Post 19: Clinical Proof

I was just reading The Happiness Advantage. It is doubtful that you need more motivation to work on happiness if you are reading this blog. However, it is worth noting that Shawn Archer wrote this book after more than a decade of research at Harvard. He found that focusing on happiness before you do anything makes you more creative.

If you focus on happiness and then are exposed to the common cold, in his studies people were sick less and recovered faster.

Companies that focus on happiness as a metric are more productive and retain their staff better.

In a study on depression and anxiety, the people who focused on working out and feeling good had the same results as people who took antidepressants. Also, the effects lasted longer for exercise than for antidepressants.

Basically, he is arguing that most people are backwards in their thinking. They believe they need to succeed, and then they will be happy. He says focusing on being happy first makes you much more likely to succeed.

I am saying, whether you succeed or not matters much less than if you were happy the majority of the time you were endeavoring.

~Ryan Lynch

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