Are Happy People Really Healthier? Yes!
The happiness-health relationship isn’t magic – although some parts of it may be biological, a big part of why happy people are healthier stems from behaviors that come more easily to happy people. A study by Bob Emmons and colleagues found that people who experience gratitude on a regular basis are more likely to spontaneously exercise, and they also get better sleep. These short-term health behaviors lead to long-term benefits like longer life span. So if getting happier doesn’t seem worth the effort by itself, think abut the health benefits!
Dr. Acacia Parks is an instructor in positive psychology, a researcher and a member of the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. Dr. Parks has taught a variety of classes on how to use positive psychology interventions, and she often gets questions from students and clients about what will work best for them.
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Acacia,
Was the study correlational or cauational and did it last?
Perhaps exercise makes people happy?
The changes in exercise and sleep quality came after the practice of the gratitude exercise. Not sure about how long it lasted in this study (they may not have done long term follow-ups – I can check), but the thing to keep in mind is that if an effect only lasts so long as a technique is practiced, it’s still a win. You only stay in shape so long as you exercise, so it stands to reason that you will only stand to benefit from gratitude so long as you keep doing it.
Acacia – too many questions left unanswered. What sort of exercise did they do? How long did it last? Did the actually exercise or just reported that they exercised? Did they keep exercising? Was there a dose response? Was it gender specific? can the resulst be extrapoloted to the rest of the population?
You might be interested in this research on positive emotions and exercise.
http://www.innate-intelligence.com.au/blog/?p=259
Or this article about a possible mechanism
http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/guest-author/200810071062
It sounds like you want to read the study yourself! Here is the reference (I am pretty sure this is the right study).
Emmons, R.A., & McCullough, M.E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: Experimental studies of gratitude and subjective well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 377-389
Acacia – just checked out the research – there were three groupds – gratitude, hassles and events (where people reported what they did – I guess the control).
Exercise increase was only significant compared to the hassles group – not the control.
Not a glowing testimonial for the link between gratitude and exercise.
Not sure I agree – isn’t it kind of the norm to focus on one’s hassles? People tend to think they are doing themselves a favor by focusing on problems, but it’s clearly not helpful in this case. The hassles case emulates something that a lot of people do, thinking they are helping themselves.
Like any study, this needs to be replicated and expanded upon, but I don’t think the lack of a difference with the control group renders the finding meaningless.
Did they do any parts on how much you laugh? That would be cool to know!
Came here via Positively Present. She and you rock.
Hi Jannnie – thanks for your comment! They didn’t look at this, though I think there is some research out there on the health benefits of laughing. There are two relevant tidbits: 1) laughing means positive emotion, and positive emotion is good for your health, and 2) laughing, if you do it enough, is kind of a physical workout. #1 is the most heavily supported by research (and it is really, really heavily supported) but people are definitely arguing #2, also. If you google around, you can even find estimates of how many calories you burn when laughing! Ha!
Given the limitations of the research you are quoting the article probably should have read
Are happier people really healthier – perhaps?
If you are female, under 25 and are prone to focus on hassles then gratitude might help
Wayne – there is no question that generally speaking, happiness leads to better physical health (not to mention long-term success). A meta-analysis came out in 2005 by Lyubomirsky, King and Diener in which they made this argument quite compellingly. The study by Emmons and McCullough that I talked about was just an example of this effect (I picked gratitude since it’s a topic addressed often on happier.com), but there are many, many examples. I hoped to provide in this brief blurb an idea of how this broader, more long-term effect (e.g. that happier people live longer and are generally healthier) might manifest itself on a day-to-day basis (through things like exercise and sleep quality).
Yep – seen that study as well
Heaps of questions as well
eg. Do happier people report less illness beacuse they have a positive bias?
Off to do some exercise? And why do I do it – I’m one of those lucky people who expereience an exercise high. I guess I should be grateful that I experience an exercise high
Enjoy you evening.
HI all – great to see the questions and discussions about the blog post. And Acacia – thanks for following up with some additional reading opportunities for people.
-Andrew
a member of the team at happier.com
Very interesting post and I also love reading the comments. Well, for me happy people are healthier.