Happy people living longer is a myth

“Of course people who are ill tend to be unhappier than those who are well, but the U.K. Million Women Study shows that happiness and unhappiness do not themselves have any direct effect on death rates”, Peto said in an Oxford press release. She explained that illness can make people unhappy, but unhappiness does not make people ill. “We found no direct effect of unhappiness or stress on mortality, even in a ten-year study of a million women”.

After joining the United Kingdom study, over 715,000 participants were sent a questionnaire three years later. However, the researchers also found out that women who said that they were happy had the same chances of dying as the women who said that they were unhappy.

Peto told reporters that the research was “good news for the grumpy” and “refutes the large effects of unhappiness and stress on mortality that others have claimed”.

Life-threatening poor health can cause unhappiness, and for this reason unhappiness is associated with increased mortality. It is true for heart disease, cancer, and overall mortality; and also unhappiness and stress.

Common belief says that unhappiness can bring diseases, thus associated with death, but the study shows that it is poor health that causes unhappiness instead.

In an accompanying commentary, French scientists suggested that the results might not be the same in men, since “men and women probably define happiness differently”. After a decade of tracking the women, 4 percent had died. The things that make a person happy, like being in good shape and health will shield that person from early death.

An analysis of those answers revealed that women were more likely to report being happy if they were older, physically active, and not economically deprived, and if they did not smoke, got adequate sleep (but not too much), had a partner, and either belonged to a religious group or participated in social activities.

Researchers learned that the overall death rate among unhappy women was the same as those who were generally happy, according to The Independent.

Professor Richard Peto, the author of the study and his team of researchers chose to explore the subject due to a worldwide belief that stress and unhappiness can lead to a decreased health. That’s according to a new study from the University of Oxford.