Sneeze Some Happiness On Me!

One of my sister's was telling me about this study she read about while in the doctor's waiting room. Basically it said that happiness could just be a bit contagious. http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/05/science/sci-happy5

The study found that knowing someone who is happy makes you 15.3% more likely to be happy yourself. If your friend has a happy friend it increases your odds of happiness by 9.8%, and even your neighbor’s sister’s friend can give you a 5.6% boost.

Shigehiro Oishi, a University of Virginia psychologist who studies the causes and effects of well-being, said the importance of geography was a profound finding. Although we are connected with friends and family members who live far away via cellphone and the Internet, these results indicate that there is nothing like a face-to-face interaction,” Oishi said. “We are told to get connected by cellphone companies, but in order to get connected you really have to live close by and interact face to face.”

They say they don't understand the reasons why you might be more likely to be happy if your friends and family are. But I personally believe that a happy friend can effect our thinking in positive ways. We might for example think, "If they can have fun and be cheerful during hard times maybe I can too." "Seeing them be happy reminds me to not take life so seriously." Or, "They have such confidence in me that I can follow my dreams...maybe they're right." And so on.

While I've basically been a loner most of the time and not hung out with happy friends that much I think I caught a teeny little bit of the happiness bug from exposure through reading books and listening to audio books of happy and positive people such as Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, Tony Robbins, Iyanla Vanzant, and tons of others in the "self-improvement" or positive thinking, etc. field.

But still I frequently lack that face to face connection that would increase my chances of exposure to this happiness bug.

You know probably the best way to catch anything contagious is to hang around a group of pre-schoolers. And since they seem to be a pretty happy bunch I bet they're just full of the "happiness bug." ;)