
Can Happiness Make You Healthier? - lc1234
http://harvardmagazine.com/2016/11/can-happiness-make-you-healthier
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6stringmerc
Uh, isn't there a pretty well-established link between negative self-image /
negative feelings and potentially self-destructive / self-harm type behaviors?

I guess my thinking about this conundrum is that anything regarding
"happiness" or "health" \- in my opinion - comes down to an issue of
sustainability. Sure, I can be happy on the day I get some good news, but will
I be happy on the day where I have to sit through frustrating traffic and
getting cut off by every asshole leasing a Land Rover and going to work about
the same time as me? Hm, I mean, I can try, but it's not like I can reach into
the glove box, grab a carrot stick, chomp away and suddenly feel like I've
just gotten out of having a nice swim off the coast of Cabo San Lucas.

As a species I do think studies considering what makes us "happy" and
"healthy" and how we can treat "depression" or other "disabilities" of various
degrees are worthwhile. But, when I see goals like this:

> _Other studies will aim to establish best practices for corporate wellness
> programs by testing their efficacy._

I just laugh, because we already know the combination of how to make people
happier and healthier (don't over work them, provide time for exercise,
provide guidance and resources to eat appropriate diet as fresh as feasable)
but there's not a "study" yet that has convinced the working US corporate
culture to change. Maybe Harvard can finally do it. Yay.

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AnimalMuppet
> Uh, isn't there a pretty well-established link between negative self-image /
> negative feelings and potentially self-destructive / self-harm type
> behaviors?

More than that. There's a pretty well-established link between long-term heavy
stress and a huge number of health issues. Definitely heart problems, but IIRC
also immune system health and strokes, and perhaps even cancer.

If you don't believe me, no, I don't have any documentation handy...

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Jemmeh
Interestingly it's probably not actually stress that is killing you, it's how
you handle stress. There was a really popular TED talk about it-- people who
were stressed but didn't view it as a bad thing were still fine health wise.
It was people who were stressed and also believed that was a bad thing that
suffered.

How to make stress your friend | Kelly McGonigal:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcGyVTAoXEU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcGyVTAoXEU)

~~~
thatcat
Stress can cause growth (like when you exercise) and stress can be toxic(like
when you're burned out). The problem with the study referenced in the video is
that the people who don't see stress as bad likely aren't experiencing any
negative physiological effects so obviously wouldn't die at the same rate as
those who hold the opposing belief and experienced the negative physiological
effects traditionally correlated with stress.

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Jemmeh
That's not a "problem" with the study, that's the entire point. The entire
point is that stress isn't the issue, it's perceiving stress to be a bad thing
that is bad for your health.

It's not talking about "good stress" or "bad stress".

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akshayB
There is a connection between being happy and living a healthy life. We can
take a look at so many examples where happiness and being positive changes the
prospective of how you feel. For example, when you are going to a week long
vacation you feel so happy, all your work related stress is gone. Even after
miles of hiking you will get tired but not stressed out. But the same thing
hits you hard Sunday night thinking about going to work Monday morning.

Sometimes it is hard for science to prove things but there is a clear
evidence.

~~~
tluyben2
A long time ago my wife and I just simply swapped monday and sunday. For us
mondays were crappy simply because others seem to wind themselves up the
entire weekend only to leave for work monday morning ready to stress everyone
around them out. It seems quite a common thing. I'm hard to stress out these
days, but people who were easily stressed before benefited massively from just
'not doing' mondays.

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maxxxxx
When I am happy my body is much more resilient to getting sick and injuries.
It just seems that everything is working better and I feel stronger. When I am
depressed my joints hurt and exercise is much harder.

I strongly believe there is a feedback loop. Being healthy makes you happy and
happiness makes you healthier.

~~~
frenchy
I'm doubtful its really quite as simple as that. This is really only an
anecdote, but a pattern I've noticed while leading mountain climbing trips is
that feeling good [1] is strongly connected with people's ability to feel
safe, ignore their own aches and pains, take risks, and look out for the
welfare of the team; while feeling bad is strongly connected with fatigue,
risk-aversion, and an inability to think about anything beyond your own
immediate needs.

I'm not sure about any particular cause and effect here, but my experience
suggests to me that there is a strong psychological effect here[2] where
feeling good or bad has significant effect on the perception of your own well-
being.

[1] I don't want to use the term happiness as it is too vague.

[2] Which may be physiological too, like low glucose levels leading to an
altered psychological state.

~~~
agumonkey
I also made this theory that for an adult, pain is unnecessary and a sign of
instability; while for a kid it's a sign of new information and learning
stimulus. A lot of time kids will be a lot more oblivious to short and medium
pain than an adult (of course, too high and they cry). The gist of it is that
we process nociception differently depending on mood, age, perspective.

Similarly an unknown source of pain develop and increase over time, while if
it's for a known and potentially positive future benefit it will just stay
tagged as a temporary information.

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lucidz
I'm certainly no expert on happiness. I feel like i'm always ice skating on a
highwire. But I think one important thing to do is, when things are good,
don't be afraid to admit, out loud, that things are good.

I think being on edge and always waiting for the other shoe to fall hampers
the enjoyment of the high. For most of us, life is crests and valleys, but
while in the valleys, we are used to saying "Oh my god, this is so bad"
instead of "Only way to go from here is up!", I notice that in the crests,
people tend to not say "Man, things are really GREAT right now!"

I try to make it a habit to point this out fairly often.

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sbob
Not sure if happiness can make you healthier but good health can definitely
make you happier.

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mtw
A better word than "happiness" should be satisfaction. Happiness can be for me
instant joy or a good cup of hot chocolate. Satisfaction is more long-term and
being satisfied with what you what, instead of joining the rat race.

And satisfaction is obviously linked to health outcomes.

~~~
lucidz
Sometimes definitely wonder how many people read the article.

the article actually starts: IN THE QUEST to study human happiness, including
its causes and effects, even agreeing on a definition is a formidable
undertaking. Joy, euphoria, contentment, satisfaction—each of these, at times,
has been used as a proxy or emphasized in research studies.

So i mean, they basically get that idea out of the way in the first paragraph.

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randomgyatwork
We have a lot of junk food snacks at the office, when I'm tired or stressed I
eat them, when I'm rested and not stressed I can easily stay away.

This type of situation seems to exist in many different ways in my life, so
its easy to see how I'd be healthier if I was happier.

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stevenkovar
Happiness is fleeting. Content-ness is what feels most de-stressing to me.
Perhaps we can call it fulfillment.

I find that I experience more flashes of happiness when I am most content; and
I get there by removing stressors and handling the "small things" in life that
have a tendency to pile up.

Overall, I think we as a society focus too much on money, love, and happiness.
Each feel better as a byproduct of effort rather than the goal. For example,
some of the healthier businesses I've seen started were created with the
passion for helping people more than profiting from them.

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rolling_robot
There is also a beautiful course on EdX "The science of happiness" where they
show beneficial impact of happiness on health.
[https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:BerkeleyX+GG101x+3...](https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:BerkeleyX+GG101x+3T2016/info)

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Grazester
without reading this article I bet blood pressure is mentioned. I have always
been told that basically being happy leads to lower blood pressure which is
certainly a good thing.

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yanjuk
I conjecture that unhappy people are continually inhibiting certain ideas.
This consumes attentional bandwidth which otherwise would go into
managing/healing the body.

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uremog
My casual, general reasoning is that more happiness approximates less stress,
which means less health problems in general.

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awinter-py
They're correlated, so, definitely yes?

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runeks
I think it's the other way around: being unhappy makes you unhealthy.

~~~
Jtsummers
The two ideas are hardly mutually exclusive.

Unhappy/stressed => worse health than baseline

Moderate level of contentment/stress => baseline

Happy/unstressed => better health than baseline

The questions are: is that the correct order of implications and does
happiness produce better than baseline health.

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ommunist
Happiness is bad for business. Happy and self-reliant people are bad
performing consumers. Especially for pharma and political products. You will
soon see that happiness will be legally prohibited everywhere.

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ausjke
If laugh-loud is one measure of happiness, then I found most loud-laugher tend
to be a bit on the heavier side.

It's said when you're upset, you're basically generating toxic cells inside
your body.

yes I believe happiness leads to health, except for frequent-loud-laughs.

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fraggle89375
Probably. But karma is a bitch. Meaning your happiness of today is a bomb
truck full of bad things set to explode in your face tomorrow. So I think its
wise not to enjoy anything too much.

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danharaj
This is a misinterpretation of the concept of karma.

