Which do you think would make you happier, receiving a $5,000 pay raise or having a friend of a friend of a friend who is generally happy?
According to a recent survey conducted at Harvard Medical School, the friend of a friend of a friend (aka someone you’ve never met) being happy increases the chance of you being happier three times more than if you got the $5,000 raise.
The study found that if a friend of a friend of a friend is happy, you have a six percent chance of being happier (versus two percent caused by a $5,000 pay raise). If it’s a friend of a friend who’s happy, the odds jump to 10 percent, and if it’s a direct friend, 15 percent.
They also discovered that this works for sour moods as well, though not as strongly. Each “unhappy connection” decreased the chance of a person being happy by seven percent. That means if you have 14 friends, friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends who are unhappy, you are 98% more likely to be unhappy.
How does that affect you? Well in addition to underscoring the importance of surrounding yourself with people who are generally happy, it also emphasizes the impact you have on other people. When you’re happy, you increase the liklihood of your friends being happy by 15 percent (and people you don’t even know by six percent)!
So if not for yourself, than for the good of mankind (that might be a slight exaggeration), be happy.
A reader over at Ask a Manager posted a question asking how to take a vacation when there’s always work to be done, and Allison gave a great answer about establishing criteria for being able to leave and mentioning that vacation time for employees is good for both the company and the worker. I completely agree with this dual benefit vacations have (as I’m sure many people do), but is there any way to prove it?
Luckily there are people out there that do studies on this type of stuff. Usually they have fancy titles like “professor” or “doctor” and wear labcoats, which is fine by me because someone needs to support the labcoat industry. But what these people do is quantify what we all know to be true qualitatively. With that said, here are 5 benefits of vacation.
1. Live longer.
A study reported in Psychosomatic Medicine (what a cool name) showed that men with a high risk of heart disease who take regular vacations are 30% less likely to die from a heart attack, and 21% less likely to die from any cause (including death metal). And not to exclude women, a study from the Framingham Heart Study showed that women who take at least take 2 vacations per year were 8 times less likely to develop coronary heart disease than women who took only one every six years.
2. Be happier.
A study from the Wisconsin Medical Journal suggests women who take frequent vacations (at least once a year) are less likely to become tense, depressed or tired and are more satisfied with their marriages. For the guys, re-read that last part: women who take frequent vacations are more satisfied in their marriages–the alone is one heckuva benefit of vacation.
3. Improve sleep.
A study from Air New Zealand found that people averaged an hour more of quality of sleep after a few days of vacation. They also saw their reaction times improve by 80 percent, so I’m hoping NYC cab drivers are taking vacations.
4. Improve productivity.
A survey deployed by Expedia found that, when returning from vacation, more than one-third of respondents feel more productive and better about their jobs (with more than half also claiming to feel rested, rejuvenated and reconnected to their personal life). Sounds like reason enough to me to take vacation from the office.
5. Solve problems.
An experiment at Indiana University found that students did a better job at solving problems when the problems were said to be from far away (such as India for students in Indiana). The thought is that when we think about problems at a local level, our thoughts are more constrained and bounded by a more limited set of associations. Most of us aren’t fortunate enough to be solving problems for countries around the world, so instead we can take a vacation and travel to new locales, opening our associations for better problem solving.
For more on the benefits of vacation (aka sources):
You need that vacation.
Are Vacations Good for Your Health?
Vacations provide mental health benefits for women
A Little Vacation Can Increase Employee Productivity
The Benefits of Vacation
A recent study shows that being optimistic may lead to living longer. In a study of 100,000 women, those rated optimistic were 14% less likely to die than pessimists during the study’s first eight years.
Why do optimists live longer? The science doesn’t quite tell us but one theory presented is that “Optimists have strong social networks and handle stress better.” Or perhaps it’s that people tend to do things longer when they really enjoy what they’re doing, and that includes living.
Source: Do Good, Feel Good… Be Well. Reader’s Digest, June 2009.
I recently found an article on Discover Magazine titled Stop Paying Attention: Zoning Out Is a Crucial Mental State. The article analyzes a series of studies, mostly by psychologist Jonathan Schooler, on mind wandering.
The studies suggests that letting the mind wander can help us do critical thinking, even if we don’t realize it. It’s the reason people have moments of great insight in the shower and why comedians carry a pen with them–that perfect punchline might come to you while zoning out in a meeting.
This doesn’t mean that you should let your mind go free at all times–when our minds wander we are more likely to make mistakes and less likely to commit new information to memory. Instead, designating periods for free thinking can give you the benefits of letting your mind wander while keeping you from zoning out while your boss is giving an important presentation.
Just let your boss know the next time he catches you day dreaming that you’re actually working on that key issue you’ve been scrambling to solve, you’re just letting the subconscious do it.
Source: Stop Paying Attention: Zoning Out Is a Crucial Mental State, by Carl Zimmer. Discover Magazine, June 2009.
