Harvard Studies How Happiness Impacts Health
Can Happiness Benefit Health? That was the name of a symposium on the science of health and happiness at the New Research Building. On the Longwood campus in Harvard in the United States. In addition, it was emphasized that modern healthcare is not about health, but about disease.
However, the symposium underlined the importance of emphasizing the positive aspects of things. For example, the elements that help keep us healthy. Or those who help us recover faster from illness or injury.
In this regard, Dr Laura Kubzansky said. “More rigorous research is urgently needed to understand these positive aspects. And also how to promote them to millions of people around the world ”.
How did the investigation start?
It all started when the Lee Kum Kee family donated to the TH Chan School of Public Health at Harvard. This donation aimed to create a new center of health and happiness. This helped fund a center to study how happiness and health are linked in everyday life.
Specifically, the question was how happiness can have a positive effect on health. Indeed, it is about speaking of happiness as one of the determining factors of existence. And not just as a nice word.
Laura Kubzansky, co-director of the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at Harvard’s Chan School, told the symposium that this is a long-opaque area of study. However, it helps to support the idea that health, well-being and happiness are closely linked.
Meanwhile, Francesca Dominici, Associate Dean for Research at Harvard Chan School, said “the new center will focus on developing rigorous science”. And more specifically on how positive psychological and social factors can influence health. Finally, how to translate these results into public policies in order to improve general health ”.
The event therefore also aimed to determine how to translate the results into public policies. And this, in order to benefit citizens in their daily lives.
Why does happiness promote our health?
Not only does being happy lead to a state of complete psychic satisfaction, it also seems to have a noticeable influence on the physical plane. More and more discoveries are being made in this direction. Thus, the change from a state of happiness to a state of sadness has even been observed at the chemical level.
Happiness is felt and transferred to the whole body. This is because the spinal cord and the bloodstream release large amounts of endorphins throughout the body. This happens, for example, whenever you are with loved ones. Or when you listen to your favorite song. Or when you are just going for a walk. In this way, the individual notices an improvement in his mood and even a decrease in the intensity of certain pains.
Andrew Steptoe, director of the Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care at University College London, said there is a link between social support measures and health. Indeed, people who enjoy a better quality of life live longer. But their aging is also slower.
What’s more, Harvard reports that another study has shown that people who are more satisfied with their lives are more likely to be physically active, eat healthy foods, use sunscreens, and smoke less.
Conversely, less happy people have been shown to have higher levels of fat and cortisol, the hormone that generates stress. However, despite the proliferation of studies on the impact of happiness on health, many questions remain unanswered.
Be happy…. Nevertheless
The question of happiness is an inherent problem in human existence. However, this concern must coexist with many others. And, they are not always compatible …
Indeed, the protection of our physical and psychological condition lies largely in the present. No in the future. Understanding this reality is a long process. However, once we really start working on it, the issues tend to turn into challenges rather than concerns. This attitude finally offers us many opportunities for personal growth.
Our thoughts Dan Gilbert gives us his own recipe for happiness, very simple in appearance, but which allows us to reconsider our existential goals.
