Better busy than doing nothing, scientist proves

The secret to happiness is keeping busy, research has found. 

"Keeping the mind occupied with tasks - no matter how meaningless - staves off negative emotions, the study found. 

However, the bad news is that humans seem hard-wired to be lazy in order to save energy, according to Professor Christopher Hsee, a behavioural scientist at Chicago University.'

In a study 98 students were asked to complete two survey. After they had completed the first they were made to wait 15 minutes to receive the next one.

They were given a choice of either handing in the first survey nearby or at a more distant location they had to walk to. Whichever option they chose, they received a chocolate bar.

Two-thirds (68 per cent) chose the lazy option.

Those who had taken the walk reported feeling happier than those who had stayed put.
Prof Hsee concluded keeping busy helped keep people happy.

He said the findings, reported in the journal Psychological Science, had policy implications.
"Governments may increase the happiness of idle citizens by having them build bridges that are actually useless", he proposed.

At the individual level, he advised: "Get up and do something. Anything. Even if there really is no point to what you are doing, you will feel better for it."

He added: "Incidentally, thinking deeply or engaging in self-reflection counts as keeping busy, too.

"You do not need to be running around, – you just need to be engaged, either physically or mentally."

The academic revealed he had tested the principle by getting a research assistant to carry out pointless tasks.
"I know this is not particularly ethical, but he is happy," he said."

 

All Is Not So Bad in the State of Denmark

"Sweden has more blond beauties per capita, Italy and France have far better cuisine, and most of the free world can boast of better weather. But over the past 30 years, the citizens of Denmark have scored higher than any other Western country on measures of life satisfaction, and scientists think they know why.

In a paper appearing in the Dec. 23 issue of the medical journal BMJ, researchers review six likely and unlikely explanations, and conclude that the country’s secret is a culture of low expectations. “It’s a David and Goliath thing,” said the lead author, Kaare Christensen, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. “If you’re a big guy, you expect to be on the top all the time and you’re disappointed when things don’t go well. But when you’re down at the bottom like us, you hang on, you don’t expect much, and once in a while you win, and it’s that much better.”

The researchers arrived at their findings by a process of elimination and humor. Blonds may have more fun, they argue, but Sweden has a higher prevalence of them. As for climate, Danes “bask in a somewhat colder and cloudier version of the balmy English weather.” They also eat fatty foods and drink a lot, and genetically they are not significantly different from their gloomier Scandinavian neighbors. And in 1992 the Danes won the European Championship in soccer, creating “such a state of euphoria that the country has not been the same since.”

But on surveys, Danes continually report lower expectations for the year to come, compared with most other nations. And “year after year, they are pleasantly surprised to find that not everything is getting more rotten in the state of Denmark,” the paper concludes."