Good news: the level of happiness is rising around the world. People are happier these days than 25 years ago. This is the result of a study published by the University of Michigan. The United States ranks 16^th on the list of 97 countries. Denmark seems to be the happiest nation in the world and Zimbabwe the unhappiest. Read more: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/uom-hir063008.php

Researchers at the University Of Leicester, England published last year a world map of subjective well-being. They came to almost the same result: Denmark received the top score for happiness. More: http://www.le.ac.uk/users/aw57/world/sample.html

Do you belong to the lucky ones who still can put in overtime? Well, as it turns out now, it may be good for your paycheck but not as good for your psyche.

According to a recently published study by Norway researchers, people who put in more than 40 work hours per week have a higher risk for anxiety and depression.

The researchers compared about 9,000 people, who work 40 hours or less with 1,350, who worked regularly overtime. “Results: Overtime workers of both genders had significantly higher anxiety and depression levels and higher prevalences of anxiety and depressive disorders compared with those working normal hours.” (Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, http://www.joem.org/pt/re/joem/abstract.00043764-200806000-00008.htm;jsessionid=Lb4TB2jD9R9Hx22bQ4dh4p57Bxn241q0TvW9ShJQCqWzp7SLyb0G!-1180856744!181195629!8091!-1 )

According to the United States Department of Labor (http://www.bls.gov, )
full time worker spend just under 43 hours at work per week. In 2006, about 18 % of full time workers put in more than 50 hours per week. Currently, about 3 % of the workforce has a part time job because they can’t find a full time job or their companies cut the work hours because of the economic downturn and about 5 % of the workforce holds more than one job.

Children bring much joy to your life. Are you sure? Think again! According to Daniel Gilbert, Harvard university psychology professor, having children has a negative effect on marital satisfaction. It’s an illusion that children increase people’s happiness.

Gilbert , author of the book ‘Stumbling on happiness’ based his statement during a happiness conference in May in Sydney, Australia on several studies that are quoted in most developmental psychology textbooks: Many couples experience a dip in their marital satisfaction after the birth of their first child. Particularly at risk are those couples who married after a relatively short courtship, are not settled in their partnership yet and get a baby soon after marriage. If couples postpone having children until their careers are under way, work on their financial stability and further concentrate on building up a sense of “we-ness” , their marital satisfaction will be more resilient against the challenges of raising children.

The deepest point in marital satisfaction often comes when the kids enter adolescence. Having a grumpy and moody teenager at home puts a strain on parents’ happiness. Marital satisfaction returns when the kids leave for college.

What Gilbert didn’t say, or it was not reported by the media, is that later in life grown children and their kids, so the grandkids, become a main source for the mental well-being of the elderly. A study by Karen Fingerman showed that the majority of “relationships between parents and their adult children improve as parents transition to old age”….”Generally, there was a feeling on both sides that this was as good as the relationship had been, and both sides felt appreciated and nurtured.” (Karen Fingerman on Purdue University, http://www.purdue.edu/uns/x/2007b/071126FingermanAge.html )

Every time I ask my students about their goals for the next ten years, they put starting a family and raising happy children at the top of their priority list. Only - until now there wasn’t much known about what actually makes children happy. More toys, better video games, a bigger house and/or garden, parents who would stay together, good grades, sports……?Psychologists at the University of British Columbia in Canada are saying all of the above doesn’t count much when it comes to happiness in children.

According to the answers of more than 300 children aged 9 to 12, the answer to the quest for happiness is Spirituality.

Children, who got high happiness marks by their parents and teachers, gave high importance ratings for statements like “I believe that a higher power watches over me” or “developing meaning in my life”.

Spirituality is in the study defined as having an inner-belief system and is not the same as religion. Consequently, attending church had no bearing for the happiness level of the children in the study.

Other factors that influenced the level of happiness in children have been social activities, sports and temperament.

Many psychologists today believe that temperament is the inborn part of personality, and for example being an optimist or a pessimist is a factor of temperament. Simplified, whether you view a glass as half full or half empty is inherited to a certain extent.

Still, even if someone is born as pessimist, it’s possible to modify the outlook:

Ask yourself (or ask your child) at bedtime what positive things happened during the day and what you are grateful for. Research shows that focusing on the positive will make you happier over time and is good for your health. Read on: http://www.coach4u.net/blog/2-steps-happiness.html

According to my teenage sons ‘it’s not cool to be old’- and of course, to them anyone over thirty looks suspiciously old.

What little do they know! They don’t know for example that according to a recently published study (Yang Yang, University of Chicago, 2008) older people are happier than younger people. This is because older people have learned to lower their expectations. They are more likely to be content with whatever they have achieved in life. The well-known psychologist Erik Erikson described already more than 50 years ago the main task of late adulthood as “coming to terms with one’s life”, and those who succeed will gain the feeling of integrity, which he described as feeling whole and complete.

Life satisfaction seems to be a factor of one’s perception: as lower the expectation, as higher the happiness. People over 65 don’t expect life to be perfect. They have learned to accept certain aches and pains as part of life, and in general, they develop a more positive attitude.

In another study, published about ten years ago, people over 65 reported more positive emotions and less negative emotions than their younger counterparts. Also this study came to the conclusion that the older you are the happier and more satisfied you should feel. (D. Mroczek & Ch. Kolarz, Fordham University, 1998).

It seems that we all should look forward to our golden years - and there is another good reason for it: Researchers at Yale University found out that people with a positive attitude toward aging live in average 7.5 years longer than those with negative stereotypes (Levy et. al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 83, No.2)

Money, money, money – that’s all what counts with respect to job satisfaction. Are you sure? Think again.

My students in my Psychology in Business and Industry class at the college, where I’m teaching believed like many other people at first that money is the main motivator that accounts for their job satisfaction. A few minutes later they had proven themselves wrong.

I had asked what makes a job satisfying, and they quickly came up with many aspects, not only pay: The environment, clean facilities, good benefits, competent bosses, nice coworkers, and flex-time, to name a few. Then I asked to rank those points, and “pay’’ easily won the top spot. Some objected and were saying, they wouldn’t take any job just because of a high salary. The majority, however, stayed with their assessment: As long as the job is “halfway decent”, a good pay would make the difference between job-happiness and job-frustration.

My next question was about the reasons, why they had been unhappy in previous jobs and quit. Surprisingly, it turned out almost nobody had ever quit about money. Reasons have been a boss, who was micro-managing, not enough appreciation or recognition of hard work, issues with co-workers, malfunctioning equipment and safety concerns, boring work or not getting to do the work they have been hired for. They had quit because they have been either unhappy with the work environment and the climate at the workplace or with the work itself.

In the end, they all agreed that there are apparently more important factors for job satisfaction than money. For some, the job fulfills their need for communication and relationships with other people. Consequently, nice bosses and co-workers are most important factors.  Others love challenges and opportunities to grow. Therefore, they feel happier in jobs that offer responsibilities, independence, control over the work, and stimulation.

Obviously, People have different needs. Since most of us spend more time at work than with family and friends, it’s all the more important to clarify the own needs. A Life Coach will not only help you with this; a Life Coach will also assist you in finding the perfect job for you that fits to your needs. Read: What will I get from coaching?

Here is an exercise that gives an idea, how a life coach may work with you:

Think of a job that you liked and of one, where you quit because you couldn’t stand it there. Why was the first a good job and the second a bad job?

What would be your perfect day? Who would be in it? What would you do? What makes a day the “perfect day”?

For me, right now, a perfect day would be one, where I don’t have to think about what I “must do next”. I long for a day off - but I know this is only temporary, since I feel a little exhausted.

Normally, I would describe my perfect day differently: I would describe it as a nice, sunny and warm day. I’m spending the day with people I love to be around; and I would get to know something new; the last point being the most important part of the perfect day. I love to have new experiences in my life; these may be traveling to foreign countries, taking courses or visit a museum where I haven’t been before.

I’m unhappy if I have to spend my days with routine jobs, in routine meetings, or with routine chores at home.

Why did I ask the questions about your perfect day? Because I believe, it’s important to think once in a while about the perfect day. It tells you where you are standing right now in life, what’s missing and what you might want to change or add, if possible.

One of my favorite quotations:
Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. (Benjamin Disraeli)

This weekend, we finally made it to the movie theatre and watched “The Bucket List”. This is an outstanding movie about two elderly men from very different backgrounds, who - in the face of death after diagnosed with incurable cancer - go out into the world to do in the last months of their lives all the things they always wanted to do.

There are many funny situations and dialogues. However, the movie also wants to teach us something important: All the money in the world, and all the trips to exotic locations, fun and adventures one can buy with money, can’t replace what really counts, a relationship with someone close to your heart. Toward the end of the movie, both men found their way back to the most important person in their lives, and then they were able to experience true happiness and inner satisfaction.

Personally, I believe that the movie’s message is correct - and I also have scientific back-up for that. A few years ago was a study published that asked ” What makes us happy?”. For this study, several hundreds of college students answered questions about recent experiences, which the students had rated as “satisfying events” in their lives. The result of the scientific analysis of these events was that students rated especially those events as satisfying that gave them a feeling of autonomy, competence, self esteem and connectedness with other people.