• Modified: Feb 12, 2025 • Read in: 11 mins
Happiness is not simply having a good time and feeling great. Science tells us that happiness is of two main types:- Hedonic happiness: This is happiness of the moment. It comes from having pleasure and enjoyment, as the “feel-good” kind of happiness. It’s about maximizing positive feelings and minimizing negative ones. But it’s often short-lived. Examples: Eating delicious food, getting a massage, watching a funny movie, going on a fun vacation.
- Eudaimonic happiness: This is happiness over a long time, even over a lifetime. It involves finding meaning and purpose in life. It comes from doing things that satisfyingly contribute to something larger than yourself. And it’s long-lasting. Examples: Volunteering for a cause you care about, pursuing a challenging goal, building strong relationships, learning a new skill.
The How of Happiness author Sonja Lyubomirsky defines happiness as “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.”
These 10 questions on happiness have answers firmly rooted in science. You will find a few things here that you would be happy to share with others.
10 Frequently Unasked Questions On Happiness
1. Can happy friends reduce our risk of depression?
Research tells us that having enough friends with a healthy mood can halve the probability of developing, or double the probability of recovering from depression.
This study from the University of Warwick found:
- Adolescents with 5 or more healthy friends have half the probability of becoming depressed over a 6–12-month period compared with adolescents with no healthy friends.
- Adolescents with 10 healthy friends have double the probability of recovering from depressive symptoms over a 6–12-month period compared with adolescents with three healthy friends.
“Here, we show that while depression does not spread, healthy mood among friends is associated with significantly reduced risk of developing and increased chance of recovering from depression.” — Hill & Griffith, 2015
So, encouraging friendship circles between happy adolescents could reduce both the incidence and prevalence of depression among teenagers.
7. Do pets increase your happiness?
Yes, pets can definitely increase our happiness. There’s science to back it up.
This study found that people who own a pet (either cat or dog) had lower rates of systemic hypertension (high blood pressure). There’s even evidence that dog and cat owners laugh more often than people without pets.
- Stress and Anxiety Reduction: Petting a dog can lower our cortisol, the stress hormone. Research finds positive physical interactions with a pet can stimulate the release of oxytocin—a brain hormone that reduces stress and anxiety, decreases pain sensitivity, increases empathy, promotes bonding and nurturing behaviors, and improves self-confidence (Beetz, 2012). Interacting with a dog can also stimulate brain waves associated with positive emotions.
- Increased Physical Activity: Having a pet dog needs us to get out and move (unless we hire a dog walker). Daily outdoor walks with our dogs become a healthy habit, which boosts our physical and mental health. Plus, the responsibility of caring for a pet can provide a sense of purpose and accomplishment, which contributes to overall well-being.
- Companionship: Pets offer unconditional love and support, which can be incredibly helpful in easing loneliness and depression. They’re always there for us, offering a comforting presence. And it’s not just about individual happiness; pets can even help build a stronger sense of community.
- Emotional Support Animals (ESAs): Emotional support animals (especially dogs) can help people with mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, or PTSD feel hope and stability. They can reduce mental ill-health symptoms, be a supportive companion, and improve the quality of life. They can even save lives. Their unconditional love can be wordlessly therapeutic for those struggling with mental health challenges.
- Therapy animals: Therapy animals are trained and certified to visit patients in hospitals and nursing homes. A handler guides the visiting therapy animal, allowing the patient to interact with it in a way that is comfortable for both. The resident may pet, cuddle, or play with the animal, or simply enjoy its presence. These visits reduce stress and anxiety, improve mood, distract from pain or worries, and offer a sense of connection. They also help some residents relive the happy times with the pets they have had in the past.
3. Does happiness have a scent?
Rachel Gross talks about a strange finding: We can sense happiness through the smell of sweat.
This study found happy people release certain chemicals in their sweat (called chemosignals), that can be picked up by others when they smell clothes soaked in the happy people’s sweat.
In the study, when women smelled the “happy sweat” of males, they displayed body markers that reflect a state of happiness. These markers included a Duchenne smile—a genuine smile that extends all the way to the eyes, creating crowfeet.
Gün Semin of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, a senior researcher on the study, says:
“This suggests that somebody who is happy will infuse others in their vicinity with happiness. In a way, happiness sweat is somewhat like smiling — it is infectious.”
4. Can reading make you happier?
For readers who have been self-medicating with great books their entire lives, it comes as no surprise that reading books can be good for mental wellbeing.
Of course, the act of reading can be a source of joy and pleasure. Immersing ourselves in a captivating story can let us temporarily escape from our daily grind, letting us decompress emotionally.
The practice of reading for healing is formally called bibliotherapy. After the First World War, traumatized soldiers returning home often received a prescribed course in reading. Today, there are literature courses for prison inmates. And there are reading circles for old people with dementia.
But how do books make us happier? Thanks to research, we know that it has something to do with mirror neurons — nerve cells in our brain that fire when we see/imagine another person doing some intense thing.
When we read about a character experiencing joy, sadness, or triumph, these neurons activate as if we were experiencing those emotions ourselves. This lets us empathize with the characters and connect with their experiences on a deeper level.
Reading becomes an act of feeling connected with shared humanity. This emotional resonance, made possible by mirror neurons, can lend us both hedonic happiness (evoking positive emotions) and eudaimonic happiness (fostering empathy and understanding).
Stories and poems also help us gain insights into our own lives, emotions, and challenges. Reading about characters who face similar struggles can reduce feelings of isolation and loneliness.
Many self-help books provide us with new insights, coping mechanisms, and problem-solving strategies, that we may use in our own lives to pass through life’s difficulties.
5. Can you write your way to happiness?
Tara Parker-Pope explores the power of writing personal stories. She tells us this kind of writing has several benefits for our well-being.
It is based on the idea that while we all have a personal narrative that shapes our view of the world and ourselves, our inner voice is not always smooth.
By writing and then editing our own stories, we can change our perceptions of ourselves.
“These writing interventions can really nudge people from a self-defeating way of thinking into a more optimistic cycle that reinforces itself,” says Timothy D. Wilson, a University of Virginia psychology professor.
“When you get to that confrontation of truth with what matters to you, it creates the greatest opportunity for change,” says Dr. Jack Groppel, co-founder of the Human Performance Institute.
6. Can money buy you happiness?
The book “Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending” by two psychology researchers Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton answers the perennial question: Does money bring happiness?
Norton says: “Wealthy individuals – whether worth $1 million or $10 million – are not happier as their wealth increases.”
What actually buys more happiness is when we spend money on experiences, rather than on buying material things.
7. What’s more important than happiness?
An emotional range is more important than happiness alone.
We need to feel the entire range of emotions, as all modern emotions have roots in evolution, and have social and survival value.
“We should not be fixated on one emotion over another in pursuit of fulfillment,” says Dacher Keltner, the rock star researcher of Awe.
Inside Out was a wonderfully made movie for both kids and adults. Most of the film happens inside the mind of a young girl named Riley, where five personified emotions—Happiness, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust—try to lead her through life as her parents move their house and she has to adjust to new surroundings.
Linda Mottram and Matthew Bevan write in ABC News about the psychology of happiness ‘inside’ the movie. They talk to the psychologist adviser to the movie, Professor Dacher Keltner from the University of California, to get this out—“We should not be fixated on one emotion over another in pursuit of fulfillment.”
Keltner was the main researcher advising the Pixar team. He guided them on which emotions should be in the film and what roles they should play in Riley’s life.
Professor Keltner’s research shows all emotions become equally important as a person matures.
He said, “We know scientifically that if you pressure people to be happy, they’re actually going to be less happy. Part of what happens is that a naïve over-valuation of happiness makes us under-appreciate other emotions like anger or fear.”
8. Why do we need self-awareness to be fully happy?
Sherrie Campbell, psychologist, and author of Loving Yourself: The Mastery of Being Your Own Person, points out that counting on yourself reduces your frustration and increases personal freedom for yourself and others. She says it is the only way to develop in us the seven personality strengths necessary for success.
Self-awareness is crucial for your happiness, especially eudaimonia. When you are not self-aware, you tend to overreact in anger or fear. It is as if you stepped on your triggers. And when others do not read your mind or meet your expectations, or correctly expect your emotions, they feel as if they are walking on eggshells when it comes to you and them.
But people cannot completely know how you feel unless you speak up. You got to communicate with others regularly and effectively.
Living to please others is not self-loving; it is self-diminishing. In life, your ability gets measured by how you overcome adversities and insecurities, not avoid them.
When you are aware of yourself, you see yourself as a work in progress.
9. Is There A Seat of Happiness In Our Brains?
Christopher Bergland is a Guinness World Record holder for running 153.76 miles in 24 hours on a treadmill. He is also a three-time champion of the Triple Ironman which includes a 7.2-mile swim, a 336-mile biking, and a 78.6-mile run, done consecutively.
He writes about research by a team at Kyoto University led by Wataru Sato. Their findings suggest there is a specific part of the brain that could be the seat of our happiness.
According to the study, our overall happiness is a combination of happy emotions and life satisfaction coming together in the precuneus. It is a region in the medial parietal lobe of the brain that becomes active when experiencing consciousness.
Sato and his team scanned the brains of research participants with MRI. The participants then took a survey that asked how happy they are in general, how intensely they feel their emotions, and how satisfied they are with their lives.
They wrote in the paper: “We found a positive relationship between the subjective happiness score and gray matter volume in the right precuneus.”
Their analysis revealed that those who scored higher on the happiness surveys had more grey matter mass in the precuneus. In other words, people who feel happiness more intensely, feel sadness less intensely, and are more able to find meaning in life have a larger precuneus.
“Over history, many eminent scholars like Aristotle have contemplated what happiness is,” Wataru Sato said. “I’m very happy that we now know more about what it means to be happy.”
10. Does Economics Understand Happiness?
Just as you are ready to seal your wish for a winning lottery ticket, imagine Professor Richard Thaler yells, “Wait a minute! Neoclassical economics is all wrong!”
Terry Burnham asks right at the beginning of this article, “What would make you happier…?”
Behavioral economics argues neoclassical economics is wrong. Real humans, in the language of behavioral economists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, exhibit biases and heuristics.
More colloquially, humans are crazy. Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel Prize winner and the author of the international bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow.
For the sake of your lottery-winning wishes, behavioral economics makes three related claims:
• First, people do not know what makes them happy.
• Second, fewer options are sometimes better than more options.
• Third, more money may not make you happier.
In short, we love to eat and sleep because eating and sleeping were good for our ancestors.
Final Words
√ Also Read: 7 Reasons Why Happiness Is Important.
√ Please share it with someone if you found this helpful.