I have long believed, and now teach, that happiness and joy are habits that can be learned. Depression often runs in families, but it is my belief that this is because of belief systems and habits of reaction that are passed down from one generation to the next. A new scientific study shows that happiness “spreads among people removed up to three degrees from each other.”
Sadness also spreads in a network, but not as quickly, the researchers found. Each happy friend increases your own chance of being happy by 9 percent, whereas each unhappy friend decreases it by 7 percent. This reflects the total effect of all social contacts.
When framing the question differently, the study found that you are 15 percent more likely to be happy if a direct connection is happy, 10 percent if the friend of a friend is happy, and 6 percent if it’s a friend of a friend of a friend.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, used data from the Framingham Heart Study to recreate a network of 4,739. Fowler and co-author Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School charted friends, spouses and siblings in the network, and used their self-reported happiness ratings from 1983 to 2003.
So how does happiness spread? Like a virus, or like fairy dust? I propose that happiness spreads because when we are with happy people who make us feel good, we let go of our habits of unhappiness and our negative beliefs. It’s interesting that happy co-workers do not have the same effect as happy friends or friends of friends – perhaps because we are more easily able to separate ourselves from them as being intrinsically different. And the same effect was not seen among siblings, for whom sibling rivalry may be an issue that keeps the happiness bug from spreading.
At any rate, there is no doubt that the happier we are, the better the influence we have on the world around us. This positive influence continues to reverberate, improving our own happiness quotient and our ability to withstand difficult times while maintaining a positive outlook. In difficult times like these, we can still find happiness in areas of our life, and focusing on these positive areas will help to improve our lives and the lives of those around us.
posted December 6, 2008 at 11:13 am
When I watched/listened to this on the morning news, it struck as great timing for a piece on happiness coming out during Sagittarius Season. Being a generally happy sort myself [Venus in Sag in the first]my experiences are pretty much in keeping with their findings.
Didn’t surprise me to see a post on this on your blog, Lynn, as you generally seek to strike a balance [Libra] here with a subtle but positive tone.
posted December 8, 2008 at 12:40 am
I agree with you totally. But then I am a Sag with Sun in the 9th house. I am built to be focused on a half full glass. The irony is that my Saturn is in Sag in the 9th and which means even my Scrooge side can still find the sunny side of the street. I will have a ton of snarky saturn comments but it is still sunny!
my astro blog:
http://tracyastrosalon.blogspot.com/
posted December 8, 2008 at 5:29 am
Being a generally happy sort myself [Venus in Sag in the first]my experiences are pretty much in keeping with their findings
Thanks Neith. As a person who grew up a depressed kid in a depressed family, I can tell you for certain that happiness is a learned emotion. I see this with my mother who moved to my town about eight years ago. Even she, at 80+, is learning that her habitually negative attitude keeps her locked in depression and that she can change her emotions by changing the way she thinks about them. It’s pretty amazing!