Happiness

doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7531.1489

BMJ 2005;331:1489-1490 (24 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7531.1489

Editorial

Happiness

Get happy—it's good for you

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Given the choice between winning the lottery and being leftpermanently disabled by injury, everyone would take the money.Yet a year after either of these events, people apparently returnto their previous levels of happiness.¹ Such are the complexitiesof the state described by Aristotle as "the best, the finest,the most pleasurable thing of all." ²

As everyone since Midas knows, acquiring riches is a poor longterm bet in the happiness stakes. A recent review concludedthat "money can buy you happiness, but not much, and above amodest threshold, more money does not mean more happiness."³Individuals usually get richer during their lifetimes—butnot happier.

As for individuals, so for countries. Ghana, Mexico, Sweden,the United Kingdom, and the United States all share similarlife satisfaction scores despite per capita income varying 10-foldbetween the richest and poorest country.² Per capita incomeshave quadrupled in most . . . [Full text of this article]

Tony Delamothe, deputy editor

BMJ, London WC1H 9JR
(tdelamothe@bmj.com)

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Fowler, J. H, Christakis, N. A (2008). Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study. BMJ 337: a2338-a2338 [Abstract] [Full text]

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