Happy People DO Live Longer, 30-Year Study Finds

Happy people actually live longer than miserable people - and the effect is not due to wealth, health or other factors.

The large-scale study at the University of North Carolina questioned 30,000 adults over the course of 30 years.

The study found that, within a given time period, people who described themselves as unhappy were 14% more likely to die.

The thirty thousand volunteers were asked, ‘‘Taken all together, how would you say things are these days – very happy, pretty happy or not too happy?’.

The results were then compared against death records.

The researchers believe that the differences in mortality rates might be due to the fact that happy people are more able to withstand stress.

The researchers wrote, ‘Economists are concerned with economic security, criminologists with safety and violence prevention and public health advocates with unhealthy behaviour. We miss an important variable if we overlook happiness.

‘Higher incomes, crime-free neighbourhoods, and improved public health programs may provide security, safety, and reduced disease, but they do not necessarily engender happiness.

‘In addition to improving a population’s economic standard of living, access to medical care and healthy behaviour, policymakers should consider ways to make people happy, which may involve more community engagement; more city beautification projects; ways to help people manage stress and to relax; and encouraging strong, lasting, positive social ties among friends, neighbours, and families, including spouses.

‘Happiness may provide a route toward more enjoyable and longer lives.'