A new study has debunked many people's belief that staying happy can bring long life. Researchers have found no link between long life and happiness.
The study surveyed 700,000 women in Britain in which they were tracked for more than three years. The participants were tasked to evaluate their happiness. The result of the research showed that five out of six claimed that they were happy. Most of these happy women are smokers, drink regularly and do not exercise regularly.
As shown by the study, life expectancy is not a factor of happiness but of lifestyle choices. Dr Bette Liu, the lead author of the research from the University of New South Wales stated that the result of their survey for 10 years.
"We found no direct effect of unhappiness or stress on mortality, even in a 10-year study of a million women," Liu said.
People have always believed that staying happy will help them dodge illness and will result to long life. In the study, the researchers found that both happy and unhappy individuals had the same risk of developing diseases and even death.
The researchers think that happiness does not affect health but is a manifestation of the overall health condition of an individual. If one is ill, he becomes stressed out and unhappy.
However, many previous studies have indicated the link of unhappiness and depression to health problems. In fact, recent study has revealed the impact of stress to the brain. Older individuals who are exposed to higher levels of stress have higher risk of developing cognitive impairment.
Anxiety and depression which are very much related to unhappiness have been claimed to affect the overall wellness of individual. Since the said research contradicts many other studies, it calls for further examination. Dr Philipe de Souto Barreto from France stated that the study provides good comparison for other researches.
