Scientists Discover What Makes Us Happy

I have always been fascinated by what makes us all happy. After all isn’t that one of the big brass ring’s in life we all strive for? If someone walked up to you and gave you a million dollars or 10 million dollars would that make you truly happy? I’m sure for a certain period of time the answer would be yes, but I’m talking about real happiness for the long run.

I have in fact met millionaires that are miserable and a few that do seem happy and satisfied. Yes, money can make us all happy and I don’t want to discard the big buck, but I’m talking long term deep down happiness and satisfaction with life and living. And that’s what interest’s me. Lets take a look at what the scientists have to say.

A study published online Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides evidence on what makes us happy.

Researchers from Australia, the Netherlands and Germany scoured data from thousands of German adults who were tracked for a quarter-century, from 1984 to 2008. Each year, they answered questions about their families, their careers, their health, their social activities and their “life satisfaction.”

Based on all this data, the researchers concluded that these things (in no particular order) contribute to happiness:
• Having an emotionally stable spouse
• Prioritizing altruistic goals like “helping other people” and “being involved in social and political activities”
• Prioritizing family (and, for women, having a spouse who prioritizes family goals is an added bonus)
• Having an active social life
• Regular exercise

And these things detract from happiness:
• Having a neurotic spouse
• Prioritizing “success and material goods”
• Working much more or much less than you’d ideally like (though being unemployed or underemployed is worse than being overworked)
• For men, being underweight
• For women, being obese
Here’s how the researchers summed up their findings: “Results showing that long-term happiness can be substantially affected by individual choices are good news, not only for economists but also for governments and humankind.”

There you go. A quick snapshot of what makes us happy. What about you? What makes you happy? I would like to know.

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Blueberries and High Blood Pressure

My own blood pressure went up over the summer so I have been keeping an eye on the numbers every week. My increase in exercise and eating better I believe have again made a difference. ( My very first blog post was called “Biking my Weight Off” about losing weight to help decrease my blood pressure ) The last two weeks I have recorded normal numbers. Today I checked with 120/75. Earlier in the summer it got high as 150/98. I don’t know why my numbers got so high, but I plan to continue to keep careful watch.

As we all know, high blood pressure can lead to heart disease and that is very serious indeed.  Cancer gets a great deal of press (for good reason) , but the facts are heart disease is the number 1 killer in America. So doing everything I can to keep my numbers normal is a big priority. As a result, I have been reading a great deal on what can keep blood pressure numbers normal.

Most recently, I read about two new studies, in Orlando Sentinel, about how the low-sugar fruit of blueberries may help folks at risk of  high blood pressure. I want to share this information with you. I wrote another blog post about blueberries called “Another Reason to Love Blueberries”

A team of researchers at Oklahoma State University recently found that consuming  blueberries every day  can help reduce some heart risk factors, such as high blood pressure. Published in the Journal of Nutrition, the study researchers wondered weather eating blueberries, which are very high in dietary antioxidants, would help patients with metabolic syndrome  who were at risk of hypertension

Arpita Basu, an Oklahoma State University nutritional sciences professor and lead author of a study published in the Journal of Nutrition, found a seven- to eight-point drop in the systolic blood pressure of 66 pre-hypertensive men and women who included a blueberry drink in their diet once a day for eight weeks.

The participants in the study were a group of 66 men and women with pre-hypertension, meaning their blood pressure was elevated.  “They were above normal, but not quite at the stage of being diagnosed with hypertension,” said Arpita Basu, an OSU nutritional sciences professor and the lead author.

In the eight-week study, one group of patients drank a beverage made from two cups of blended frozen blueberries once a day — and continued to eat a normal diet. Another group of patients drank an equivalent amount of fluids and ate their standard diet.

After eight weeks, Basu said, researchers saw a seven- to eight-point drop in the systolic blood pressure of patients who had been drinking the blueberry beverage. Additionally, the patients received the benefits of antioxidants in the berries, as well, she said. Basu said consuming one or two servings of blueberries per day can help both pre-hypertensive and hypertensive patients get control of their glucose levels.

This is early research to be sure, but I plan to include even more blueberries into my own lifestyle. Thank God I love to eat them!

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