When were you happiest? Was it as a carefree child, a rambunctious teenager, a happily married middle-aged person, or someone, like me, in the later stages of life?
I can remember many moments of intense happiness, from falling in love to seeing my children born, but now that I am 66 years old, I am happier than ever. And that’s consistent with the findings of a recent study called the World Happiness Report: that your later years can also be your happiest.
This report is an annual survey of more than 1.6 million people, conducted in 156 countries. Citizens of Scandinavian countries such as Finland, Denmark and Norway typically top the charts, mainly due to their high incomes, good healthcare and mutual trust; The United Kingdom is currently in position 20.
As part of the latest report, researchers decided to look, for the first time, at which age groups in a country were the happiest or unhappiest.
They found that in the UK people over 60 are the happiest; Those between 30 and 44 years old are the least happy.
There are some obvious reasons why people over 60 in the UK might be happier than the rest of the population, including the fact that we tend to be more financially secure.
The report also confirmed previous research showing that happiness tends to follow a U-shaped curve, with happiness rates falling as you move from adolescence to middle age.
Typically, people reach the bottom of the curve around age 40, after which the curve begins to rise, until old age, when poor health and loneliness take their toll and the happiness curve flattens.
There are some obvious reasons why people over 60 in the UK might be happier than the rest of the population, including the fact that we tend to be more financially secure, with fewer work and family pressures.
The report found, for example, that people over 60 felt they had more freedom to make important life decisions than before.
It also showed that as people age, they tend to become less self-obsessed and place more importance on remembering and celebrating the positive aspects of their lives, which are key to greater happiness.
We also seem to become more confident as we get older, which is good for mental health. But that doesn’t mean we’re becoming more gullible: the report notes that while scammers often target older people because they assume they’re vulnerable, it’s the young and middle-aged who are most likely to be scammed.
This is because, according to the report, although older people tend to be more trusting, they are also more careful about where that trust is placed. But it’s not all good news for those over 60. Poor health affects happiness, although what is important is not the severity of the health problem, but how much it affects daily life.
A study of 383 middle-aged patients, published in the Journal of Happiness Studies in 2012, found that cancer patients, whose daily functioning was not seriously affected by their condition, scored higher on the happiness scale than people with urinary incontinence, which can really increase daily misery.
What about the money? Does it buy you happiness? Comedian Spike Milligan once stated that “money can’t buy you happiness, but it does buy you a more pleasant form of misery,” but in fact there is plenty of evidence that the higher your income, the happier you are, although this does not It’s like that. is necessarily the case for everyone.
A study last year by the University of Pennsylvania concluded that the impact of income on happiness depends on your emotional well-being. If you are a miserable person, then increasing your income will make you happier, until you reach an income of £80,000 a year, when it stabilizes.
For the rest of us, however, it seems that more income means more happiness, with no obvious upper limit, although researchers are quick to add that “money is just one of many determinants of happiness.” So besides getting older and getting a pay rise, what else can you do to increase your happiness?
Researchers at the University of Bristol recently published a study, based on questionnaires from people who had taken their “science of happiness” course, showing that you can learn to be happy, but to keep your levels high you have to keep working at it. . Here are some of their tips to increase happiness:
- Talk to strangers; Although most of us (myself included) avoid doing precisely this, there is evidence that short chats, even just with the person selling you a coffee, will improve your mood. This is because we are social creatures and benefit from even brief social interactions.
- Spend more money on others than on yourself: Studies have shown that gift-giving activates the reward centers in our brains, providing a greater boost than spending on ourselves.
- Spend time in nature; This deactivates parts of the brain linked to negative ruminations, where you become trapped in a loop of negative thoughts.
- Be kind to others: Research shows that being kind and compassionate improves the well-being and happiness of both the giver and the receiver.
One of the last things most of us would want to do is eat moldy foods (unless it’s blue cheese).
This is usually wise because the fungi that mold food can also produce poisons, called mycotoxins, that can make you very sick.
But now a team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US is using fungi to produce food; They recently created a burger with Aspergillus oryzae that has been genetically modified to look and taste like meat.
The scientists’ goal is to produce tasty, healthy and animal-free products. But are you ready for it?
Tooth decay linked to bowel cancer
It is increasingly clear that good dental hygiene (brushing and flossing twice a day) protects not only your teeth, but also your heart and brain.
It is increasingly clear that good dental hygiene (brushing and flossing twice a day) protects not only your teeth, but also your heart and brain. This is because bacteria that cause cavities can cause inflammation in the blood vessels.
Now, research in the journal Nature shows that a bacteria called Fusobacterium nucleatum, a common cause of cavities, can travel from the mouth to the intestine and help cause bowel cancer. The researchers analyzed biopsies taken from 200 bowel cancer patients and found Fusobacterium nucleatum in half of the tumors; Furthermore, patients whose tumors were infected with this bacteria were significantly more likely to die from an aggressive form of the disease.
The same researchers have previously shown that the bacteria produces a molecule that stimulates the growth of cancer cells. Yet another reason to brush and floss.
Why getting out of bed helps fight insomnia
Insomniacs tend to be bombarded with advice, some sensible, much of it ridiculous. So what really works?
A recent review by the University of Tokyo Hospital, which analyzed 241 studies on sleep, found that typical NHS advice, such as getting more exercise and keeping your bedroom cool, dark and quiet, can help if you have any sleepless nights. sleep occasionally. . But it has little impact on chronic insomnia.
What really works is sleep restriction therapy, stimulus control, and mindfulness.
With the first, you reduce the time you spend in bed to about six hours a night for a few days, to teach your brain to associate “bed” with “sleeping,” not with being awake and worried.
Stimulus control also points to this: if you are awake at 3 in the morning, don’t just lie there, get up and do something boring, like reading a boring book or listening to soft music. Only when you are sleepy should you go back to bed.
As for mindfulness, it is a way to stop engaging in thoughts that make you anxious. I think the easiest way to distract myself is to breathe slowly and deeply. After a few minutes, I’m usually asleep (find out more about these approaches in my new book, 4 Weeks To Better Sleep).