HAPPY PEOPLE LIVE LONGER

It's Sunday.  Are you happy?  I asked Google Genesis about this.

Ipsos Global Happiness Studies: Roughly 64% to 71% of adults globally report being generally happy or satisfied with their lives, with about 14% to 15%] describing themselves as "very happy". [1, 2]

Gallup World Poll / World Happiness Report: Rather than asking if people are constantly joyful, Gallup asks respondents to evaluate their current life on a scale from 0 to 10 (with global averages hovering around a score of 5.57 out of 10). Finland ranks as the overall happiest country with a score of 7.74. [1, 2, 3]

My sense of happiness is sinusoidal, keeps changing, jumping around from prolonged euphoria to a sense of doom.  However, compared to those around me, overall, I would place myself in that 14%s to 15% Ipsos category mentioned above as generally very happy.  In the Gallup World Poll, I would think that 7.74 would be about right for me, like the average for Finland, the happiest country in the world.

Results of the 2026 World Happiness Report:

The results?

• Scandinavians are happy people.  Read why.
• Surprisingly, Israel is in the top ten.
• Mexico is #11
• #15 is Kosovo
• The USA is #22, between #21 Saudi Arabia and #23 Poland.  
• At least we're happier than Canada at #24.  
• In 2025, the U.S. was listed at #24, so I guess we are now doing better.  
• If this survey is taken today, after the midterm elections, I would bet that we would be in the top ten.

• 
  All the unhappy people live in the Middle East and Africa.
• How are our "enemies" doing?
• China placed #65.
• Russia is #79.
• North Korea was not surveyed.

What does Wikipedia say about the World Happiness Report?

• Published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, in partnership with Gallop and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
• Report primarily uses data from the Gallup World Poll.
• Finland has been #1 for the past 9 years.
• The report was released in 2012.
• Now is annually released on March 20.
• The report measures subjective well-being using the "Cantril ladder" to reflect people's own views, rather than external judgments. The goal is to free respondents to evaluate their own well-being.^[14][15] 

I asked Google Genesis if happy people live longer.

Yes, research generally shows a strong link between happiness (and optimism) and a longer life, though the relationship is complex and heavily tied to health, habits, and genetics.

Positive Correlation: Multiple long-term studies—such as the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and Harvard research—have found that people with higher levels of positive well-being or optimism are around 35% less likely to die over a given 5-year period, and optimists tend to live 11% to 15% longer on average.[1, 2, 3]

    

Why Happiness and Longevity Are Linked

Lower Stress: Happiness and positive outlooks reduce chronic stress, which lowers harmful stress hormones like cortisol and decreases body-wide inflammation. [1]
Healthier Habits: Happier or more optimistic people are more likely to exercise, eat well, stay socially connected, and follow medical advice. [1, 2]

Of course there are contrarians.  Here is one such view, with two quotes.

Additionally, the research team took out, to some extent, the role of selective survival of the happiest. This statistical problem is more complex than you might imagine, as it turns out. You can’t test people who aren’t alive, so instead, you have to approximate how they may have scored if they had been providing their happiness ratings to the end of the study. The alternative is to remove those who ultimately died from the scores of previous years so that the remaining data represent the people who actually show the longevity “dividend.”

To sum up, the Headey-Yong study falls into the category of “don’t believe everything you read” about happiness. If you’ve survived past the early period at which low life satisfaction would have led to your demise (which you obviously have), the chances are good that your happiness, if not your fulfillment, will set you on a healthy long-term course.

In short, this study said:  unhappy people die young, otherwise, happiness probably makes no difference.

Say you are kind of unhappy with your life, but still want to keep living as long as possible.  Usually, some combination of ailments, relationships, financial status and such make you miserable.  Life is hard.  You can believe contrarians and stay unhappy, or try to change . But how can one get happier?  Again, from Google Genesis:

You can get happier by focusing on daily actions and lifestyle choices that make up about 40% to 60% of your overall well-being. [1, 2]

Invest in relationships: Spend quality time with family and friends, and have deeper, more meaningful conversations where you truly listen and show curiosity.
Move your body: Exercise regularly, including aerobic activities or short bursts of high-intensity movement to release endorphins.
Keep learning: Take on new hobbies, read to learn, or stay mentally active to stimulate brain pathways and neurochemistry.

Practice gratitude and kindness: Focus on your strengths, count your blessings, and help others through volunteering.
Spend time in nature: Get outside to lower stress and improve your day-to-day mood.
Manage stress and sleep: Build good routines, limit anxiety-inducing media, and ensure your sleeping environment is dark and restful. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Finally, from Genesis:

• Research on happiness across ethnicities and cultures shows that well-being varies widely depending on geography, culture, and how happiness is measured. There is no single ethnicity that is universally the "happiest," as results shift significantly between global studies and U.S.-specific demographic data. [1, 2]

Women often report higher life satisfaction: In broad global surveys like the Gallup World Poll, women on average report higher overall life satisfaction and evaluative happiness than men. This holds true across many wealthier, educated, and urban contexts. [1, 2]

Single women vs. single men: Multiple studies indicate that single women report higher satisfaction with their relationship status and single life quality compared to single men. Researchers often link this to women maintaining stronger and broader platonic social networks and experiencing more autonomy.[1, 2, 3]

Married men vs. married women: Patterns frequently differ within marriages. While traditional findings note benefits from marriage for both sexes, some recent analyses suggest married men often derive consistent happiness and health benefits, whereas single women frequently report higher contentment than married women due to uneven distributions of domestic or emotional labor. [1, 2]

Age-related changes: Studies in behavioral and happiness economics show that the gap shifts over the lifespan. Women often report higher happiness earlier in adulthood, while men's happiness can increase or surpass women's by middle age (around the late 40s) or later life as employment and financial stability level out. [1, 2]

Got to end with Don't Worry, Be Happy, a 1988 song written and sung by Bobby McFerrin.  Video also features, Robin Williams and Bill Irwin.

• Had been working on writing this song for five years when he saw The Three Amigos, went to the studio the next day, recorded the song using his own funny accent.  Loved the movie but just saw that reviewers only gave it a 44 rating.
• This was the first a cappella song to reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and stayed there for two weeks.
• Featured in Tom Cruise's film, Cocktail.

• 
  The expression, don't worry, be happy, and will help you, came from Guru Meher Baba in the 1960s.
• Won for McFerrin Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in the 1989 Grammy Awards.  Has won 10 Grammys.
• Song was used in George H.W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign, and was protested by McFerrin, a Democrat.
• In 2011 was named as the worst song of all time by Village Voice critic Michael Musto.
• Robert Keith McFerrin Jr was born in 1950, making him 76 years old.  He was born on March 11.

• 
  Born in Manhattan, New York.  His father was an operatic baritone, and was the first African-American man to sing for the Metropolitan Opera. Was the voice of Sidney Poitier in Porgy and Bess.
• Not sure Bobby graduated, but attended several colleges.
• Married with three children, two musicians and an actor.
• Made regular tours as a guest conductor for symphony orchestras.  Regularly, the William Tell Overture.
• Is a one-hit wonder.
• Suffered from depression, and more recently of Parkinson's disease.  But don't worry, BE HAPPY!!!

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