Happiness linked to healthy lifestyle, religion and working hours: Study

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDOct 4 2010

Earlier belief that happiness is a genetic trait influenced by early life experiences has been contradicted by new research from Germany. This new study found that feelings of happiness and wellbeing respond to external factors such as healthy lifestyle, religion and working hours. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to lead author Associate Professor Bruce Headey of the Melbourne Institute at the University of Melbourne, genes can take you only half the distance when it comes to happiness and external factors account for the rest. The team used data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey (SOEP) that interviewed more than 60,000 people aged 16 years or older, every year between 1984 and 2008. Results showed that a large numbers of the participants reported substantial and apparently permanent changes in satisfaction, or happiness, indicating that set-point theory has significant flaws.

Set point theory in psychology is a dominant one and it says that long-term happiness in adults is essentially stable, or has a set-point, relying on genetic factors, including personality traits moulded and expressed early in life. It has been debated for a while now with many experts believing that because happiness levels are both innate and unique to each individual, and there is little point in intervening in people's lives on either micro or macro levels, such as through economic policy, which would have little if any long term effect.

But now it is seen that lifestyle choices, partnering options and religion, as well as working hours and social participation play their role. Previously it was thought that these factors could have short-term impacts on happiness, but that happiness would eventually resettle to its set-point.

Professor Headey said simply put, “I think people don't often sit down and think about what really makes them happy, and then try to do more of that.”