Is there a simple way to become and stay happy? Perhaps not, but if you want to be part of number one happy nation in the world, hurry up, pack your bags and make a move across the ocean to Denmark. Despite being "cold, dreary [and] unspectacular",[1] Denmark rates higher than any other country in the world on the happiness scale. Sun and exotic beaches apparently don't suffice for happiness.
The Happiest Place on Earth
What makes the Danes happier than all other nations? Christine Skelbæk Karsberg, a HR Business Partner, suggests that the Danes rate themselves highest on the happiness scale in part because of the country's extensive social network and good health care system. "Danes have a good social network for students, elderly and unemployed", says Karsberg, "and while virtually everyone likes to complain about our health care system, access to good medical care is an important factor". A further contributing element is the fact that Denmark is a free country. "People are allowed to be different without fearing exclusion", she adds.
The suggestion that access to good health care and a good social network contribute to happiness is also the conclusion of University of Leicester psychologist Adrian White's meta-analysis of the previous happiness surveys.[1] The meta-analysis analyzed data published by UNESCO, the CIA, the New Economics Foundation, the WHO, the Veenhoven Database, the Latinbarometer, the Afrobarometer, and the UNHDR.
In the original studies participants were asked to rate their own happiness and satisfaction with life. The meta-analysis looks at further factors, including health, wealth, access to education and the effects of war, famine, and national success on happiness. The meta-analysis indicates that a nation's level of happiness is closely correlated with health levels (correlation of 0.62), wealth (0.52), and access to education (0.51).
However, health, wealth and access to education cannot be the full explanation of why the Danes describe themselves as happier than other nations. Health levels and access to education are quite similar in most of the Scandinavian countries, but other Scandinavian countries do not rate quite as high on the happiness scale. Sweden is number 7 and Norway is number 19 of 178 countries rated for happiness.[1]
One thing that sets Denmark apart from Sweden and Norway is a greater overall population density. While everyone can feel alone even in the most crowded city, it is difficult to be truly isolated in a country with five and half million people covering only 43.098 square kilometers. According to Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, how happy we are is determined by our social networks.[2] Their research shows that within a social network, happiness spreads among people up to three degrees of separation.
Happiness Negatively Defined
White's meta-analysis of the original happiness surveys suggests that happiness partially consists in the lack of negative factors, for example, a lack of hunger, untreatable disease, loneliness and isolation.
These conclusions are consistent with recent brain research. Richard Davidson from the University of Wisconsin suggests that happiness arises when there is a relatively low activation of the fear center in the emotional brain (the amygdala) and the right pre-frontal cortex, and high activation of the left prefrontal cortex, which is associated with reasoning, decision-making and logical thought.[3]
Constant worries about how to get food on the table, how to find money for expensive health care and whether one has a job tomorrow make it practically impossible to feel happy. Fear and happiness are contrary feelings. But a lack of fear does not suffice for feeling happy. To feel happy we must also have a sense of self-worth and purpose. Access to good education and plenty of social interaction can give us a sense of uniqueness and meaningfulness.
Acceptance as a Way to Happiness
Social factors are often beyond our voluntary control. But what if we are still unhappy despite being in social circumstances that are perfectly in order? Our unhappiness may be due to suppressed painful emotions. According to positive psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar, a former Harvard professor, whose happiness courses were attended by some 800 people, the first thing to do to become happier is to accept painful emotions, "to accept them as part of being alive".[4] Acceptance, he adds, is a way to happiness. When we are unhappy, there are things we wish were better in our lives. We wish we earned as much money as our ambitious colleague, that the woman who left us for another man is going to return, that our disabled child were like other children. In some cases we can change the world to fit our wishes. But in far the most cases the only thing we can do is accept how things are. Only once we learn to accept that there are things that are beyond our voluntary control and learn to accept them the way they are can we be truly happy.
The Impact of Love and Marriage on Happiness
We all instinctively know that love can have a huge impact on our happiness and stress level. But not all kinds of love have this sort of positive influence. The beginning phases of love relationships in fact have the opposite effect. "When in love, individuals describe odd combinations of pleasure and pain, rapture and grief, ecstasy and disappointment. Love seems to provide a shuttle service that operates between only two destinations: heaven and hell", says Frank Tallis, author of Love Sick: Love as a Mental Illness.[5]
During the early honey phases of a relationship, our brains act chemically as if we are under great distress. The fear center of the emotional brain fires intensely, whereas the left pre-frontal cortex responsible for rational decision-making is on hold. The same unhealthy brain patterns can be seen in sufferers from verbally and physically abuse and in people whose obsessive love is not reciprocated.
The kinds of love that have the greatest impact on our happiness are the more compassionate forms of love, the sort of love we feel for our friends, children or long-term romantic partners. Unlike the unhealthy heaven-and-hell kinds of love, the more compassionate forms of love can have a positive impact on our happiness because they can make us feel needed and can contribute to our sense of purpose.
Turning to statistics, it is well known that marriage can have a positive impact on happiness. "Married people are on average happier than single people but that may not be a causal effect, just correlational; and the effect is not particularly strong", says Anna Alexandrova, a philosophy professor at the University of Missouri, Saint Louis. "Getting married or starting a relationship just on the basis of these statistical results isn't a good idea, since your own individual factors are likely to be far more important for the success of the relationship".
Alexandrova suggests that more solid statistical evidence comes from the studies of lost love. "People hardly ever manage to adapt after they lose their spouse to death or disease, whereas they do adapt to changes in money, health, physical characteristics but again this hardly argues against trying to find happiness in a relationship."
"So, we are back to the good old individual deliberation: does this particular person make me happy? Will this keep steady through thick and thin? Is it worth persevering given our particular circumstances? These questions are unlikely to be answered at the general statistical level", Alexandrova says.
References
[1] World map of happiness: Denmark on top [http://www.peterhorn.dk/ExecutiveMagazine/Stoppress/061031_world_map_of_happiness_denmark_on_top.asp]
[2] “People who post smiley photos on Facebook/Frowners attract happy friends”; Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler; Nature; 2008.
[3] Lab for Affective Neuroscience [http://psyphz.psych.wisc.edu/]
[4] Five Ways to Become Happier Today [http://bigthink.com/ideas/16660]
[5] Love Sick: Love as a Mental Illness; Frank Tallis; 2005.
Photo Credits
The photo is from Wikipedia's public domain.