NYT: Happiness Doesn’t Bring Good Health, Study Finds

[Never Give Up]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/health/happiness-health-study.html?ref=health&_r=0

Hahahahahahahah!

A study published on Wednesday in The Lancet, following one million middle-aged women in Britain for 10 years, finds that the widely held view that happiness enhances health and longevity is unfounded.

“Happiness and related measures of well-being do not appear to have any direct effect on mortality,” the researchers concluded.

He and his fellow researchers decided to look into the subject because, he said, there is a widespread belief that stress and unhappiness cause disease.

Such beliefs can fuel a tendency to blame the sick for bringing ailments on themselves by being negative, and to warn the well to cheer up or else.

...“Believing things that aren’t true isn’t a good idea,”

...The new study says earlier research confused cause and effect, suggesting that unhappiness made people ill when it is actually the other way around.

 

[Never Give Up]

Those who are commenting seem to be having a hard time having their illness beliefs challenged.

 

[Skippa]

Haha, well I always said a long life is punishment for miserable sods.

 

[John Mac]

Great news.....

 

[Esther12]

Despite its lack of health benefits, I still like being happy.

 

[Marco]

Despite it's lack of health benefits, I still like being happy.

True. But at least you don't have to worry about any negative health effects in addition to feeling miserable if that's the case.

 

[whodathunkit]

Despite its lack of health benefits, I still like being happy.

And your avatar shows it!

I've found that deliberately choosing hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds is much better for me than trying to be mindlessly happy. I always have the power to choose hope without faking it even when my biochemistry doesn't really support me feeling cheerful or even optimistic. With hope, I can still indulge in being situationally grumpy or morose without the bad feelings completely taking over my life. They pass, and what remains is just pure not giving up, even if it ain't particularly happy.

 

[Simon]

Does happiness itself directly affect mortality? The prospective UK Million Women Study - The Lancet

Findings
...Self-rated poor health at baseline was strongly associated with unhappiness.

Who'd have thought it?

But after adjustment for self-rated health, treatment for hypertension, diabetes, asthma, arthritis, depression, or anxiety, and several sociodemographic and lifestyle factors (including smoking, deprivation, and body-mass index), unhappiness was not associated with mortality from all causes (adjusted RR for unhappy vs happy most of the time 0·98, 95% CI 0·94–1·01), from ischaemic heart disease (0·97, 0·87–1·10), or from cancer (0·98, 0·93–1·02).

Findings were similarly null for related measures such as stress or lack of control.

Actually, even those very keen on biopychocial theories had had to abandon such views quite a long time ago, due to excessive evidence it was simply wrong. As someone pointed out here.

Interpretation
In middle-aged women, poor health can cause unhappiness. After allowing for this association and adjusting for potential confounders, happiness and related measures of wellbeing do not appear to have any direct effect on mortality.

Despite its lack of health benefits, I still like being happy.

Great. And now I can enjoy being grumpy even more.

“Good news for the grumpy” is one way to interpret the findings

 

[TiredSam]

Great. And now I can enjoy being grumpy even more.

Amen to that

 

[A.B.]

Quite liberating isn't it?

 

[alex3619]

Happiness and positivity are not magic. They do not bring magical results. However if you were to investigate quality of life you might find the happier people had a higher quality of life experience. It does have an impact, its just not the stuff that some are hyped about. Being happy is something most of us wish for. Its a motivator. Its good. Its just not magic.

 

[jimells]

Happiness is irrelevant. It's all I can do to get through another day. That doesn't mean every moment of every day is agony and misery - far from it. It just means there is nothing left over for "Happiness".

I believe the situation is similar for millions of working stiffs. After working two or three part time jobs and dealing with the endless administrative b.s. that dominates so much of "modern" life, many folks simply have nothing left over for their family, never mind chasing after some illusory "Happiness" state. To me it's another way for people to feel inadequate and blame themselves for whatever situation they are in.

 

[Christian Godbout]

"Study finds that happiness doesn't cure illnesses". - But one thing is for sure:

"Study finds that being cured from a lifelong illness brings happiness"!

(the study of my dreams)

 

[SOC]

The new study says earlier research confused cause and effect...

What!? Psychology studies confusing cause and effect? Say it isn't so! The next thing is that we'll find they continually confuse correlation and causation.


Sure is a lot of confusion about basic science going on in psychological research, isn't there?

 

[Sean]

Findings were similarly null for related measures such as stress or lack of control.

You don't say?

 

[Forbin]

This study challenges everything I ever learned from my lucky astrology mood watch!

 

[ahimsa]

Bad news for the "Smile or Die" crowd.

(phrase is from a book title, see http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/09/barbara-ehrenreich-smile-lucy-ellmann )