How to be Happier - According to the World Happiness Report
Have you ever wondered where the happiest people in the world live? And what exactly it is about those countries that makes them so happy?
Read on to find out if there is really a way to determine what makes us happy, based on evidence from the World Happiness Report. And better yet, learn how we can use those insights to create a happier life for ourselves and our communities.
I was fortunate enough to invite Professor John Helliwell to a recent podcast to discuss the report. Alongside being the editor of the World Happiness Report, John Helliwell is a Canadian economist, Board Director of the International Positive Psychology Association, and Professor Emmateris of Economics at The University of British Columbia.
On the podcast, John shared his insights on what makes for a happy life and what we can learn from the countries that consistently feature at the top of the 157 countries surveyed.
What's the purpose of the World Happiness Report?
In 2012, the first World Happiness Report was created to support a meeting at the United Nations, inspired by Bhutan's Gross National Happiness index and its holistic approach to development. The initial report advised governments to make happiness and wellbeing the focus of their policies.
At that time, no one expected how far-reaching the interest in the report would go, but the information was deemed an important asset, and the appeal was evident. From researchers and policymakers to students, many now draw upon the report to better understand how things are going in different societies worldwide.
How do you feel about your life on a scale of 1-10?
Have you ever wondered how your life compares to others? And not just those in your country, but how different are things for people worldwide?
The country rankings help answer this curiosity. Each year, a sample of around 1000 people is taken in about 150 countries, and the survey is simple, centring around the question: How do you feel about your life as a whole, on a scale of 1-10?
Rather than creating the World Happiness Index based on external factors such as politics and economics, the report measures subjective wellbeing worldwide.
While the report doesn't pretend to know the whole story, over the years, more research has been conducted in an attempt to understand what causes certain countries to be happier (or, indeed, less happy) than others.
For example, Nordic countries are consistently in the report's top ten. This year, five of the top ten countries were Nordic countries, with Finland being number one. With this in mind, the rankings give us an insight into how countries are run and how this affects those living there.
What is it about Nordic countries that consistently delivers happier lives for those living there? What characterises a community as happy or less happy?
How important is the environment in determining our happiness?
As Helliwell says, the environment is everything. And it's the social environments - the daily routine in which people live and work - which are essential in explaining the happiness in our lives.
In particular, the feeling that our daily lives have more significant meaning and affect others and the wider community - substantially impacts wellbeing.
Equating virtue with happiness isn't new. Even Aristotle emphasised that doing something worthwhile, not just for ourselves but for others, is of primary importance.
How can we make our lives happier?
Thanks to the WHR, we now have a greater understanding of what makes a particular environment a happier place to live. This information makes it easier for everyone, from policymakers and healthcare facilities, to implement new approaches based on how they will affect well-being.
But what about the average person? Can you make your life happier without upending your life and moving to Finland? Thankfully, there are things you can do to make your life, community, and your daily social environment a happier place to live.
Be more optimistic about the goodness of others.
Having a high level of trust in your area can do wonders for your mentality towards it. Of course, this mindset doesn't prevent bad things from happening, but studies show that even those who live in a generally safe area tend to be far more pessimistic than they should be.
How likely will it be returned if you drop a wallet with $200?
No matter where you live, wallets are returned at a rate about twice as high as people think!
However, the people with a higher belief that wallets will be returned correspondingly have higher life satisfaction of around 10%.
It is knowing that other people are "benevolent " or "kind" that changes your thinking about the world.
In fact, in times of hardship, we often are more optimistic about the goodness of others because people have the opportunity to demonstrate their goodwill. For example, research showed that kindness and benevolence were more prevalent during the pandemic than ever. Donations, volunteering and helping a stranger increased in every global region measured by the Gallup World Poll and Happiness Report.
So while we don't witness it every day, it's important to remember that even strangers would most likely look out for you, given the opportunity.
The power of sharing the good news
Continuing from the last piece of advice, sharing good news stories is a great way to help people feel more positive.
The news cycle can leave us feeling hopeless, but headlines don’t leave us with the complete picture; for example, on a smaller community level, research shows people often feel more trusting - and yes, even happier - after a natural disaster. Why? Because we feel closer to our communities after we have helped each other - whether that’s to escape danger, bring food to people during the pandemic, or help rebuild after an earthquake.
Goodwill helps us feel better about ourselves and where we live.
The key is not to be unrealistic - to act as if there are fewer problems and challenges in the world than there are - but rather to be realistic about the good stuff already there.
While it's true and unfortunate that many bad events happen, we won't see the whole picture unless we also illuminate the bright spots.
Sharing both good and bad news helps level the playing field; it gives us a realistic view of the world's opportunities, risks, and what decisions are best for us, all things considered.
Nurture connections within your local community
With the pandemic forcing us to be more local in our connections, it reminded many of us - especially those in urban environments - of the value of the local community. During this time, we were more likely to be in contact with our neighbours and enjoy small interactions with them.
You don’t have to be best friends with everyone. Even seemingly inconsequential conversations with strangers can significantly affect our happiness. (how-to-talk-to-strangers-the-mood-boosting-power-of-small-interactions) It could be as simple as greeting someone in the elevator on the way to work or complimenting a colleague.
Getting people together raises everyone’s happiness.
An easy way to implement this is by inviting people with similar interests to interact. For example, after I, Duncan, go for a morning swim, many of us warm up with a coffee after. Even if people prefer breakfast alone or in a quieter place, it's easy to join in and converse. The conversation is effortless - discussing our swim, the currents, and what we saw beneath the waves.
You can find people with similar interests in most areas via Facebook Groups or MeetUp.com. The key is to use these tools to inspire you to get offline and meet up in person.
Get into green spaces.
And when possible, arranging local meetups in green spaces is extra beneficial.
Research shows people are happier in nature, whether walking through a forest, listening to ocean waves, enjoying an outdoor picnic, or even just strolling through your local park.
The lower traffic and noise levels are particularly soothing for those in urban environments. So it's not surprising that walking through an urban park, rather than down a busy street, is better for our wellbeing.
Consider taking a longer route to work if you'll walk through a park. Even just adding plants to a balcony or home office has been shown to boost our wellbeing.
Make unpleasant activities pleasant! Do them with a friend.
No matter how seemingly happy our environment is, we all have unpleasant, mundane, or lacklustre activities and tasks to take care of.
Evidence shows that simply doing these activities with another person increases the experience's quality! So if there is a menial task that both you and a colleague or friend dread, why not team up and do it together?
In a study led by Danny Kahneman, participants recorded the best and worst times of the day. The report showed that who you were with made a huge difference, even when it came to activities which would otherwise get the worst scores, such as the morning commute. When carpooling or commuting with a friend or family, the experience was no longer poorly scored.
Think about the tasks you look forward to the least every week, month, or year - anything from buying groceries to finishing reports or preparing taxes. Is there anyone you could team up with while you get them done?
Help each other find more robust social environments.
John Helliwell points out that we - and especially health authorities - tend to think of loneliness as a problem to be fixed. Instead, John suggests we think of friendships and social connections as an asset to be grown.
Building better social connections is a proven way to help with mental health issues. But instead, we've adapted to a health system that only assesses an individual's risk of loneliness or depression once we're already suffering.
But what if GPs could address this before symptoms arise?
One way to achieve this is by asking individuals about their hobbies, why they enjoy them, and their social life. Also known as ‘social prescribing’, the practice enables health professionals to address people's needs on a non-clinical level early on by helping them find social connections.
Social connections - an asset to be grown
Examples of beneficial social connections include inviting people to join community organisations, volunteering, gardening, learning, or arts activities. Social prescribing is also a cost-effective treatment - it doesn't take resources to create conversations and leave someone with a smile.
On an individual level, having a greater awareness of our wider circle helps us invite others to join activities they might also enjoy.
The freedom to develop your own life
Autonomy and freedom over our lives is also a critical factor in our happiness.
In some countries, focusing too much on subjective wellbeing has garnered criticism. The fear is that when a government is too concerned about our happiness, it'll create a nanny state, wherein policies become increasingly overprotective and thus interfere with personal choices - such as providing guidance on healthy eating or implementing social programs.
However, the research shows that countries that provide guidance on how we should live our lives don't tend to hinder the citizens' ability to feel personal freedom. Likewise, living in a trusting and supportive environment actually motivates us to nurture our social connections and benefits our wellbeing.
The key is to have autonomy in developing our lives in ways that don't hinder others - not the freedom to do whatever we want. Instead, the freedom that matters is the autonomy to plan our futures and lives in a broader sense.
What can we do to build the future we want? How can we make time for our passions and hobbies? Feeling in control of our own path makes us feel happier.
Sometimes we have to take risks.
While risk assessment has benefits, the increasing levels of risk aversion in many societies are often misdirected. Of course, the objective is to make things safer - but isn't making things more valuable an equally important goal?
When making decisions based on what will have the most significant value, we can take strides in mental health care. For example, we've recently seen that classroom mixing, including placing children in elder care facilities, has enormous mental health benefits.
The best risks benefit everyone.
The result has been uniformly positive for children, the elderly, and even the staff, who see more laughter and liveliness arising in their work environments.
Despite being shown to be broadly positive, a 'risk averse' approach avoids this setup entirely. The fear of 'something going wrong' results in separating children and the elderly, which ultimately doesn't allow happiness, connections, and life-giving forces to spread to more facilities.
When considering risk in your own life and the environments you have control over, try to balance risk assessment with value assessment. For example, what happiness could you prevent for yourself and others if you're too afraid of taking risks?
Conclusion: Is 'How can I be happier?' even the right question?
If there's one thing we can take from the World Happiness Report, it's that looking at things from an individualistic point of view doesn't make us happier. So when we ask, 'How can I be happier?' we're thinking about happiness as something for us. We’re diminishing the idea of ‘happiness’ into something that we're in to gain if we find the right tricks and tips.
While it might sound confusing or even paradoxical, asking, 'How can I be happier?' does not actually make us happier.
So, what question should we ask if we are concerned about happiness?
The evidence shows that the better question is to consider the following:
What can I do to make other people happy?
What can I do to make a better society? What can I do to make my neighbours, local community, strangers and friends happier?
Helliwell points out that this conclusion has a lovely, combined message. Because when we begin finding answers to those questions, we actually will become happier ourselves.
Happiness isn't the goal - it's the outcome.
Importantly, when looking to improve our communities, we shouldn't do it to hope it will make us happier. Because then we're back to square one - we're back to thinking about what will make us happier.
We should look to do things for others because we know it will give their lives more value. So we ask, ‘how can I make other people happier?’ because it provides value for everyone involved.
When the goal is the creation of happiness for everyone, the outcome is higher happiness for not only ourselves - but everyone else too.
This article is inspired by my conversation with John Helliwell on the Build Your Ideal Day podcast. In this series, my mission is to help people be the best version of themselves by focusing on the small things that matter and showcasing the experts making positive impacts.