Many studies have noted the connection between a happy mind and a healthy body — the happier you are, the better health outcomes we seem to have.
But a new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) challenges the rosy picture. Happiness may not be as good for the body as researchers thought. It might even be bad.
Of course, it’s important to first define happiness. A few months ago, I wrote a piece called “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy“ about a psychology study that dug into what happiness really means to people. It specifically explored the difference between a meaningful life and a happy life.
It seems strange that there would be a difference at all. But the researchers, who looked at a large sample of people over a month-long period, found that happiness is associated with selfish “taking” behavior and that having a sense of meaning in life is associated with selfless “giving” behavior.
Meaning was defined as an orientation to something bigger than the self.
The more people endorsed these measures of “eudaimonic well-being” — or, simply put, virtue — the more meaning they felt in life.
This article was originally published on www.theatlantic.com. Read the complete article here.
*Image of “monk“ via Jai Kapoor/Flickr
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