Skip to main content

Happiness is contagious

the new social network analysis showed that that contagious effect extends three "degrees" - as far as a friend of a friend of a friend - and drops off with time and distance. The effects can last a year, researchers said in British Medical Journal.

"Your happiness is not just about your own choices and actions and behaviors and thoughts," said Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a coauthor of the study and a professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School. "It's like there are emotional stampedes that ripple across this infinite fabric of humanity."

This new study looks at spouses, coworkers, siblings, neighbors, and friends. Using comprehensive data collected on 4,739 people over two decades, the researchers studied individuals' levels of happiness and their social relationships. A happy friend who lives within a mile, for example, boosts your odds of being happy by 25 percent, researchers found. A happy sibling within the same distance increases your probability of happiness by 14 percent. It seems obvious that your closest friends might influence your mood, but the study found that even the happiness of a friend's friend boosts your chance of being happy by 9.8 percent. Even more surprising, the happiness of a friend of a friend of a friend boosts your chance of being happy by 5.6 percent.

Unhappiness, on the other hand, did not spread as much.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Identification...

Identification is possession, the assertion of ownership.  Ownership denies love.  To own is to be secure; Possession is defense, making oneself invulnerable.  When there is defense, there will be no love.  Love is vulnerable, pliable, and receptive; it is the highest form of sensitivity.  Identification makes for insensitivity.  Identification destroys love. Identification destroys freedom.  Love or sensitivity exists only in freedom. Truth or happiness cannot come without undertaking the journey into the ways of the self.  You are anchored means you cannot travel far.  Identification is a refuge. A refuge needs protection
Post a Comment
Read more

Individual effort to reduce Global warming

Biodiversity is very much essential for life to exist on earth. It is our responsibility to protect and preserve the biodiversity of earth. Biodiversity is getting affected by global warming. Global warming or green house effect is happening mainly because of an alarming rate of increase in green house gases in the atmosphere. We are hearing about global warming everyday, the snow caps are melting, level of sea rising, floods in many countries, increasing number of hurricanes etc. Sooner than later every one of us has to understand the impact of greenhouse gases on biodiversity and help to achieve a healthy biodiversity on earth. Instead of depending on government to implement policies to reduce green house gas emission and there by reduce greenhouse effect. Everyone of us individual do the things to reduce the green house gases and protect the biodiversity of nature. Here are a few ways an individual can do to conserve our biodiversity. Walk - If the distance is walkable please wal...
1 comment
Read more

Importance of Breathing

Breathing is the primary function of human body which keeps him alive. This signifies the importance of breathing, we are alive till we are breathing and we are dead once we stop breathing. But we hardly ever notice that we are breathing, breathing normally happens mechanically.You may ask me why should I know about breathing when it is automatically taken care off. Yes, it is automatically happening, but that is the problem, when breathing happens without our consciousness, it gets affected by our emotions and most of the time we will be doing shallow breathing. Our emotions vary across the day, getting angry, always in a hurry, sad etc. In turn during these emotions our mind works more on emotions and forgets breathing, when breathing is neglected it often becomes shallow and abnormal.At any point if we just observe our breathing we will know what state of mind we are in, we are at peace or going through a problem or trouble. If we are at peace or joyous our breathing will be normal,...
2 comments
Read more