RxPG News : Happiness

Researcher in search of happiness gene

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:35:23 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The pursuit of human happiness can be tripped by stress, financial trouble or chronic illness. Now, a researcher is trying to find the happiness gene, which may be partially responsible for a positive outlook.

Yoram Barak, a Tel Aviv University - researcher, is engaged in the 'attempt to find the happiness gene, the genetic component of happiness', which may be 50 percent responsible for an optimistic outlook.

Initial research findings have made Barak optimistic about his ability to succeed. 'If something is genetic, it should have a large concordance among twins,' he said.

'And the twin studies we are looking at show that 50 percent of happiness is genetically determined.' Barak is now working with Anat Achiron of the Sheba Medical Centre to identify the specific genes that are associated with happiness.

'We may be a long way off from being able to genetically engineer happiness,' Barak said, 'but we can start by thinking positively. Much of his work is based on positive psychology, which is the 'fastest and largest growing area of psychology in the US - and in the world,' he said.

For the 50 percent of happiness that is not genetic, Barak is working on a program of positive psychology workshops, with exercises he recently tested in a one-day workshop for 120 participants at the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Israel.

Early results indicate that the workshops improved the happiness level of participants by as much as 30 percent, said a TAU release.

Stay happy for better health

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:22:05 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) London, Aug 24 - A new study in Britain suggests that people can get better health if they stay happy.

Happiness is an emotional state that is characterized by feelings of enjoyment, pleasure and satisfaction.

Earlier studies have shown that people with a positive mental attitude have different responses to stress. The new study found that the same people are less likely to suffer from depression, heart disease and diabetes.

Andrew Steptoe, professor of psychology at University College London who led the study, said that happy people rely on a different part of the nervous system that slows the heart rate - and they recover more quickly from stress.

'The evidence suggests that happier people have a reduced risk of various conditions,' online edition of Daily Mail quoted him as saying.

Steptoe said: 'We found happier people recover more rapidly from stress than less happy individuals. This may be one of the mechanisms through which happier people are less prone to stress-related illness.'

Unhappiness is a state characterized by emotions ranging from mild discontentment to deep grief. Studies in the past have shown that unhappiness has adverse impact on health.

EPICURUS: Job satisfaction is the most critical factor for life satisfaction

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 01:54:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Job satisfaction is the most critical factor for life satisfaction and well-being, according to new research by a team of economists at the University of Aberdeen.

The Europe-wide research project also highlights the dramatic increase of stress-related illnesses in recent years in employees with high-speed jobs and tight deadlines.

The research, led by Professor Ioannis Theodossiou, Dr David McCausland, and Kostantinos Pouliakas, of the Centre for European Labour Market Research (CELMR) at the University of Aberdeen Business School, highlights a number of key findings which demonstrate the link between job satisfaction and quality of life. The countries studied were Denmark, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK.

Professor Theodossiou, who co-ordinated the three-year research project funded by the European Union, said the link between working patterns on employees quality of life and well-being is a major concern. He said: Employers increasingly demand that their employees have versatile skills, working time flexibility and a willingness to relocate.

It is widely accepted that European workers are becoming more stressed by time constraints and deadlines and since work is an overwhelmingly important part of most of our lives, the satisfaction we derive from our jobs is a major factor in how happy we are as individuals.

Professor Theodossiou and his team presented their findings to a European conference in Brussels recently where EU officials and high-level policymakers were invited from each of the governments of the participating EU Member States. The conference delegates also included representatives from employer and trade union organisations across the EU.

One of the most recurrent findings of the report is the fact that job satisfaction is the top factor in employees overall life satisfaction. This is over and above satisfaction with family, leisure time, health, finance, and social life.

We found that satisfaction with the amount of leisure, with environment and with housing come last in the pecking order of happiness and well-being, said Professor Theodossiou. Career fulfilment provides workers with the means to maintain life satisfaction according to our results.

Another key finding of the report shows that in most of the countries studied the high educated have a significantly lower level of job satisfaction and/or the low educated have a higher level of job satisfaction.

We also found the relationship between the type of occupation and the level of job satisfaction is one of the most strongest and most cross-country results, continued Professor Theodossiou. It points to the importance of the type of job as the main factor of job satisfaction.

Interestingly, employees who, due to sickness or disability, are unable to work full time report a marked improvement in their life satisfaction if they are able to be work part-time. Hence, society can only gain from this if the labour markets accommodate these individuals.

The other main conclusions of the report refer to the more obvious aspects of job satisfaction including wages and job security.

Wages are generally considered to have a positive impact on job satisfaction and across all the countries studied, a higher wage has a significantly positive effect on job satisfaction. Employees also strongly desire jobs that provide security in their employment, which is demonstrated by the fact that risk-free, permanent contracts are the most preferred contracts on average. However, employees show a lot of concern with the uncertainty and restraint that is associated with rotating shifts and with having their working times determined by their employer.

A consistent finding is that employees express a strong desire for early retirement plans at the age of 55 or 60. Professor Theodossiou said: This is a particularly worrying trend for the future as employers may have to give up the possibility of early retirement for their workers, which is likely to come at a cost in terms of offering them higher wages or some other work benefit such as lighter responsibility, or avoiding fixed job routines.

The key findings of the research were the result of an identical questionnaire drawn up for the seven different countries that were studied.

Professor Theodossiou added: Our research provided us with a unique opportunity to study the relationship between an individuals working situation and quality of life and, as our research has highlighted, the link between career fulfilment and life satisfaction cannot be underestimated. This is an issue of policy concern and deserves attention.

Having more income won't make you happier

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 02:22:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) While most people believe that having more income would make them happier, Princeton University researchers have found that the link is greatly exaggerated and mostly an illusion.

People surveyed about their own happiness and that of others with varying incomes tended to overstate the impact of income on well-being, according to a new study. Although income is widely assumed to be a good measure of well-being, the researchers found that its role is less significant than predicted and that people with higher incomes do not necessarily spend more time in more enjoyable ways.

Two Princeton professors, economist Alan B. Krueger and psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, collaborated with colleagues from three other universities on the study, being published in the June 30 issue of Science. The new findings build on their efforts to develop alternative methods of gauging the well-being of individuals and of society. The new measures are based on people's ratings of their actual experiences, instead of a judgment of their lives as a whole.

"The belief that high income is associated with good mood is widespread but mostly illusory," the researchers wrote. "People with above-average income are relatively satisfied with their lives but are barely happier than others in moment-to-moment experience, tend to be more tense, and do not spend more time in particularly enjoyable activities."

The Princeton researchers collaborated with psychologists David Schkade of the University of California-San Diego, Norbert Schwarz of the University of Michigan and Arthur Stone of the State University of New York-Stony Brook.

The researchers have developed a tool to measure people's quality of daily life known as the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), which creates an "enjoyment scale" by requiring people to record the previous day's activities in a short diary form and describe their feelings about the experiences. Their 2004 study using this method, which surveyed 909 employed women in Texas, provided evidence that higher income played a relatively small role in people's daily happiness.

For the new study, the researchers examined data from the 2004 survey to illustrate misperceptions that more money buys more happiness. Their experiment extended previous studies in which people have exhibited a "focusing illusion" when asked about certain factors contributing to their happiness -- attributing a greater importance to that factor once it has been brought to mind. For example, when people were asked to describe their general happiness and then asked how many dates they had in the past month, their answers showed little correlation. But when the order of the questions was reversed for another group, the link between their love lives and general happiness became much greater.

To test whether this illusion applied to income, Krueger, Kahneman and their colleagues studied the responses given by the women in the 2004 DRM survey. After they were asked to report the percentage of time they spent in a bad mood the previous day, they were asked to predict how much time people with certain income levels spend in a bad mood.

Survey respondents expected women who earned less than $20,000 a year to spend 32 percent more of their time in a bad mood than they expected people who earned more than $100,000 a year to spend in a bad mood. In actuality, respondents who earned less than $20,000 a year reported spending only 12 percent more of their time in a bad mood than those who earned more than $100,000. So the effect of income on mood was vastly exaggerated.

To provide further evidence on the role that income plays in people's lives, the researchers conducted an additional DRM survey of 810 women in Ohio in May 2005. In this survey, respondents reported their experiences from moment to moment as well as their annual household income and overall life satisfaction. The new survey found that income was more weakly correlated with individuals' happiness from moment to moment than it was with their overall life satisfaction.

"If people have high income, they think they should be satisfied and reflect that in their answers," Krueger said. "Income, however, matters very little for moment-to-moment experience."

Finally, the researchers examined data from a nationwide Bureau of Labor Statistics survey on how people with varying household income levels spend their time. These data show that people with higher incomes devote relatively more of their time to work, shopping, childcare and other "obligatory" activities. Women surveyed by the researchers in Ohio associated those activities with "higher tension and stress." People with higher incomes spend less time on "passive leisure" activities such as socializing or watching television, which the respondents viewed as more enjoyable.

According to the government statistics, men making more than $100,000 per year spend 19.9 percent of their time on passive leisure, compared to 34.7 percent for men making less than $20,000. Women making more than $100,000 spend 19.6 percent of their time on passive leisure, compared with 33.5 percent of those making less than $20,000.

"Despite the weak relationship between income and global life satisfaction or experienced happiness, many people are highly motivated to increase their income," the study said. "In some cases, this focusing illusion may lead to a misallocation of time, from accepting lengthy commutes (which are among the worst moments of the day) to sacrificing time spent socializing (which are among the best moments of the day)."

The researchers noted that the two DRM surveys focused on women because the method was in developmental stages and they wanted to study a homogeneous group. They are in the process of collecting data on men as well as women for a national sample to use in further studies.

People happiest with lives when older

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 16:33:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) People are happier with their lives the older they get, with the greatest level of happiness prior to when they are in their mid-70s, says a study.

Researchers at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and the University of Michigan studied 540 adults in two groups - the first group between 21 and 40 years age, and the second group over the age of 60.

The researchers asked the participants to rank their own happiness on a scale of 1 to 10 at their current age, at age 30, and at age 70. They also asked them to judge how happy most people are at those ages, reported the online edition of 'The Globe and Mail'.

They found that while both older and younger people believe most people are happier in their youth, quite the opposite is true.

In fact, people reported that they are happier with their lives the older they get, lead researcher Heather Lacey said.

'When we're younger, we seem to be more focused on learning new skills, achieving new successes, acquiring things,' the researchers said in their study published in the June issue of the Journal of Happiness Studies.

'As we get older, we seem to recognise that life is only going to go on so much longer, time is starting to run short, and so we start to shift our goals more to social relationships, and things that make us happy.'

'We stop worrying about achieving, and start thinking about enjoying. People also get better at managing their moods and not 'sweating at the smaller stuff',' she said.

Yoga offers antidote to stress

Sun, 07 May 2006 18:45:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Stress and negative thinking were leading to serious ailments and yoga offered the best antidote that could not only cure but boost productivity and improve quality of life, popular yoga guru Baba Ramdev says.

"Tobacco is just one reason behind the increasing number of cancer cases. Stress, strain, tension and trauma are bigger agents of the disease," said Ramdev, who was recently in Ratlam district to hold a three-day yoga camp.

He said a negative mindset leading to stress was the most dangerous trend the country was facing. He said competition in all the aspects of life had become a source of constant strain, which in turn was resulting in serious ailments like hypertension, obesity and cardiac diseases, besides cancer.

"Annoyance, rage and fear among people are also the result of stress and strain," Ramdev told IANS during a chat here.

Ramdev added that yoga was the best solution for the ailments inflicting a large section of the population. Yoga, he said, boosts productivity, quality and creativity in an individual's life.

Ramdev suggested that yoga should be a compulsory subject in school curricula. He said children should know about its importance and inculcate it in their daily routine right from the childhood.

He also said he was planning to establish a yoga university in the country, which was expected to take a concrete shape in the next two years. "Once the university is established, I plan to open its branches all over the country and the world," he added.

Working for yourself could make you happier

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 22:27:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Being self-employed could make you happier than working for employers, says a study.

Researchers at the University of Durham found that people who run their own businesses have flexibility and independence and enjoy far greater job satisfaction, reported the online edition of Daily Mail.

Self-employed workers who were successful in their 60s were less likely to retire, he said.

"We found that greater, or potentially greater, earnings around retirement age decreases the probability of retirement of the self-employed," researcher Simon Parker said.

"Gender, health and family circumstances appear to have little bearing on their retirement decisions." Even the job may be long on hours and short on pay but they enjoy it, the study said.

Young people should be the target for government schemes to encourage entrepreneurship, the researchers suggest.

Stress causing hair loss at age 16

Sat, 08 Apr 2006 04:49:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Stress is causing hair loss in people as young as 16 whereas the phenomenon once occurred only after 35, an expert in the field says.

"Nobody can escape stress in modern day life. Stress increases glucocorticoid levels. That acts like a male hormone and causes the thinning of hair," Mumbai-based Sonal Shah said.

"Initially, we used to see this beginning around 35 but now it has come down to as low as 16 and 18," Shah told IANS on the sidelines of a seminar on hair styling and care at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week here Friday.

Other contributory factors were diet and pollution, she added.

Shah and her husband Apporva are perhaps India's only trained trichologists, a specialist field with dealing with hair and scalp problems, including hair loss, baldness, scaling, itching, hair breakage, dryness and oiliness.

Trichology and trichological referral is an integral part of the services offered by the hairdressing professionals in the West. If hairdressers are the artists who create beautiful hairstyles then trichologists could be seen as the best "art supply store" for those who feel their hair quality is below expectations.

One way of preventing hair loss from stress was through detoxification or hair facials as this also served to rejuvenate the scalp, Shah said.

"The lymphatic system is the secondary circulatory system in our body which carries toxins, oxygen and nutrition supply to the cells. As soon as you detoxify, the toxins are removed away from that particular area so that more oxygen and nutrition is supplied to the cells," she explained.

How does the technique work?

"No instrument is used and neither do we apply anything. Using our hands, we work on the direction the lymphatic system is flowing to ease the toxins out. This also stimulates the hair follicles and helps in hair growth," Shah pointed out.

How was this different from a head massage?

"In a massage, you're agitating the scalp. In detoxification, you're relieving the scalp," Shah explained.

Sudden shock could weaken your heart

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 17:27:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A sudden shock like losing a loved one or a failed romance could make your heart weak, reiterates a study.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that sudden emotional stress could trigger a series of symptoms that mimic a serious heart attack causing severe heart muscle weakness.

Doctors call the condition stress cardiomyopathy, but it's often described to patients as "broken heart syndrome". It's usually treatable, and it rarely causes permanent damage, they said.

Not money, emotional engagement makes wives happy

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 17:02:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Emotional engagement, and not money, is the single most important factor in women's marital happiness, say researchers.

Most research on American marriages has focused on the division of housework and paid work -- who does what inside and outside the home.

The new study by researchers W. Bradford Wilcox and Steven L. Nock at University of Virginia looked at more than 5,000 couples. It found that wives care most about how affectionate and understanding their husbands are, and how much quality time they spend with their husbands.

The researchers also found that women whose husbands earn the lion's share of income, who don't work outside the home, or who share a strong commitment to lifelong marriage with their husbands report the highest levels of marital happiness -- in sharp contrast to academic conventional wisdom.

In addition, perceptions of fairness matter for married women. Women who report that the division of housework is fair are happier in their marriages than women who think that their husbands don't do their fair share.

"Conventional and academic wisdom now suggests that the 'best' marriages are unions of equals," Nock said.

"Our work suggests that the reality is more complicated. Wives are surely sensitive to imbalances in routine tasks and efforts, as almost all research shows.

"However, we find that they are more concerned with their husband's investments in the emotional content of the marriage. We interpret our results to suggest that partners need to pay more attention to how their partners feel about their relationship and about marriage generally, because equality does not necessarily produce equity."

It's love that determines a woman's weight!

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 17:56:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) It is not what a woman eats that dictates her size. It is love or the lack of it that determines her weight, says a new study.

Britain's WeightWatchers, which has helped millions of people around the world lose weight for over 40 years now, studied 3,000 married women and found the different stages the female figure goes through over the course of a lifetime, reported online edition of Daily Mail.

Almost 66 percent of those surveyed said their weight fluctuates depending on how happy they are at a specific time. And 84 percent said their relationship is the biggest factor in their well-being.

"A lot of women won't be surprised by these findings. Our emotions and relationships in particular have an enormous effect on our health and above all our weight," according to WeightWatchers.

"It's only natural when we have a period of unhappiness that we comfort eat and when we have an event like a wedding we will work hard to look our best."

According to the study, first a woman witnesses the Honeymoon Period, when she will lose an average of 8.5 pounds. This is when she's met the man of her dreams and everything is new and exciting. She's so keen to impress that she even orders salad for a romantic meal.

Next she passes through The Comfy Zone, when she will put on 11.3 pounds. This phase stretches to a few years and things are going well. She's so comfortable with her new man that after cosy nights in with a takeaway and a DVD, she has steadily piled on the pounds.

Stage three is The Big Day, when she will lose 9.2 pounds. At last, he has popped the question and there's nothing like a wedding to spur a girl on to look her best. Healthy eating, exercise and plenty of beauty treatments are the norm for any bride-to-be.

Then comes The Baby Boom, when she will put on 16 pounds after giving birth. New mothers have enough on their plate to be worrying about dieting.

Stage five is The Reinvention, when a woman will lose 16 pounds. The children are older and at last she and her husband have more time on their hands. She feels it's time for a midlife makeover to bring back the old spark.

Money is not the key to happiness

Tue, 27 Dec 2005 05:21:38 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Money is not the key to happiness, argues an editorial in this weeks BMJ - but family networks and having a full life outside work may do the trick.

Individuals usually get richer during their lifetimes but not happier says the author.

Research from Mexico, Ghana, Sweden, USA and the UK shows that despite vastly different levels of wealth, citizens of these countries report similar levels of satisfaction. And most advanced nations have seen almost no change to individuals happiness levels over the last 50 years, despite a huge hike in income.

This may be because people dont experience wealth without comparing it to others, says the author: As we realise one set of aspirations, it seems we immediately trade up to a more expensive set, to which we transfer our hopes for happiness.

Happiness also affects health, as demonstrated in the former Soviet Union where people are among the unhappiest in the world and their life expectancy is dropping.

However, one can improve ones chance of happiness by being married, says the author. Married people live on average three years longer and have better health and wellbeing than the unmarried. Well developed family, social and community networks social capital also have a positive effect.

Work is key to individual satisfaction, adds the author. Scant control over workload or decision-making correlates with lower happiness levels. And make sure youre not working so hard that youve no time left for personal relationships and leisure, says the author.

The happiness of its citizens should be the business of government, with ministers as answerable on happiness levels as they are on a nation's gross domestic product (GDP), he concludes.