This is how happy you need to be to have a lower risk of disease

Look on the bright side; Being happy can reduce your risk of chronic diseases. That’s according to researchers who found that being happier could mean being healthier.

Heart disease, cancer, asthma and diabetes are chronic or non-communicable diseases that are responsible for three-quarters of global deaths.

While there are genetic, environmental and lifestyle choices that influence a person’s risk of disease, how happy a person is also plays a role, researchers suggest after a new study.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health broadly to include “mental and social development” and suggests that happiness can influence disease risk. But public health often focuses on smoking cessation, poor nutrition, and inactivity.

“Happiness is not only a personal emotion, but also a measurable public health resource,” said first author Professor Iulia Iuga of Alba Iulia University in Romania.

In the study published in the journal Borders in Medicine, Using data from 123 countries, different health institutions, global development statistics and public opinion surveys between 2006 and 2021, researchers revealed at what point on the “life ladder” being happy means healthy.

“The life ladder can be viewed as a simple happiness scale from zero to ten, where zero means the worst possible life and ten means the best possible life,” Professor Iuga explained. “People are imagining where they stand on this ladder right now.”

A score of 2.7 can be found at the lower end of the ladder, and people or countries that find themselves there are generally considered unhappy or distressed.

“An adjective that fits this level would be ‘barely coping’,” Professor Iuga said. Only at this point do improvements in happiness begin to translate into measurable health benefits.

Once the threshold is crossed and a country’s collective happiness rises above that threshold, the study found that every 1 percent increase in subjective well-being is associated with an estimated 0.43 percent decrease in that country’s death rate from non-communicable diseases. This rate expresses the percentage of deaths due to non-communicable diseases in individuals aged 30-70.

“Within the observed range, we found no evidence of adverse effects of ‘excessive’ happiness,” Professor Iuga added.

The researchers found that small improvements in happiness below the 2.7-point threshold (for example, a score of 2 to 2.2) did not translate into a measurable reduction in non-communicable disease deaths.

However, countries that exceed this happiness level appear to spend more on health per capita than countries that fall below this level.

The average life ladder score across the countries examined during the study period was 5.45, with a minimum of 2.18 and a maximum of 7.97.

The researchers suggested several ways governments could raise their country’s happiness score above 2.7 by expanding obesity prevention and tightening access to alcohol, improving the environment through stricter air quality standards, and increasing health spending per capita.

Although it is not known why happy people have a lower risk of disease, experts suggest that feeling good can reduce heart disease risk factors such as high blood pressure and cholesterol.

According to the British Heart Foundation, people who experience symptoms of depression are more likely to develop heart disease or have a stroke than people who report good mental health.

One study found that a positive mindset after being diagnosed with stroke or heart disease can significantly reduce the risk of future health problems. A separate study of women found that high levels of hope protected against angina, the chest pain caused by heart disease.