but instead focused on drivers that are key to positive emotions, such as laughing and feeling respected. Money can influence happiness, but only to a point, Gallup officials said, citing a 2010 study published in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that found that once someone makes $75,000 a year, money has little impact on their daily emotions.

For instance, Guatemala's GDP ranks 118th in the world, but it is tied for the second-happiest country in the 2014 Gallup Positive Experience Index.

"There is much to be learned from Latin America on this International Day of Happiness, because while they aren't the wealthiest people in the world, they are certainly among the happiest," Gallup officials said.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Happiness and a good night's sleep seem to go hand in hand, a new poll suggests.

The survey of more than 7,000 U.S. adults revealed that people who reported getting more sleep also had a higher overall well-being than those who said they got less sleep.

For example, the average well-being score for people who reported getting 8 hours of sleep a night was 65.7 out of 100, compared with 64.2 for those who got 7 hours of sleep and 59.4 for those who got 6 hours of sleep.

Because the poll was conducted at one point in time, rather than over a long study period, it cannot say whether getting more sleep boosts well-being or if people who have higher well-being tend to get more sleep.

The researchers, from Gallup and Healthways, calculated the well-being scores based on participants' answers to questions about their sense of purpose, social relationships, financial lives, community involvement and physical health. [7 Tips to Sleep Soundly Tonight]

The survey also found that 42 percent of Americans get less than 7 hours of sleep a night, which is the minimum amount recommended by the National Sleep Foundation for people ages 18 and older.

A number of factors may affect how much sleep people get, including their work hours, family obligations, conditions such as insomnia, or poor physical health.

Because a person's well-being is also known to be connected to their level of engagement at work, employers may want to consider allowing employees to work more flexible hours to help them balance their sleep with their work and family obligations, a statement about the poll from Gallup said.

The poll was based on a survey conducted in 2014 between Sept. 5 and 19, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

A study of 10 languages showed that more positive words are used than negative words. This skewing toward happy words gives languages a universal positivity bias.

"Keep smiling" may not be the best piece of advice or coping strategy for some people after all, suggests new research.

The researchers found that smiling frequently may actually make people feel worse if they're sort of faking it — grinning even though they feel down. When people force themselves to smile because they hope to feel better or they do it just to hide their negative emotions, this strategy may backfire.

The bottom line of the study: Whether a wide grin will hurt your emotional well-being depends on the motivation behind it, the researchers said. [Smile Secrets: 5 Things Your Grin Reveals About You]

"Most commonly, people smile when they are happy, because smiling reflects happiness," said Anirban Mukhopadhyay, an associate professor of marketing at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "However, people also smile when they are unhappy, to mask negative emotion or to try and become happy."

In the latter scenario, people may associate the acts of smiling not only with feeling happy, but also with feeling unhappy, he said.

In the study, the researchers conducted three experiments in which they examined how frequently people smiled and the motivation behind their expression. In one experiment, 108 people completed surveys asking them how frequently they smiled on the day of the experiment and whether they thought that people usually smile to feel good or to force themselves to feel good. The participants also completed questionnaires that examined how satisfied they were with their lives.

In another experiment, the researchers recruited a group of 63 people and showed them funny pictures, which the researchers said they were testing for use in future studies. They asked the participants to smile if they actually found the pictures funny.

And, in the third experiment, the researchers asked 85 people to list situations in which they smiled because they felt happy. The investigators asked the participants to perform facial muscular exercises in which they were told to manipulate their facial muscles to create a smilelike or non-smilelike shape. Then they examined the participants' level of life satisfaction.

When the researchers analyzed the results of the three experiments, they concluded that those people in the study who did not typically smile when they were happy felt worse when they smiled frequently, whereas the people who often smiled when they were happy felt better when they smiled frequently.

"More generally, we think that making people who are feeling bad smile could backfire and make them feel worse, because they may interpret smiling as trying to become happy," Mukhopadhyay said.

"Smiling frequently would remind them of being not happy," he said, advising that the best strategy in such cases may in fact be not to smile until the negative emotion that is making a person feel bad gets resolved.

So who should smile as much as possible and who shouldn’t?

People who smile frequently because of their naturally cheerful personality should feel free to just keep smiling, as this may indeed make them feel better, Mukhopadhyay recommended. However, people who don't naturally grin should remember that, for them, a smile is likely just "an attempt to become happy," he said.

"In practice, I think people can think about their own beliefs about smiling, see how they feel about how frequently they smile and adapt either their beliefs or their behaviors to make themselves feel better," he said.

The study was published in the July issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Follow Agata Blaszczak-Boxe on Twitter. Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article published on Live Science.

A little delight goes a long way toward making people happy, according to a newly-developed equation for happiness.

By studying how people respond to recent events in their lives, researchers have developed a mathematical formula that can predict people's happiness based on their moment-to-moment mood swings.

So what's the solution to happiness? It's all about managing your expectations.

The equation shows that people are happiest when things go better than expected, such as when study participants outperform their own expectations on a decision-making task, according to research published yesterday (Aug. 4) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [5 Wacky Ways to Quantify Happiness]

Looking forward to a lunch date with friends, finding a prime parking spot at work, having a typically cranky toddler tack an extra hour onto his or her nap … when life exceeds your expectations, it makes you happy, researchers report. On the flip side, if that lunch is poorly cooked, your work inbox is full of hectoring emails or your child wets the bed, the disappointment can quickly sour a good mood.

However, in the real world, the study results don't mean the scientists recommend people go through life with lowered expectations.

"Emotions aren't something we should be afraid of," said lead study author Robb Rutledge, a neuroscientist at University College London in the United Kingdom. "Happiness and sadness are part of being human. Happiness depends not on how well things are going, but whether they are going better or worse than expected. That means that happiness may be useful for telling us whether to change what we're doing. If we're more unhappy than usual, maybe sometimes that means we should try something different. If we're happy, maybe that means we're doing the right things," Rutledge told Live Science in an email interview.

For example, if an activity, such as checking your work email in the morning, triggers a bad mood for a long time afterward. Rutledge advises spacing out these unpleasant parts of the day so your mood never drops too low. "Also, try to end the day on something that might be good, so that you don't go home in a bad mood," he said.

Rutledge and his co-authors initially developed their mathematical formula by studying 26 people who were asked to make decisions that led to fixed or risky financial wins and losses. The study participants played the money game in an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) machine that tracked their brain activity. After every few decisions, they were asked to report their level of happiness.

Happiness correlated with activity in two brain areas — the ventral striatum and the insula. Both areas are linked with feelings of well-being, and the ventral striatum helps produce dopamine, a brain chemical that transmits signals between cells and is linked with pleasure and cravings.

From the results, the researchers developed their happiness equation, which included variables such as: a forgetting factor, in which more-recent events are more influential than those earlier in life; a term that weights events by how much influence they'll have on happiness; the average reward for a gamble if chosen; and the reward received minus the expectation. [Find Out Where the Happiest (and Saddest) People Live]

The researchers then crowdsourced the next step. The equation was tested on 18,420 people who played a smartphone game called "The Great Brain Experiment." (This risk-reward game research is still ongoing, and the app can be downloaded online.) The app also asked people to take risks to gain rewards, this time playing for points instead of money. The results showed a consistent relationship between rewards, expectations and happiness, the researchers found.

Happiness depended more on a participant's recent rewards and expectations than on the overall wealth he or she accumulated in the game, the results showed. For instance, a sense of happiness comes from the gap between what one expects and one what achieves. A positive gap promotes happiness, while a negative gap makes for bad feelings.

"Our subjects make choices between safe and risky options, and they often take risks hoping to get a better outcome," Rutledge said. "If they get the better outcome, that definitely brings them happiness, but their happiness does go down if they lose. Much as in real-life situations, the greatest happiness tends to be after several things have gone well. The greatest unhappiness tends to be after several things go badly. These extremes are more likely when people take a lot of risks."

Eventually, by using the equation to analyze the differences in how people react to events such as wins and losses in the brain game, the research might lead to a better understanding of mood disorders, the researchers said. The team is now testing people with depression to see if the equation can predict those individuals' happiness, Rutledge said.

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

One secret to happiness may lie in genes, a new study suggests.

Denmark and other Scandinavian countries regularly top world happiness rankings, and while many factors influence happiness, genetics may play a larger role than previously thought, according to the study authors.

The new research examined the average genetic makeup of people in more than 100 countries, and compared how similar their genes were to people living in Denmark — a measurement called genetic distance. They found that the greater a nation's genetic distance from Denmark, the lower the reported well-being of that nation. [7 Things That Will Make You Happy]

The findings held even after the researchers took into account other factors that could affect happiness, such as GDP level and cultural differences, said Eugenio Proto, a professor of economics at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom and one of the researchers on the study.

Proto and his colleague, Andrew Oswald, compared the genes of people in 131 countries, and used data on happiness from the Gallup World Poll, World Value Survey and European Quality of Life Surveys.

Countries near Denmark, like the Netherlands and Sweden, ranked among the happiest. Given their close proximity, these countries are some of the most genetically similar to Denmark. Countries that ranked particularly low on the happiness scale, like Ghana and Madagascar, have the least genetic similarity to Denmark.

The researchers also looked at the relationship between people's well-being and the mutation of a gene that governs serotonin, a chemical linked to feelings of happiness. The research is controversial, but some studies have found that individuals with a mutated, shorter copy of this gene report lower happiness levels. For this part of the study, the researchers looked at people in 30 countries and compared how many people had the mutation in each country. They found that Denmark and the Netherlands have the lowest percentage of people with the mutated shorter copy of the gene, and also ranked the happiest. Italy had the highest percentage of people with the mutation, and ranked the least happy of the 30 countries.

Finally, the researchers looked to see if the link between genetics and happiness was passed down from generation to generation. They examined well-being surveys from a group of Americans, and then traced the origin of their ancestors. They found that the happiest Americans descended from immigrants from the happiest countries.  

David Meyers, a professor of psychology at Hope College in Michigan, who was not involved in the research, said there are many other factors that influence happiness, like sleep, exercise and the quality of relationships in a person's life. Still, genes likely play a role, too, he said.

"There's ample evidence from twin studies of a genetic influence on happiness," Meyers told Live Science in an email. "Genes matter, much like the influence of genes on cholesterol levels.  And just as cholesterol levels are also influenced by diet and exercise, so happiness is also influenced by behaviors under our control."

Proto said more research is needed to explore the possible link between genetics and happiness.

Follow Kelly Dickerson on Twitter. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

SAN FRANCISCO — Ask a woman from a remote village in Bhutan to act as if she's embarrassed, amused or awed, and chances are, a teenage boy in the United States could guess exactly what emotion she was portraying.

Human beings have dozens of universal expressions for emotions, and they deploy those expressions in recognizable ways across several cultures, new research finds.

That number is far greater than the range of emotion previously thought to be the similar around the world. [Top 10 Things That Make Humans Special]

Common core

For decades, scientists have held that there are six basic human emotional expressions, all revealed in the face — happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, anger and surprise.  

But about five years ago, Daniel Cordaro, a psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley and Yale University, began wondering if there were more. He spent hours watching people in cafes or downloading YouTube videos of children across the world unwrapping birthday presents with big smiles on their faces. He noticed that despite cultural differences, many more-complicated expressions seemed similar across cultures.

To test the idea, Cordaro and his colleagues showed people from four continents a one-line description of a story (which the researchers translated into the various native languages), such as "Your friend just told you a very funny story, and you feel amused by it," or "Your friends caught you singing along loudly to your favorite song, and you feel embarrassed," then asked the participants to act out this emotional state using no words.

When the researchers shared those emotional reenactments with people from foreign cultures, the viewers could match 30 facial and vocal expressions to the associated stories with better accuracy than if they had simply guessed. (Interestingly, expressions of sympathy, desire and coyness didn't seem to translate across cultures.)

The team also compared people in China, Japan, Korea, India and the United States when reenacting these emotions, then coded 5,942 of their facial expressions. This meant meticulously recording the positions of 25,000 different facial muscles, Cordaro said.

"We found these incredible patterns: There are lots of similarities in how people are producing these expressions," Cordardo said. "I started to feel for the first time how similar I was to everyone around me."

(Some expression were incredibly similar across cultures, whereas others, such as the sound "aww" to react to something cute, were not universal.)

Distant but similar

But most of the people initially studied in this research belonged to cultures largely linked by TV, smartphones and other technology, meaning the emotional expressions examined may not be truly universal.

So Cordaro and his colleagues trekked to a remote village in Bhutan that outsiders had never visited. The researchers asked the villagers to pair vocal tracks with a story that was being described. For 15 out of the 17 vocal expressions, the villagers could pick the corresponding situation at rates that were better than chance.

The findings suggest that a vast part of the human emotional repertoire is universal, and that emotional expressions go far deeper than the six basic ones previously described by researchers.

But the findings shouldn't underplay the role of culture, Cordaro said.

"Each emotion boils down to a story," Cordaro said. "Culture teaches us the stories under which we use these emotions, but look underneath them, there will be some theme."

Personal epiphany

While translating basic emotional concepts for Bhutanese villagers, the researchers also came upon a Bhutanese word that had no English equivalent: "chogshay," which loosely translates to a fundamental contentment that is independent of a person's current emotional state.

For instance, someone could be in the throws of rage or feel horrendously ill, but their underlying sense of well-being could still be intact.

"Fundamental contentment is a feeling of indestructible well-being resulting from unconditional acceptance of the present moment," Cordaro said.

At first, the notion of chogshay was completely alien to Cordaro, who was used to defining well-being in terms of what he had, how he was feeling and what he was striving for. But through a process of recognizing the universality of many human emotions, and after completing a round of Buddhist meditation in Thailand, Cordaro experienced the chogshay state.

"I felt complete blankness," Cordaro said. "It was the most beautiful moment in my entire life."

Different access points

This state of contentment may be available to people all the time, but different cultures may instead emphasize emotional states that could crowd out that awareness, Cordaro speculated.

He also hypothesizes that people can access this state in many different ways, whether by self-reflection, meditation or achieving "flow" in highly engaging activities.

Cordaro discussed his experiences on Tuesday (June 24) at a presentation organized by the Being Human foundation in San Francisco.

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitterand Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Scads of studies over the past decade have found that spending money on life experiences — vacations, dinners, outings and the like — makes people happier than purchasing material goods. So why do we keep buying so much stuff? 

The answer has to do with a failure of forecasting, new research suggests. People realize that experiences will make them happier than things, researchers report today (April 2) in the Journal of Positive Psychology. But they mistakenly believe that experiences aren't a good value for the money.

"Where the mis-forecast comes in is where people feel that life experiences are going to produce no economic value," said study researcher Ryan Howell, a psychologist at San Francisco State University. After the fact, however, people do recognize the monetary value of their memories, Howell told Live Science. Understanding that error of prediction could help people direct more of their money toward experience — and happiness. [7 Things That Will Make You Happy]

Experiences vs. stuff

The idiom that money can't buy happiness is only sort of true. Psychologists have found that monetary purchases can indeed boost happiness. The trick is spending money on experiences. Not only do tropical vacations and wine tours make people happy, revisiting the memory of these experiences keeps that happiness going over time.

In contrast, people are more likely to second-guess their choices for material items or compare their stuff to other people's stuff, according to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2010.

Nevertheless, the data suggests people in the United States are becoming no more likely to spend their money on trips to the Caribbean than on buying new things. People may be becoming even more materialistic, Howell said.

To find out why, he and his colleagues conducted a series of studies. They suspected that people might be underestimating the amount of happiness they would get from experiences and overestimating the joy of things. But their first two studies blew that notion out of the water. Both in online participants asked to envision future purchases and in students asked about actual purchases, people were quite good at estimating the amount of joy they'd get from spending their money.

Where they failed, however, was in estimating whether an experiential purchase would be a beneficial use of money. Pre-purchase, people felt experiences weren't a very good deal, economically speaking. This feeling turned out to be mistaken, however; when asked about the monetary value of the experience after the fact, people felt they had, in fact, gotten a good deal. 

In a second set of studies, participants chose between spending money on experiences versus material items. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to consider their satisfaction with the purchase on economic terms, while the other half were asked to weigh how much the purchase would influence their happiness.

People asked to prioritize economic value chose to spend money on material items, while those asked to consider happiness picked experiences more often.

False trade-off

"I think they sort of see it as a simple trade-off," Howell said. Before a purchase, "they're at this fork in the road, this idea that 'If I want to be happy, I'll buy life experiences, and if I want good value, I'll buy material items."

Fortunately, as the post-purchase surveys found, this is a false dichotomy. People do feel like their experiential purchases was money well spent. People may have a tough time making this prediction simply because they aren't used to evaluating the economic value of experience, Howell said.

"If you think about the marketplace of material items, we buy and sell and can resell them and think about giving them to Goodwill," he said. There's no such resale market for memories.

"Because we don't do it, when we go to predict it, it's hard to do," Howell said.

Ideally, Howell said, people would take these findings into account when making purchase decisions. Being aware of subconscious errors in predicting happiness could help people spend their dollars more wisely.

"If they can stop and think a little bit more critically about, 'Wait, am I really underestimating the value of this? Am I really trying to think I'm going to be trading value versus happiness when I'm really not?' Then maybe people would be more experiential in their consumption," Howell said.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science