Health - Happiness Link found

Sunday may 25, 2009 (foodconsumer.org) -- Perhaps there’s a reason why Irish eyes are smiling.

A worldwide study including a representative sample of 95 percent of the world’s population concluded that Ireland has the most optimistic people on earth. And with that optimism, said researchers, comes increased physical health.

A joint study between the University of Kansas and the Gallup World Poll showed that positive emotions are critical for maintaining physical health, especially for those who are deeply impoverished, according to a KU press release.

“We’ve known for a while now that emotions play a critical role in physical health,” said Sarah Pressman, assistant professor of psychology at KU and a Gallup research associate. “But until recently, most of this research was conducted only in industrialized countries. So we couldn’t know whether feelings like happiness or sadness matter to the health of people who have more pressing concerns — like getting enough to eat or finding shelter. But now we do.”

The United States ranked 10th on the list of optimistic countries. Brazil, Denmark and New Zealand ranked second, third and fourth. Optimism was ranked lowest in Zimbabwe, Egypt, Haiti and Bulgaria, according to the study.

With data from Gallup, researchers looked at samples from more than 150,000 adults in more than 140 countries. Participants reported emotions such as happiness, enjoyment, worry and sadness. Subjects also described any physical problems and answered questions about basic needs, such as food, shelter and personal safety.

Positive emotions are linked to better health, according to Pressman, even when considering basic needs, and negative emotions were a reliable predictor of worse health.

“These results provide compelling evidence that optimism is a universal phenomenon,” said Matthew Gallagher, psychology doctoral candidate at KU and lead researcher of the study.

Eighty-nine percent of individuals worldwide expect the next five years to be as good as or better than their current life, and 95 percent expected their life in five years to be as good as or better than it was five years ago, according to the study.

The study was presented Sunday (May 24) at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science in San Francisco.

(By Sheilah Downey, and edited by Heather Kelley)