Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
Patients who described themselves as highly optimistic had lower risks of all-cause death, and lower rates of cardiovascular death than those with high levels of pessimism, according to an article in the November issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
According to the article, major depression is a known risk factor for cardiovascular death. However, the relationship between optimism and death has not received as much attention.
Erik J. Giltay, M.D., Ph.D., of Psychiatric Center GGZ Delfland, Delft, the Netherlands, and colleagues analyzed data from the Arnhem Elderly Study to test whether participants who are optimistic live longer than patients who are pessimistic.
Click here for the full article.
Tags: Cardiovascular Death, Cardiovascular Health, Delft, Depression, Health, Heart Disease, Netherlands, Optimism, Optimistic, Pessimism, Pessimistic, Psychiatry, The Archives of General Psychiatry
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Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
The Gallup Organization and Healthways, Inc., released the first data from the country’s largest poll on health and happiness today, showing that almost half of all Americans characterize themselves as “struggling” on those fronts.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index polls 1,000 people a day nationwide, including Spanish speakers, cell phone users and other people normally left out of national opinion surveys. It’s the largest ever survey of its kind, and Gallup has committed to doing it for the next 25 years. It began Jan. 1.
Almost 40% of those polled said they were significantly stressed the day before. Two-thirds said they had at least one of a list of chronic health problems, including high blood pressure or cholesterol. Almost a third, 28%, said they were not well-rested. A third said they worried about money the day before, 30% said they had a lot of worries in general and 23% said they were in physical pain.
Click here for the full article.
Tags: Americans, Cholesterol, Gallup Organization, Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, Happiness, Health, Healthways Inc., High Blood Pressure, Money, Pain, Stress, Worry
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Friday, April 25th, 2008
[…]Imagine you are a president or prime minister. It is imperative to keep your people happy because you hope to be re-elected in order to make your citizens happier and to run your country efficiently. You also know that people care about personal factors like health, income, education and development in general. You have an intuitive idea that they care also about external factors like inflation and security. But how do you work out the relative importance of all these things that constitute well-being which in turn translate to happiness? We are talking about happiness economics.
Historically, economists have said that well-being is a simple function of income. By their argument, happiness ought to be the preserve of the super rich— the Bill Gates and the Roman Abramovichs of this world. But the million dollar question is: Are the rich always happy?[…]
Rooted in this postulation is the thinking of happiness economics, which is the study of a country’s well-being by combining economists’ and psychologists’ techniques. The goal of happiness economics is to determine where people derive their well-being. Happiness economists hope to change the way governments view well-being and how to most effectively govern and allocate resources given this paradox.
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Tags: Economics, Education, Government, Happier, Happiness Economics, happy, Health, Income, Inflation, Psychology, Pursuit of Happiness, Security, Well-being
Posted in Economics, Education, Government, Happier, Happiness Economics, Health, Income, Inflation, Psychology, Pursuit of Happiness, Security, Well-being, happy | No Comments »
