Happiness Matters

All too often, many people think of happiness as a self-indulgent emotion—warm fuzzies and spine-tingling sensations that merely delight oneself at the moment. Yet, there is a growing science showing the amazing benefits of being happy. It spills over to many important aspects of life and helps us in many ways.

Dr. Louis Tay is the William C. Byham Associate Professor in the Industrial-Organizational psychology area at the Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University. In the World Happiness Report 2013, Dr Tay has contributed a paper, ““The Objective Benefits of Subjective Well-Being.”

Happiness protects your heart. Recently, a critical mass of research has provided what might be the most basic and irrefutable argument in favour of happiness: Happiness and good health go hand-in-hand. Indeed, scientific studies have been finding that happiness can make our hearts healthier, our immune systems stronger, and our lives longer. Several of the studies cited below suggest that happiness causes better health; others suggest only that the two are correlated—perhaps good health causes happiness but not the other way around. Happiness and health may indeed be a virtuous circle, but researchers are still trying to untangle their relationship.

A 2005 study by Andrew Steptoe and Jane Wardle of University College London found that happiness predicts lower heart rate and blood pressure. In the study, participants rated their happiness over 30 times in one day and then again three years later. The initially happiest participants had a lower heart rate on follow-up (about six beats slower per minute), and the happiest participants during the follow-up had better blood pressure.

Research conducted by Bhattacharyya MR, Whitehead DL, Rakhit R, and Steptoe Andrew also uncovered a link between happiness and another measure of heart health: heart rate variability, which refers to the time interval between heartbeats and is associated with risk for various diseases. In a 2008 study, the above researchers monitored 76 patients suspected to have coronary artery disease. Was happiness linked to healthier hearts even among people who might have heart problems? It seemed so: The participants who rated themselves as happiest on the day their hearts were tested had a healthier pattern of heart rate variability on that day.

Karina Davidson, director of Columbia’s Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health and colleagues conducted research which was publishes in the published in the Feb. 2010 issue of the European Heart Journal, concluded that if everyone did more of the things that made them happy, they could significantly reduce their risk of heart attack and angina. For the study, Davidson’s team followed 1,739 men and women for 10 years. These people all participated in the 1995 Nova Scotia Health Survey. At the start of the study, everyone had their risk for heart disease assessed. Researchers looked for symptoms of depression, hostility, anxiety, and the expression of positive emotions — known as “positive affect.” This is defined as the experience of pleasurable emotions, such as joy, happiness, excitement, enthusiasm, and contentment. The researchers found that over the study period the happier someone was, the less likely he or she was to develop heart disease. In fact, for every point on a five-point scale that measured positive affect, the risk of heart disease dropped 22 percent. However, unhappy people had a 22 percent increased risk of having a heart attack or chronic chest pain, compared with those who were somewhat happy. These somewhat happy people also had a 22 percent increased risk for heart problems compared with people who were moderately happy, the researchers noted. People who were generally happy, but had a few symptoms of depression, did not see these symptoms increase their lowered risk for heart disease. In another study by Kim, Hagan etc, women with the highest levels of optimism had a 38% lower risk of death from heart disease than those with negative attitudes. In this study, optimism was defined as feeling hopeful and confident about the future.

Happiness strengthens your immune system. It’s no surprise that stress can mess with your body, but the latest science is looking into the flip side. And as it turns out, experiencing a sense of well-being can have a fortifying effect on the body that’s distinct from simply having an absence of stress. According to Julienne Bower, Ph.D., a professor of psychology and psychiatry and a researcher at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA, these positive processes are acting independently from the negative ones. They may have stronger links with immunity. In two 2019 studies, Bower and her colleagues found that six weeks of mindfulness training led to positive immune changes in young breast cancer survivors, including a reduction in the expression of genes related to inflammation — which is a factor in conditions like heart disease, and therefore something you want to safeguard against. The survivors also showed increases in eudaemonic well-being; the greater that was, the greater the effect on the genes. Researchers have concluded that these benefits are related to the activity of the sympathetic nervous system, the one responsible for the fight-or-flight response. When you activate reward-related regions of the brain — the areas we believe are triggered by these positive psychological processes — that may have downstream effects on the sympathetic nervous system.

In another study published in Psychological Science (June 2020) by researchers Kostadin Kushlev, Samantha J. Heintzelman, Derrick Wirtz, and Ed Diener, it was found that people who followed a three-month “principles of happiness” program, in which they did things like keep a weekly gratitude journal and practice mindfulness meditation, reported higher levels of well-being and one-third fewer sick days than those who did nothing to boost their bliss.

Research consistently shows that happiness has impressive medical benefits. And these benefits include improvements to the immune system. For example, when undergraduates in a study were exposed to the rhinovirus, they got sick. The interesting finding concerned the participants who had their happiness levels boosted by the researchers just before being exposed to the virus. The researchers did this in simple ways, such as by showing humorous videos. Those people who were given the happiness boost were less likely to get the cold than those who didn’t have their happiness increased. And if they did get the cold, the happier students reported that the symptoms were less severe. The study was essentially repeated with the influenza virus, which causes the flu, with the same basic results. Undergraduates who were first given the happiness boost were more resistant to the flu virus. In another study, 350 adults volunteered to be exposed to the cold virus. The adults’ positive emotions, such as feeling energetic and pleased, were measured for two weeks before exposure to the virus. Those who reported the most positive emotions were less likely to develop the cold.

A study of dental students has also been documented. These students reported their mood three times a week for almost two months. They also had their saliva collected so that their immune systems’ effectiveness could be assessed. When the students’ immune systems were challenged by a pill containing a protein from rabbit blood, the response to this foreign material depended on the students’ moods. The response of the immune system was weaker on days marked by negative moods, and higher on days marked by positive moods. In another recent study, researchers gave 81 graduate students two doses of the hepatitis B vaccine. This vaccine causes the immune system to respond. After two doses, the students rated themselves on nine positive emotions. Those who reported high levels of positive emotions had a much stronger immune response. In a study done by the US National Library of Medicine, it was found that unhappy people are almost three times as likely to develop the common cold compared to happier people. A study found that a positive outlook actually helped create a high antibody response against Hepatitis B. How though? The US National Library of Medicine study stated that happiness impacted the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. This helps regulate your immune system, hormones, digestion, and stress levels. A much earlier experiment found that immune system activity in the same individual goes up and down depending on their happiness. For two months, 30 male dental students took pills containing a harmless blood protein from rabbits, which causes an immune response in humans. They also rated whether they had experienced various positive moods that day. On days when they were happier, participants had a better immune response, as measured by the presence of an antibody in their saliva that defends against foreign substances.

Happiness Promotes a Healthy Lifestyle.

Being happy promotes a range of lifestyle habits that are important for overall health. Happy people tend to eat healthier diets, with higher intakes of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. A study conducted by Laura Sapranaviciute-Zabazlajeva, of the Institute of Cardiology, Academy of Medicine, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas, Lithuania, of more than 7,000 adults found that those with a positive well-being were 47% more likely to consume fresh fruits and vegetables than their less positive counterparts. In the same study of 7,000 adults, researchers found that individuals with a positive well-being were 33% more likely to be physically active, with 10 or more hours of physical activity per week. Regular physical activity helps build strong bones, increase energy levels, decrease body fat, and lower blood pressure.

What’s more, being happier may also improve sleep habits and practices, which is important for concentration, productivity, exercise performance and maintaining a healthy weight. One study of over 700 adults by Andrew Steptoe and Katie O’Donnell found that sleep problems, including trouble falling asleep and difficulty staying asleep, were 47% higher in those who reported low levels of positive well-being. A 2016 review of 44 studies concluded that, while there appears to be a link between positive well-being and sleep outcomes.

Happy Nuns live longer, so can you.

Happiness May Lengthen Your Life Expectancy. Being happy may help you live longer. In the end, the ultimate health indicator might be longevity—and here, especially, happiness comes into play. In perhaps the most famous study of happiness and longevity, the life expectancy of Catholic nuns was linked to the amount of positive emotion they expressed in an autobiographical essay they wrote upon entering their convent decades earlier, typically in their 20s. This landmark mind-blowing study demonstrating the power of positive emotions started in the 1930 when a group of almost two hundred nuns were about to enter a convent. Back then, they were asked to write autobiographical sketches of themselves, reflecting on their lives and thinking about what will lie ahead.

About 70 years later, psychologists decided to go back to these diary entries and analyzed them. The researchers wanted to find out if what these 20-year-old nuns wrote in their diaries could predict how the rest of their lives turned out. In particular, they were interested in predictors of longevity. They looked at how complex their sentences were – an indicator for their intelligence. They also looked at where the nuns lived. They also looked at how much they expressed their beliefs in good, measuring their devoutness. None of these factors had an impact on how long the nuns went on to live. But there was one factor which did have an impact – a very significant one! The nuns whose journal entries had more positive content lived nearly ten years longer than the nuns whose entries were more negative or neutral. At the age of 85, more than 90% (!) of the happiest nuns were still alive, whereas only about a third of the unhappiest nuns. Clearly, the nuns who were happier when they were young lived longer because of their happiness; not the other way around.

 You don’t have to be a nun to experience the life-extending benefits of happiness, though. In a 2011 study, almost 4,000 English adults ages 52-79 reported how happy, excited, and content they were multiple times in a single day. Here, happier people were 35 percent less likely to die over the course of about five years than their unhappier counterparts. These two studies both measured specific positive emotions, but overall satisfaction with one’s life—another major indicator of happiness—is also linked to longevity. A 2010 study followed almost 7,000 people from California’s Alameda County for nearly three decades, finding that the people who were more satisfied with life at the beginning were less likely to die during the course of the study. A long-term study published in 2015 looked at the effect of happiness on survival rates in 32,000 people. The risk of death over the 30-year study period was 14% higher in unhappy individuals compared to their happier counterparts. A large review of 70 studies looked at the association between positive well-being and longevity in both healthy people and those with a pre-existing health condition, such as heart or kidney disease. Higher positive well-being was found to have a favorable effect on survival, reducing the risk of death by 18% in healthy people and by 2% in those with pre-existing disease. How happiness may lead to greater life expectancy is not well understood. It may be partly explained by an increase in beneficial behaviors that prolong survival, such as not smoking, engaging in physical activity, medication compliance, and good sleep habits and practices.

Happiness combats stress

Stress is not only upsetting on a psychological level but also triggers biological changes in our hormones and blood pressure. Happiness seems to temper these effects, or at least help us recover more quickly.  In the study mentioned above, where participants rated their happiness more than 30 times in a day, researchers also found associations between happiness and stress. The happiest participants had 23 percent lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol than the least happy, and another indicator of stress—the level of a blood-clotting protein that increases after stress—was 12 times lower.

Happiness also seems to carry benefits even when stress is inevitable. In a 2009 study, some diabolically cruel researchers decided to stress out psychology students and see how they reacted. The students were led to a soundproof chamber, where they first answered questions indicating whether they generally felt 10 feelings like enthusiasm or pride. Then came their worst nightmare: They had to answer an exceedingly difficult statistics question while being videotaped, and they were told that their professor would evaluate their response. Throughout the process, their heart was measured with an electrocardiogram (EKG) machine and a blood pressure monitor. In the wake of such stress, the hearts of the happiest students recovered most quickly.

Normally, excess stress causes an increase in levels of cortisol, a hormone that contributes to many of the harmful effects of stress, including disturbed sleep, weight gain, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure. A number of studies demonstrate that cortisol levels tend to be lower when people are happier. In fact, one study in over 200 adults gave participants a series of stressful lab-based tasks and found that the cortisol levels in the happiest individuals were 32% lower than for unhappy participants. These effects appeared to persist over time. When the researchers followed up with the same group of adults three years later, there was a 20% difference in cortisol levels between the happiest and least happy people.

Happy people have fewer aches and pains. Unhappiness can be painful—literally. A 2001 study asked participants to rate their recent experience of positive emotions, then (five weeks later) how much they had experienced negative symptoms like muscle strain, dizziness, and heartburn since the study began. People who reported the highest levels of positive emotion at the beginning actually became healthier over the course of the study, and ended up healthier than their unhappy counterparts. The fact that their health improved over five weeks (and the health of the unhappiest participants declined) suggests that the results aren’t merely evidence of people in a good mood giving rosier ratings of their health than people in a bad mood.

A 2005 study by Carnegie Melon University suggests that positive emotion also mitigates pain in the context of disease. Women with arthritis and chronic pain rated themselves weekly on positive emotions like interest, enthusiasm, and inspiration for about three months. Over the course of the study, those with higher ratings overall were less likely to experience increases in pain.

A 2005 meta-analysis, aggregating the results of other studies on health and happiness, speculates that experiencing positive emotion is helpful in diseases with a long timeline but could actually be harmful in late-stage disease. The authors cite studies showing that positive emotion lowers the risk of death in people with diabetes and AIDS, but actually increases the risk in people with metastatic breast cancer, early-stage melanoma, and end-stage kidney disease. That increased risk might be due to the fact that happier people underreport their symptoms and don’t get the right treatment or take worse care of themselves because they are overly optimistic. As the science of happiness and health matures, researchers are trying to determine what role, if any, happiness actually plays in causing health benefits. They’re also trying to distinguish the effects of different forms of happiness (including positive emotions and life satisfaction), the effects of “extreme” happiness, and other factors. For example, a new study suggests that we should look not just at life satisfaction levels but life satisfaction variability: Researchers found that low life satisfaction with lots of fluctuations—i.e., an unstable level of happiness—was linked to even earlier death than low life satisfaction alone.

Happy employees are more productive and creative.

A positive, contented working environment should never be underestimated. Happy employees are more engaged, creative, healthy, collaborative, positive and loyal. With a proven correlation between workplace satisfaction and business productivity, it’s clear that promoting a happy working environment attracts staff who will be committed to doing their best for your company. So in order to boost productivity, retain top talent and gain a competitive edge, it pays to keep your employees happy at work.

The experience of happiness is beneficial to workplace success because it promotes workplace productivity, creativity, and cooperation. There are several reasons why this is the case. The experience of positive feelings motivates people to succeed at work and to persist with efforts to attain their goals. As discussed above, individuals who are happier are more likely to be healthy and will, in turn, tend to be more productive (in part, simply because happier and healthier individuals will take fewer sick days). In addition, individuals who are happier better integrate information leading to new ideas, which leads to creativity and innovation. Finally, individuals who are happier tend to have better social relations. In the context of work this leads to greater cooperation among co-workers and with customers.

Happiness in the workplace is important: a content and motivated team equals a healthier, more engaged, and productive workforce. In 2015, research at the UK’s University of Warwick found that happy employees were 12% more productive than others – the explanation being that happiness leads to more engagement and effective use of time. Google is a prime example of how boosting your employees’ mood can pay off. The company repeatedly ranks in the world’s top 10 best employers, largely due to its intense focus on employee wellbeing and engagement. By offering a wide range of employee staff-support initiatives such as on-site healthcare and extensive personal and professional development, employees spend more time at work and are happier and more productive.

According to 2018 research by Gallup and the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, Canada, disengaged workers had 37% higher absenteeism, 49% more accidents and made 60% more errors.

Meanwhile, US happiness researcher Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work, has amassed a wide range of research, showing that the brain works more efficiently when a person is feeling positive. This is when individuals tend to be more creative, have more energy, resilience, and stamina.

Happiness at work has a range of benefits for how our brains work and think. When we’re happier, we tend not to focus on the negatives or stressors as much, allowing more room to think about how to positively get on with challenges.

An extensive study into happiness and productivity has found that workers are 13% more productive when happy. The research was conducted in the contact centres of British telecoms firm BT over a six-month period by Jan-Emmanuel De Neve (Saïd Business School, University of Oxford) George Ward (MIT) and Clement Bellet (Erasmus University Rotterdam). The researchers found that when workers are happier, they work faster by making more calls per hour worked and, importantly, convert more calls to sales.

Sgroi in a study for the University of Warwick found that happier employees tended to be 12% more productive, whereas unhappy employees were up to 10% less productive.

Oswald investigated how positive feelings influence productivity in an experimental setting. In an experiment involving piece-rate pay for research participants across a number of days, the economists found that those who were put in a positive mood had a greater quantity of work output (about 10-12%), but no less quality of output. Those performing the task at low and medium levels of productivity were helped most by being put in a good mood. As part of that same research, the researchers also found that a bad mood induced by family illness or bereavement had a detrimental impact on productivity.

Unhappy employees cost companies worldwide billions of dollars per year in lost revenues, settlements, and various other damages. The loss of revenue can send well-known companies into financial distress, with some filing for bankruptcy.

If an employee is not happy with his or her job, it will show in his or her productivity. Employees putting off work means that they simply do not want to do it, so they will procrastinate until the very last moment and rush through completing a task. This leads to poor quality control standards, unsafe products and dangers to consumers. It is common for unhappy employees to neglect to complete tasks. This can lead to unsafe buildings, wet floors and dangerous displays that can injure guests or other employees. Injuries caused by neglect, whether directly or indirectly, tarnishes a company’s reputation and can immediately impact its revenues. Cases of serious injury or death, caused by company negligence on any level, often results in hefty settlements being paid out to those affected.

Not just productivity, but a study by Oxford’s Saïd Business School suggests that happier employees also achieve higher sales than unhappy employees. Moreover, they don’t have to work for more hours than the unhappy employees to deliver superior results. Happy Employees are More Engaged. Engagement and happiness go hand in hand. Happier employees are more engaged and bring a certain level of passion, innovation, and energy to their jobs. Compared to unengaged employees, engaged employees are more passionate about excelling at everything they do. The enthusiasm generally translates into higher ownership of their growth which ultimately helps their employer. 

Happy Employees are Better at Seizing Opportunities. Agility is one of the most sought-after qualities in employees responsible for helping an organization succeed in this VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) world. As happier employees feel supported and are more confident, they are more willing to jump on every new opportunity. They generally have a more optimistic outlook towards their work which enables them to find such opportunities that can be taken advantage of. Combined with a higher level of self-confidence, they are always ready to take chances and push themselves to achieve newer heights. They generally have a more optimistic outlook towards their work which enables them to find such opportunities that can be taken advantage of. Combined with a higher level of self-confidence, they are always ready to take chances and push themselves to achieve newer heights. Happy Employees Have Stronger Interpersonal Skills. Interactions with happier employees are more pleasant for the customers, supervisors, and co-workers. Their stronger interpersonal skills make them a team player who positively contributes to every collaboration. They are also more open to feedback as their positive outlook makes them feel confident about using constructive criticism to improve further. Moreover, according to a study by a pharmaceutical company, customer loyalty increases when employees are happy and engaged. Their cheerful and pleasant personalities help them offer better customer service and turn them into loyal brand advocates.

Happy Employees are Healthier. Happier employees feel better mentally and physically. This allows them to deliver their best at everything they do and also take fewer day-offs. According to the Integrated Benefits Institute study, workforce illnesses cost US companies more than $576 billion every year.  With most organizations now working towards making mental health a priority, creating a happier work environment could be an excellent way to keep the employees healthy and reduce illness-related costs.

Happiness is not usually associated with hard data, performance, efficiency and so forth, but a Kansas State University researcher, Thomas Wright, points out that this particular factor can contribute greatly to organizational performance.

Wright states that when employees have good levels of happiness or psychological well-being along with job satisfaction, they perform better and are less likely to leave their job.

It is well established that positive emotions have an effect on a wide range of behaviours, such as cognitive problem solving, scope of attention, creative and flexible thought patterns, resilience, and successful adaptation to work stress.

Stimulating happiness and positive emotions in the workplace may therefore enhance individual adaptation and performance, increase creativity and innovation, and ensure organizational effectiveness.

Happy people are successful. A meta-analysis by famous psychologist Lyubomirsky and her colleagues involving 275 000 respondents showed that happy individuals are more likely to obtain job interviews, to be evaluated more positively by supervisors once they obtain a job, to show superior performance and productivity, and to handle managerial jobs better.

They are also less likely to show counterproductive workplace behavior and job burnout. Furthermore, happy people seem to be more satisfied with their jobs and will more often engage in activities such as helping co-workers and promoting the organization.

Studies have also shown that individuals in a positive mood are more resilient and experienced less work stress. Having positive emotions seems to enable workers to thrive despite high demands, and to be able to broaden attention and cognition, thereby producing thought patterns that are unusual, flexible, and creative. In other words, happy employees may contribute to innovative and creative solutions to work challenges.

There is also evidence that employees’ happiness and positive emotions may relate to direct financial gain for the company. A study of 60 management teams found that the teams which produced the highest financial results, were characterized by a positive style of communication giving support and recognition, expressed more positive feelings and a wider scope of ideas and initiative, as compared to teams with average or poor financial results.

Happiness enhances Creativity.

Teresa Amabile a researcher at Harvard, debunks the myth that emotional pain spurs creativity. “There’s this widespread notion that fear and sadness somehow spur creativity. There’s even some psychological literature suggesting that the incidence of depression is higher in creative writers and artists. The depressed geniuses who are incredibly original in their thinking. But we don’t see it in the population that we studied.”

In a research study, she asked 280 people working in various industries to record emotions they were experiencing on a given day. Her team then studied 12,000 journal entries and found that creativity is positively associated with joy and love and negatively associated with anger, fear, and anxiety.

“The entries show that people are happiest when they come up with a creative idea, but they’re more likely to have a breakthrough if they were happy the day before. There’s a kind of virtuous cycle. When people are excited about their work, there’s a better chance that they’ll make a cognitive association that incubates overnight and shows up as a creative idea the next day. One day’s happiness often predicts the next day’s creativity.” See also The Progress Principle by Amabile.

A study by Conner, T. S., & Silvia, P. J. reported in the journal ‘Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts’, showed that people are more creative on days when they experienced more positive emotions. In the study, over 600 young adults kept a diary for 13 days, recording both their creativity and positive and negative emotions. Creativity was found to be the highest on days with high-activation positive emotions like feeling excited, energetic, and enthusiastic. Medium- and low-activation emotional states like happiness and relaxation were also beneficial for creativity, just not as strongly. Similarly, according to a 2005 study that also used a diary method, positive affect is positively related to creativity at work. A 2014 experimental study found that people performed better in a creativity task when they were in an experimentally induced positive mood.

Happiness has also been shown to enhance curiosity and creativity. Foremost, positive feelings are associated with curiosity and creativity. Leitzel found that happy people are more likely to feel energetic and interested in doing things, as well as scoring higher on measures of curiosity. Further, there is a large experimental research literature showing that people put in a good mood tend to be more original, creative, and show greater cognitive flexibility. Both Amabile and George and Zhou found that workers are more creative when they experience positive moods. Indeed, two recent meta-analyses of experimental and non-experimental studies showed that although the strength of effects depend on the context and motivational focus, happiness is related to and generates creativity.

A major reason for the success of happy individuals and organizations is that they experience on average more positive social relationships. Research clearly shows that happy workers are more cooperative and collaborative in negotiations than unhappy ones. In general, positive emotions boost cooperative and collaborative behavior in negotiations rather than withdrawal or competition. Individuals who are in a positive mood are more willing to make concessions during negotiations. Through cooperation, they reach a better joint solution in negotiations. Individuals in a positive mood are more likely to make cooperative choices in a prisoner’s dilemma game as well. People in a positive mood are also more likely to show cohesion with their group. Recent experimental studies have shown that positive emotions lead to trust and cooperation when specific conditions are met. Overall, happiness leads to cooperation and collaboration in the workplace, particularly so in situations involving negotiation.

The Business case for Happiness

Leaders, whether they are CEOs or budding entrepreneurs, focus on making their company successful by concentrating on operations, sales, marketing and growth―all the things that feed into the bottom line. But asked about bringing happiness to employees and customers, many leaders don’t know how much importance to place on it, if the concept is even on their radar screen. However, research shows―time and time again―that there are bottom line benefits that happiness provides. These range from increased productivity to development of a greater number of innovative products, to fewer sick days. Happiness also positively correlates with individual workplace success, including higher income, favorable evaluations by a superior, helping fellow workers, and social support from colleagues and supervisors.

The research shows investments in happy employees drive top-line improvements for companies. Happier employees are more efficient, more creative, and produce work of higher quality. Employee satisfaction even directly affects the consumer. A study shows hospitals with the lowest employee satisfaction had the lowest patient satisfaction, and hospitals with the highest employee satisfaction had the highest patient satisfaction. Research shows that happier employees are often better employees. Happiness is positively related to performance quality, innovation, and efficiency. Psychologically strong employees consistently exhibit higher performance: 10-25 percent of variance in job performance is associated with differences in well-being. If a company were to pay an employee a salary in the $65,000 range, having that person be psychologically distressed could cost the company roughly $75 a week per person in lost productivity. With 10 employees, that translates to $750 per week in performance variance or $39,000 per year. It’s not just on the revenue side where investments in employee happiness can pay off. A number of studies show happiness initiatives can drive lower costs for companies as well.

Happier employees take fewer sick days and are more likely to stay in their jobs. Employees at non-profits take only 0.75 sick days a year compared to an average of seven in the private sector. Especially for knowledge-based companies that invest significantly in recruiting and training, such as consulting firms or investment banks, turnover is an important driver of cost. The possibility of turnover was 0.57 times smaller for anyone-unit increase in well-being. Why?

Happier people are more satisfied with their jobs, and job satisfaction is clearly linked to employee retention. One of the reasons that people stay in their jobs is because they like their co-workers, and employees who are happier are not only looking for settings with a good work environment; they also help to create that environment. Furthermore, the causal relationship from happiness to job satisfaction is stronger than the causal relationship from job satisfaction to happiness.

Happy people spend 80% of time on task — unfortunately the rest of our time is taken up by the mundane things that don’t directly contribute. In contrast, unhappy people spend just 40% of their time on task. That’s just 2 days of real work done per week. 144 days of lost productivity per year.

We are not simply talking about how much work gets done while an employee is at work — unhappy employees spend less time actually at work too. Shawn Achor highlights the findings of a 2008 study by Gallup Healthways:

“Employees who score low in “life satisfaction,” a rigorously tested and widely accepted metric, stay home an average of 1.25 more days a month… That translates into a decrease in productivity of 15 days a year.” So overall, unhappy employees lose you 159 days of real work every year.

That’s not the end of it. Even on the odd day that all your employees are actually working, happy people are 10–12% more productive. Maybe we should all be watching a comedy at the start of every workday?!

A happy workforce increases productivity because employees are more focused, creative, and entrepreneurial. The field of happiness studies was originally called well-being economics, which did not resonate with most people, hence the lay term of happiness being used. The new thinking in businesses today is making happiness part of their business model. Happiness before profit creates a strong employee culture and improved business financial performance. The personal disadvantages of unhappy employees include increased work stress, moral stress, and burnout, which lead to feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and incompetence. From a business point of view, happy employees can make better decisions and their frame of mind can impact the financial and social conditions in the business.

Happier employees are more loyal to companies than their unhappy counterparts and tend to stay longer. In fact, according to iOpener Institute, they plan to stay twice as long at their companies. This loyalty leads to a reduction in costs associated with recruiting, onboarding, and training employees.

Business success also depends on having a steady stream of happy and loyal customers. Loyal customers not only buy your products and services, but also recommend you to others, helping you achieve even more success.

A crucial part of building this loyalty is improving customer experiences at every possible brand interaction. And to enhance customer experiences, you need to invest in employees, their happiness, and their experiences. Why? Because employee experiences shape customer experiences and how customers feel about your company.

For instance, according to Forbes, companies that deliver exceptional customer experiences have employees who are 1.5 times more engaged than those with bad customer experiences. If your employees are happy, it will rub off on your customers and leave a lasting impression of your company in their eyes. They will be more likely to deliver better customer service, encouraging customers to stay. More and more companies are acknowledging the importance of investing in employees and their happiness to promote loyalty.

Happy Students Perform Better

Academic achievement is one of the most important indicators to assess progress in education and it is the only goal for the entire educational system to achieve. In other words, the society is interested and worried about the fate of the individual, his successful development and status in the community, and expects him to exceed in various aspects, including cognitive skills and abilities, and grow different dimensions of personality, emotional and behavioral development, and excellence.

Academic achievement is of the topics which has been paid attention to from educational and psychological point of view. Research findings have shown academic achievement is affected not only by the structures of knowledge and information processing, but it is also related to the motivational factors such as beliefs, attitudes and values. Happiness is one of the variables that are related to academic achievement. According to research by Megan M. Fritz of the University of California, Riverside, the people who have a high sense of happiness are more active in academic performance and progress of higher education.

University students form a large portion of the active population of a country. In all countries, issues and problems of university students have taken on a wide range and it seems that several factors endanger their psychological health. This combination of factors may be internal stimuli like personality, which leads him to the defeat and surrender to the underlying problems or environmental factors such as stress. Extreme stress among students causes educational failure, unemployment, addiction and drug abuse, health problems, poor performance, dropout, and in some cases even lead to suicide and murder. Faced with various stressors and reactions from them, students usually try to use coping mechanisms such as avoiding stress, seeking social support, or turning on a specific religion and religious rituals or negative coping mechanisms such as alcohol and drug use.

Harvard Graduate School of Education lecturer Christina Hinton examined the interplay of happiness, motivation, and success in a K–12 setting, and she also looked at the school factors that support student happiness. Using both quantitative and qualitative measures, she found that from elementary school to high school, happiness is positively correlated with motivation and academic achievement. She also found that the culture of the school and the relationships that students form with their teachers and their peers play an influential role in their happiness.

How is the learning influenced by emotions? The possible explanation is that emotions are closely connected to learning in the brain. Two brain areas called the hippocampus and amygdala are essential in this regard. The amygdala analyzes sensory information that creates emotions and evaluates how vital this information is. There are connections between the amygdala and other brain areas, such as the frontal lobe and the hippocampus. The hippocampus is responsible for transferring data from the working memory to the long-term memory, allowing us to remember new experiences and new knowledge. Feelings that originate in the amygdala influence this process. If you stop to think about it, you have probably felt this connection. Our memories of emotionally intense experiences tend to be vivid. The connection between the amygdala and the hippocampus explains why all educators should be mindful of what feelings they awaken in the kids.