Happiness fact 32: what is Flow? And why does it matter?

Flow is a state of intense concentration and productivity when time flies. U.S. teenagers experience flow about 13 percent of the time that they spend watching television, 34 percent of the time they do hobbies, and 44 percent of the time they are involved in sports and games Source: Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi (1990).

Flow gives a sense of achievement and intense pleasure, the world around us disappears, we become one, in a state of hyper-productive meditation, focused on our task at hand.

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Happiness fact 31: 27% spend enough time doing what we are passionate about

Employees who rate their job as "not very meaningful". (1,600 respondents, Authentic-Happiness.com survey).

Now, this is feedback, to corporations, to leaders, to direct supervisors and to our "beloved" Human Resource department. With a more volatile, younger generation entering the job market, the challenge of defining meaningful job assignments will be even more acute and critical to building an experienced loyal workforce.

At the same time, only 27% believe that they spend enough time rate doing what they are passionate about. What if we could ignite some new passions and reconnect those with our daily work? What if learning and leadership was so engaging that employees would become over time true passionate experts in their field of work: this sounds like Utopia Inc. !

Maybe, but there is no doubt that getting closer to this goal would result in significant performance gains. Isn't this the ultimate goal of the learning department?

Source: www.Authentic-Happiness.com (2016)

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Happiness fact 30: Sex or Sleep?

79%: this is the number of women who prefer a good night's sleep rather than sex.

Source: The Better Sleep Council, published in the mindful magazine June 2014.

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Happiness fact 29: stress keeps 50% of millennials awake at night

40 percent of millennials say their stress has increased over the past year, compared to 33 percent for baby boomers and 29 percent for older Americans.
Over half of millennials say that stress has kept them awake at night during the past month, compared to 37 percent for baby boomers and 25 percent for older Americans.
And only 29 percent of millennials say they’re getting enough sleep.

Source: Julia Sweeney (2014)

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Happiness fact 28: anticipating vacation boosts happiness for 8 weeks

Researchers from the Netherlands set out to measure the effect that vacations have on overall happiness and how long it lasts. They studied happiness levels among 1,530 Dutch adults, 974 of whom took a vacation during the 32-week study period.

The study, published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life, showed that the largest boost in happiness comes from the simple act of planning a vacation. In the study, the effect of vacation anticipation boosted happiness for eight weeks.

After the vacation, happiness quickly dropped back to baseline levels for most people. How much stress or relaxation a traveler experienced on the trip appeared to influence post-vacation happiness. There was no post-trip happiness benefit for travelers who said the vacation was "neutral" or stressful."

Source: Jeroen Nawijn, Miquelle A. Marchand, Ruut Veenhoven, Ad J. Vingerhoets, Applied Research in Quality of Life, Netherlands (2010)

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Happiness fact 27: 2 main reasons kis are happy: family and friends

Part of the reason kids' happiness is so strong is because they fare well on two major drivers of happiness: family and friends.
Most kids feel very close to their family (99% agree; 82% strongly agree) and have very good friends (98% agree; 65% strongly agree).

Source: THE GLOBAL KIDS HAPPINESS INDEX (2013)

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Happiness fact 26: 0.7: the correlation between happiness and social connection

Studies from Harvard show that there is actually a correlation between happiness and social connection of 0.7, which is significantly higher than the correlation between smoking and cancer. Social connection can be as predictive of your longevity as high blood pressure, obesity and smoking.

Source: Harvard Study, Shawn Achor Shawn AchorAuthor, "The Happiness Advantage" (2012)

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Happiness fact 25: subjective wellbeing = daily feelings + life evaluation (Kahneman, 2010)

Recent research has begun to distinguish two aspects of subjective well-being.

Emotional well-being (= short-term) refers to the emotional quality of an individual's everyday experience—the frequency and intensity of experiences of joy, stress, sadness, anger, and affection that make one's life pleasant or unpleasant.

Life evaluation (= longer-term) refers to the thoughts that people have about their life when they think about it. Emotional well-being also rises with log income, but there is no further progress beyond an annual income of ~$75,000.

Source: Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2013)

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Happiness fact 24: 193 countries show a correlation between happiness & longevity

193 countries participated in a study comparing their life expectancy with their average happiness scope. The results are amazing, see below graph, there is a clear statistical trend from:

* less happy countries with a score of 160 and life expectancy of 50-60 years

* to very happy countries with an average life expectancy around 80 years

What is the take-away?
Live a good life, live happier, live longer.
At least, statistically...

Source: Leduc Media, World Bank, WHO, UNESCO (2014)

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Happiness fact 23: 40% have not discovered a satisfying life purpose

About 4 out of 10 Americans have not discovered a satisfying life purpose. Forty percent either do not think their lives have a clear sense of purpose or are neutral about whether their lives have purpose

Source: US Center for Disease Control (2013)

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