Happiness is contagious!

It's official - happiness is catching!

A new study, carried out by Harvard Medical School and published last week in the British Medical Journal, found that people who are surrounded by happy people are more likely to be happy themselves.

This means that YOU are more likely to be happy if you have a happy spouse, happy neighbours, and happy friends who live near by!

The researchers used a technique called 'social network analysis' to find out who was friends with whom, and how this related to how happy each person felt. Like all research, the study has its strengths and weaknesses, but overall the findings are significant and reliable, as well as cheering!

The more happy people you know, the happier you are likely to be; and the nearer those people are to you, the bigger the happiness-effect will be.

It seems that communities have an important role in making individuals happy. As the researchers themselves say, there is now "further justification for seeing happiness, like health, as a collective phenomenon". This chimes with other research this year which suggested a new formula for happy communities: Neighbourliness + Empowerment = Wellbeing.

Now, although we may be encouraged to go out and find lots of happy people to surround ourselves with, this equation is also a reminder that happiness isn't everything. I'm sure we all know a grouchy-but-supportive neighbour or relative - the sort of person who's good in a crisis, who'll help when your pipes burst in the middle of the night, or when you need an emergency babysitter. Also, those random acts of kindness that spread so much happiness can even be carried out by someone in a bad mood. (Bus drivers specialise in this, I find!)

And of course, more often than not, you make yourself happy when you spread happiness. You'll all know the feeling: you start out miserable, but then you do something kind and spread a little happiness - and soon you feel much better!

Yes, happiness spreads like the 'flu ... and 'though we're most likely to catch it from our friends, sometimes even a misery-guts can pass it on!






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