Thriving too

Does Education Lead to Happiness?

 

Via: BM Design

Ecoloove in India

Ecoloove as a company sees itself as as business concept based on micro loan and social entrepreneurship. The goal for Ecoloove is to offer mainly women a safe and ecological way of using a toilet facility and at the same time offer women in rural areas a business opportunity.

Ecoloove is assembled onto a three wheeler bicycle, therefore allowing women driving the toilet to earn money from visiting villages and offer their toilet service, but also through selling the fertilizer which can become the end product from the urine separating toilet. The mobile toilet is also meant to be used as a platform to inform about hygiene and health.

During 2006, 665 million Indians conducted their excretory needs in the open; polluting water bodies near their dwellings. This means that rivers and other water bodies get overfed with pollutants and other pathogens. By multiplying the yearly production of feaces (50 kg) and urine (500 liter) per person the scale of the sanitary waste that reaches rivers and streams is a Himalayan one. Additionally, the lack of sanitary facilities are particularly acute for women.

Women are a particularly vulnerable group. Due to cultural modesty they are unable to relieve themselves in the open. They can only do so under the cover of darkness - in the early morning or the late night. They suffer the risk of rape due to distant toilet visits, so they hold on all day which also leads to urinary tract infections – which untreated, can reach the kidneys and cause serious illness. This is particularly a problem during pregnancy. 

A lack of toilet facilities also contributes to not having the possibility to engage in daily work freely. The woman gets dependent on her husband for support – inequality. Equality comes as number three of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. As number seven: “Environmental Sustainability” which again includes sanitation. According to the UN every dollar invested in sanitation generates nine dollars back to the country in the form of increased health, increased education, increased working capability among the citizens and better economical development. But among all a better water quality will be achieved.

 

The Happy National Effects of a Good Education

  

Wonderful article on Costa Rica in The New York Times.

"What sets Costa Rica apart is its remarkable decision in 1949 to dissolve its armed forces and invest instead in education. Increased schooling created a more stable society, less prone to the conflicts that have raged elsewhere in Central America. Education also boosted the economy, enabling the country to become a major exporter of computer chips and improving English-language skills so as to attract American eco-tourists."

"In Costa Rica, rising education levels also fostered impressive gender equality so that it ranks higher than the United States in the World Economic Forum gender gap index. This allows Costa Rica to use its female population more productively than is true in most of the region. Likewise, education nurtured improvements in health care, with life expectancy now about the same as in the United States — a bit longer in some data sets, a bit shorter in others

Rising education levels also led the country to preserve its lush environment as an economic asset. Costa Rica is an ecological pioneer, introducing a carbon tax in 1997. The Environmental Performance Index, a collaboration of Yale and Columbia Universities, ranks Costa Rica at No. 5 in the world, the best outside Europe."

Via: Jennifer McCrickerd

Nurturing Relationships

 There is a very insightful article in the Guardian about how important Christmas is for nurturing our relationships with friends and family. Using some data from the new report by the Young Foundation Sinking and swimming: understanding Britain's unmet needs, the article points to the increase in anxiety and depression and how important a renewed sense of connection is at Christmas "Between 1991 and 2007 prescriptions for antidepressants more than trebled. Anxiety and depression are set to double in a generation."

"Both Labour and the Conservatives have already begun to position themselves as the party of the family, but the debate so far has been dominated by ugly jousting over the importance of marriage. This is a dangerous impoverishment of a crucial debate. Contrary to the politicians' rhetoric, the structure of the family is far less important than the quality of its relationships, as a recent Gingerbread report demonstrates. We also need to affirm the importance of all relationships, not just marriage. As society ages, the relationships between young and old will become all the more important. And the importance of relationships goes beyond the intimacies of home, into the public realm."

[Pic: Thank you ribbon from palomasnest]

Relationships are the only thing that matters

For the first time, a journalist, Joshua Wolshenk, has been given access to the archives of one of the most comprehensive longitutudinal studies in history. For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been  following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. This fascinating article in The Atlantic looks at The Grant Study.

"The study began in the spirit of laying lives out on a microscope slide. But it turned out that the lives were too big, too weird, too full of subtleties and contradictions to fit any easy conception of “successful living.” Arlie Bock had gone looking for binary conclusions—yeses and nos, dos and don’ts. But the enduring lessons would be paradoxical, not only on the substance of the men’s lives (the most inspiring triumphs were often studies in hardship) but also with respect to method: if it was to come to life, this cleaver-sharp science project would need the rounding influence of storytelling."

The article doesn't just consider the research, but looks in the life of of George Vaillant, the study's longtime director.  Vaillant has been the chief investigator of the lives of these men for 42 years and has also been the chief analyst of their lessons - many of them viewed through the lens of psychiatry, an influence which is very apparent.

What are some of the key findings?  There is so much in this study and in this article, but I have picked out a few points which really interested me.

The study looks at themes of maturing and ageing and paints a process far less painful than we assume when young. But there do seem to be some predictors of ageing well, both physically and mentally.

"Employing mature adaptations was one. The others were education, stable marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight. Of the 106 Harvard men who had five or six of these factors in their favor at age 50, half ended up at 80 as what Vaillant called “happy-well” and only 7.5 percent as “sad-sick.” Meanwhile, of the men who had three or fewer of the health factors at age 50, none ended up “happy-well” at 80. Even if they had been in adequate physical shape at 50, the men who had three or fewer protective factors were three times as likely to be dead at 80 as those with four or more factors.

The study has yielded some additional subtle surprises. Regular exercise in college predicted late-life mental health better than it did physical health. And depression turned out to be a major drain on physical health: of the men who were diagnosed with depression by age 50, more than 70 percent had died or were chronically ill by 63. More broadly, pessimists seemed to suffer physically in comparison with optimists, perhaps because they’re less likely to connect with others or care for themselves."

Vaillant’s other main interest is the power of relationships. “It is social aptitude,” he writes, “not intellectual brilliance or parental social class, that leads to successful aging.” Warm connections are necessary—and if not found in a mother or father, they can come from siblings, uncles, friends, mentors. The men’s relationships at age 47, he found, predicted late-life adjustment better than any other variable, except defenses.

In an interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant was asked, “What have you learned from the Grant Study men?” Vaillant’s response: “That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”

Last year Vaillant gave a talk to Martin Seligman's class:

“The happiness books say, ‘Try happiness. You’ll like it a lot more than misery’—which is perfectly true,” he told them. But why, he asked, do people tell psychologists they’d cross the street to avoid someone who had given them a compliment the previous day?
In fact, Vaillant went on, positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. One reason is that they’re future-oriented. Fear and sadness have immediate payoffs—protecting us from attack or attracting resources at times of distress. Gratitude and joy, over time, will yield better health and deeper connections—but in the short term actually put us at risk. That’s because, while negative emotions tend to be insulating, positive emotions expose us to the common elements of rejection and heartbreak."

How very wise, the sort of wise that studying the lives of people for 42 years can bring....

Wait Watching

Guerrilla marketing from Nis5 in Holland. Have your weight flash up in lights. Not that keen on this, even though it is very original.

Becoming a fan of smiling

It won't surprise many of you to find out that I've always been partial to a good old fashioned smile. I just love it.

In fact I love it so much that thanks to the wonders of Facebook, its now official. I am a fully fledged fan of Smiling having just joined the 400,000+ strong group of global grinners this week.

According to the people behind the group:

"In physiology, a smile is a facial expression formed by flexing those muscles most notably near both ends of the mouth. The smile can also be found around the eyes (See 'Duchenne smile'). Among humans, it is customarily an expression denoting pleasure, happiness, or amusement, but can also be an involuntary expression of anxiety, in which case it can be known as a grimace. There is much evidence that smiling is a normal reaction to certain stimuli as it occurs regardless of culture. Happiness is most often the motivating cause of a smile."

So there you have it!

I don't know about you, but of the most common types of smile I'm rather prone to the 'Twisted Smile' myself, although mine is more a half smile/smirk combo I'd say... But whether its a smile or a smirk, grin or gurn, there's no doubting their magical powers!

So go on, say cheese and give grinning a go!

Survival of the Kindest

 

Dacher Keltner is a Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley and author of Born to Be Good.

He has written a fascinating article called Darwin's Touch: Survival of the Kindest

In his article he describes a study he has conducted where people can sense an emotion through touch alone.  He goes on to summarise:

"Sympathetic touches are processed by receptors under the surface of the skin, and set in motion a cascade of beneficial physiological responses. In one recent study, female participants waiting anxiously for an electric shock showed activation in threat-related regions of the brain, a response quickly turned off when their hands were held by loved ones nearby. Friendly touch stimulates activation in the vagus nerve, a bundle of nerves in the chest that calms fight-or-flight cardiovascular response and triggers the release of oxytocin, which enables feelings of trust."

"Were he alive today, Darwin would likely have found modest delight in seeing two of his hypotheses confirmed: sympathy is indeed wired into our brains and bodies; and it spreads from one person to another through touch. Darwin, the great fact amasser that he was, would no doubt have compiled these new findings on sympathy and touch in one of his many notebooks (now a folder on a laptop). He may have titled that folder "Survival of the kindest.""

Previous post: Innate Goodness. 

Emotions and the Web

MediaSnackers are putting together an exciting new project looking at how people feel online.  Although it is not live yet I am so interested to see how it will work, as emotions, the web, and networks is a particular interest of mine.  I also like the fact that MediaSnackers isn't approaching this as a research project, and that it will attempt to look at another 'invisible' but vitally important aspect of our online activity.

Mark Mapstone writes:

"Its seems to be all about numbers out there. Is it because the emotive isn’t tangible and easily measurable?

We’ve decided to capture this untapped emotion that’s fuelling peoples actions and activities online, calling it ‘The Web Makes Me Feel’ (TWWMF for short).

This isn’t going to be research though. Why not? Because without covering all bases, pitching the right questions and operating in an unbiased, non-influential manner, covering all demographics, you can be certain that the end result will so full of holes you could park a caravan in it. No fun we thinks.

So the end result data will be useless? Yes, if all you want to do is shove it in to excel and create a pie chart, but no, if you want to discover how people ‘feel’ about being online.

The final project should be enjoyable to wander through the results, interesting to talk about and as far as we’re aware, something no-one else is documenting."

Good luck to MediaSnackers with the project, more excellent work expected from them!

Thanks to Mike Amos-Simpson for the link!

Measuring Wellbeing - Campaign Launch by NEF

The New Economics Foundation launched a new website today called National Accounts of Well-being. As well as being able to look at research data into wellbeing, you can also measure your own, and support their campaign for increased measurement and accountability by government on wellbeing.

The research published today ranked the UK as the 6th happiest in Europe, and described Britons as 'bored but happy'.  Lots of information to absorb...

Brilliant work by NEF!

Digital Health

The Digital Health Service is holding an evening of conversation and stimulation at think tank Demos on Tuesday 27 January in London from 6.30pm to together crack open the conversation about how we can all become happier, healthier and more holistic in our relationship with technology.

Digital Health Service helps businesses communities and all their stakeholders to discover, develop and optimise their relationship with technology.

"We believe that good digital health can contribute to mental fitness, happiness and productivity and we are exploring how hands-on training, web design consultancy, and the invention of new online services to help us understand, manage, redesign and live a healthy digital lifestyle."

Click here to register... It's FREE.  Like all really good things!

This Much Depression

The publication, This Much Depression is about the seasonal affective depression(SAD) in Vancouver. As Vancouver has lots of rain, compared to other places, many people are suffered from the SAD. This book tells about what is SAD, personal experiences of SAD and how to get over it. The signage designed for measure the depression of the day by the amount of rain and color of the sky.

Happiness in Social Networks

 

Last month Professor Nicholas Chistakis (Harvard University) and Associate Professor James Folwer (University of California) published the analysis of their research into the spread of happiness in social networks.  This study is one of those rather remarkable pieces of research which followed nearly 5000 individuals for 20 years -  1983 to 2003. Those 5000 individuals were embedded in a larger network of 12,000 people, they had an average of 11 connections to others in the social network and their happiness was assessed every few years using a standard measure.

Christakis and Folwer:

• A person's happiness is related to the happiness of their friends, their friends' friends, and their friends' friends' friends—that is, to people well beyond their social horizon. 

• We found that happy people tend to be located in the center of their social networks and to be located in large clusters of other happy people. 

• And we found that each additional happy friend increases a person's probability of being happy by about 9%. For comparison, having an extra $5,000 in income (in 1984 dollars) increased the probability of being happy by about 2%.      

  

• We found that social networks have clusters of happy and unhappy people within them that reach out to three degrees of separation. 

  

•  Happiness, in short, is not merely a function of personal experience, but also is a property of groups. Emotions are a collective phenomenon.

As the authors explain we have known for some time that emotional contagion spreads between people through contact, but what this new study shows us that happiness spreads across a diverse array of social ties, over time and distance.  The happiness effect reduces the further removed the contact is, but evidence is that three degrees of separation still has an impact on the individual.

A few things struck me in particular about the study:  

• The statistical models suggest that clusters of happiness result from the spread of happiness and not just a tendency for people to associate with similar individuals. So, we really can have a significant impact on the happiness of our friends and family, not just by giving them friendship, but simply by being happy ourselves.
• Network characteristics independently predict which individuals will be happy years into the future.  
• Although happy people tended to be within a larger network of happier people, I couldn't find anything specific about whether a happy individual attracts a larger, happier network, or whether the network itself makes an individual happier.  I wondered about this particularly because my own experience is that my networks make me happy... 

This research project reminded me very much of another longitudinal study which looked at resilience over a 30 year year period (1955-1985) on Kauai, and island of Hawaii.  This study had been very important to my own recent studies, and their conclusions shared some characteristics of this latest report.  They found that individuals with many strong and diverse social ties where more likely to overcome adversity.  Social ties were considered one of the most significant 'protective factors'.

Wonderful, painstaking, research. And so important to understand how we have so much potential to positively impact those around us.....
  

Article in Edge

Full Text Research Paper
  

5 Ways to Wellbeing

Beautifully designed and conceptualised postcards available for download here from the New Economics Foundation who have made wellbeing a major research and practice strand. Their Well-being Manifesto for a Florishing Society is brilliant.