December 15, 2017 • 39 mins
What do sauna culture, "Right to Roam" laws and all-you-can-eat buffets (for monkeys!) have to do with putting smiles on citizens faces? Will and Mango explore why some countries always end up at the top of the Happiness Index, and how other nations can (politely) elbow their way in. Featuring Suzanne Jones, Mayor of Boulder, CO.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what mango? What's that will? So when you think
of fast food stories and Moscow, what comes to mind first?
I don't know, maybe that old pizza hut Corbusho of
commercial exactly. And I used to think that was maybe
the most fun association of fast food with Moscow. But
I actually read another story recently and I think it
(00:20):
might be my favorite now. So did you know that
when McDonald's first opened in Moscow, they actually had to
train workers on how to smile and look friendly to know?
Why is that? Well, it turns out there's an old
proverb there that goes something along the lines of a
smile without reason is a sign of idiocy. That's pretty rough,
(00:40):
and um, I mean I guess it sounds like a
Russian proverb. Yeah, it's It's a phrase that obviously doesn't
apply to all Russians, but it did get me thinking.
You know, if if Russians are not known for smiling unnecessarily,
what places are you know, where are the happiest places
in the world and what are some of the secrets
to happiness in those places? So that's what we're talking
(01:01):
about today. Let's dive in h a their podcast. Listeners
(01:24):
welcome to hard Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
always I'm joined by my good friend man guest Ticketer.
And on the other side of the soundproof class wearing
the biggest smile you'll never see. That's our friend and
producer Tristan McNeil. It's actually getting a little unnerving. Now
what what is he smiling about? I don't think he'll
ever tell us. But good news is there will be
plenty of chances to smile later though, because today's show
(01:46):
we're talking all about happiness and you know, more specifically
the places in the world where you can find the
most of it. Now, happiness is highly subjective, of course,
and if you were to ask ten people to name
what makes them happy, you probably come away with ten
different answers. But there are actually some aspects of happiness
that are pretty universal. So we're going to talk about
what those factors are and how they manifest and upbeat
(02:09):
countries all over the globe. And we're also going to
try to get to the bottom of why Scandinavian countries
like Denmark and Norway always claim these top spots for
places ranked by happiness. Yeah, why why don't we start
with that? Because it really is crazy how Nordic countries
tend to dominate those lists. So the u N does
this ranking of the happiness levels and a hundred fifty
(02:30):
five countries called the World Happiness Report. They've done this
since two thousand twelve, and every year the top five
has always been some combination of Scandinavian countries, and this
year is no exception. Norway is actually ranked number one
for the first time, but it's followed closely by Denmark, Iceland,
Switzerland and Finland. So I'm guessing a lot of our
listeners are wondering what I'm wondering, and that is, is
(02:52):
this whole thing rigged? I mean, it's almost always freezing
cold in these Nordic countries. You know, they've got the
whole midnight sun thing where daylight last twenty four hours
for a month or so at a time. So no
way are these the happiest places on Earth? Right? Yeah?
I would have said the same thing before looking into it.
But surprisingly there's some researchers who actually think Scandinavia is
(03:13):
cold weather and all those long nights might be a
big reason why those countries both such high levels of happiness,
and the thinking is that such an unforgiving climate that
actually helps bring local communities together. I mean, the people
there depending on each other for survival as well as
for company in a way that people in most temperate
climates don't have to. And actually, there's this professor John
(03:35):
helli Well who was the editor for this year's Happiness Report,
and he compares this kind of mutual support system to
what we traditionally see with like rural farming communities, you know,
where people gather to help raise the neighbor's barn without
expecting any sort of payment in return. Well, it's pretty
interesting to think about it, and you know, it might
be strange to hear about cold places making people happy,
but the underlying premise actually lines up with a lot
(03:57):
of what I've read recently on the subject. And what
from this is that, well, basically that a person's environment
has a lot to do with how happy they feel.
There was this study this year that examined surveys completed
by about I think it was about half a million
Canadian immigrants, and these are people that had moved to
Canada from a hundred different countries over the course of
the past forty years or so. Many of the immigrants
(04:19):
home countries didn't rank anywhere near the top of the
Happiness Report, but Canada did. Now routinely places in the
top ten happiest countries, and actually this year it was
the first country outside of Scandinavia to chart at all.
It came in at number seven. That's crazy, but I'm
guessing these folks were happier after moving to Canada. Yeah,
that's right. And actually, just after a few years in Canada,
(04:41):
immigrants from less happy countries started to adopt the higher
happiness level of their new home. So even though things
like income and family life it stayed more or less
the same, these people were happier simply because of where
they were. Okay, but there has to be more play
here than just geography, right, they're probably specific characteristics of
life in Canada that leads to greater happiness, like the
(05:02):
way that uh, I don't know, Scandinavia's starkness helps foster community. Oh, definitely.
In fact, the researchers behind the World Happiness Report believe
that about seventy of human happiness is due to just
six factors. So they point out quality, social relationships, strong
economic growth, healthy life expectancy, generosity, trust, and the freedom
(05:23):
to live the life that's right for you. Now, any
country that delivers in even a few of these categories
is likely to have a fairly happy citizen base. I
mean that sounds right, though it still feels weird to
be talking about happiness in terms of metrics and rankings.
On one hand, it seems right that a country would
be concerned with the happiness of its citizens, you know,
the pursuit of it is mentioned in the first sentence
(05:45):
of our declaration of independence. But I can also understand
the argument that happiness is too vague and even like
fluffy a concept to be held up as this national goal.
I mean, this is philosophical, but like, what do we
even mean by happiness? Yeah, and it's it's a tough
question to answer. And happiness is is something we all
have experience with, or at least hopefully we have experience
(06:06):
with it. But it's much easier to talk about where
it comes from than it is to narrow it down
to a single definition. I was actually looking at this
National Geographic cover story that recently came out, and they
gave an overview of three countries that historically received high
marks for happiness, and the author of the story Dan
butN Or. He proposed that real lasting joy actually comes
(06:27):
from the interplay of three distinct kinds of happiness. There's pleasure, pride,
and purpose. Huh. So, uh, how do you come up
with those three? Well? I think partly because most measures
of happiness can be broken down into those three categories.
So going back to the six factors used for the
World Happiness Report, you know, take social relationships. They can
(06:47):
bring you pleasure, or generosity toward others can provide a
sense of purpose, or maybe the freedom to live how
you want can become you know, like a source of pride. Well,
you know, those three types of happiness actually line up
pretty well with three types of happiness that scientists have
been trying to get a handle on for years. So
I looked this up, and uh, there's something called experienced happiness,
(07:09):
and that's the term for the pleasure that comes from
everyday life. Is usually measured by how much a person
has smiled or laughed during a day, and then pride
that kind of corresponds with evaluative happiness. You know, you
can think of this as like life satisfaction, basically how
happy you are with your career or family, social status,
that type of thing. So researchers are often trying to
(07:30):
assess this by asking you to rank your lives on
a scale from zero to ten. So questions like, all
things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as
a whole nowadays? And you know, this does feel like
a very clinical approach to happiness, but I guess that's
what happens when you know you've got scientists and economists
that are thinking about the subject rather than say, like
philosophers for example. Yeah, so it's funny you should mention
(07:52):
philosophers because the concept of happiness that springs from purpose
actually originated with Aristotle. He rejected what he viewed as
alder happiness. That's the kind that yields short term enjoyment,
but you know, it doesn't deliver, it's it's kind of fleeting. Instead,
he believed that those who wish to lead these virtuous
lives just stry for a type of happiness you find
(08:12):
through lifelong learning and maybe helping others. Yeah, I mean
it makes a lot of sense. And then that GEO
article I was talking about earlier, they chose Denmark to
exemplify purpose driven happiness, and part of the reason why
is that over nine of Danish citizens are members of
some kind of social club or association, and more than
forty of them volunteer for civic groups. That kind of
(08:33):
fulfillment from social engagement and giving back to one's community.
It seems like the kind of happiness that Aristotle was
after that you were talking about before. Definitely, and it's
really cool that Dan Butner touched on that because most
of us take a more hedonistic approach to happiness, you know,
we want to maximize our pleasure and minimize our pain.
I wouldn't take his heart aligne against that approach, is Aristotle.
(08:54):
I do think he's right that there's this deeper kind
of happiness that comes from I don't know, finding meaning
and what you do with your time rather than just
how comfortable you are. Right. But but to be fair,
I mean, this kind of happiness can feel like somewhat
of a luxury at times, you know, learning new things
or helping others in need. That it often happens only
after our basic needs are provided for. And and that's
(09:15):
partly why purpose driven happiness seems to thrive in most
of these Scandinavian countries when they have a ton of
government programs that make sure no citizen goes without food
and housing and healthcare. Let me just actually listen to
how Butner describes the societal expectations of Danish citizens. Quote,
Danes grew up believing they have the right to healthcare, education,
(09:36):
and a financial safety net. University students draw government stipend
in addition to free tuition. New parents can take a
year long government paid parental lead, you know, nearly at
a full salary. This includes gay and lesbian parents as well.
People work hard in Denmark, but on average less than
forty hours a week, with at least five weeks of
(09:56):
vacation per year. I mean, you hear all that in
your realize how they have so much time for social
But it's also, like you think about it, it's like
a level of government support that would make Bernie Sanders black.
Probably so, But you know, Northern Europe seems to have
cracked the code on how to create this environment where
people feel secure enough to you know, pursue their passions
(10:17):
without having to constantly worry about how to make ends meet.
And it's not just sweeping government programs. I mean that
there's a more laid back approach to life that you
can see reflected in little ways too. For instance, have
you heard it, and this is something that I had
not heard of before, But in Norway it's called the
right to rome. No, what is it? It's this traditional
right to explore nature that Norway has acknowledged for centuries,
(10:39):
and so basically anyone is free to hike or camp
in any part of the country that they want. What
that sounds so crazy, I mean even if it's like
privately owned land. Yeah, that's the whole point. I can't
see this flying here. But it goes back to that
strong sense of community in Scandinavian countries that we talked about.
So even though someone owns a deed for a particular
piece of land, it's still a part of the shared
(11:01):
country and that means that every citizen has a right
to enjoy it at any time. And the old exceptions
to this or for private land that's been cultivated, so
things like parks and gardens or you know, maybe farm
fields or something like that. That's pretty cool and it
reminds me of like when I was a kid and
I just like we had a creek behind our yard
and we just like follow it through other people's yards
and stuff is awesome, But so is this like an
(11:23):
unwritten law or I don't know, something kind of like
common knowledge type thing. Well that's how it started out.
But actually Norway citizens feel so strongly about the importance
of of just being outdoors and outdoor recreation they actually
decided to make the right to roam a federal law
back in n That's amazing, you know. I mean, it's
(11:45):
not just purpose driven happiness that Scandinavians have mastered, so
they also have a knack for like the simple pleasures
of life. And in fact, there's this term that you
see on the internet used a lot now and it's
used in Denmark in Norway, and I know I'm butchering
the pronunciation. I think it's called hugo, but there isn't
this like English equivalent for it. But you can kind
of think of it of this like general feeling of
(12:07):
comfort and kinship or maybe contentedness, like it's something that
applies to anything from like a softly glowing candle to
a couple of coffee with friends. And actually found this
account from this Norwegian transplant to the United States who
did his best to try to sum up the idea.
And this is what he wrote. He wrote, it is
basically a state of well being, coziness, and ambiance. It
(12:28):
is a feeling of atmosphere and in action. You can
be a huge lig person, or you can describe a
cabin as huge lig. Or it could be used as
a verb. Let's huga ourselves with a meal, a visit,
a book, et cetera. Huga hugo huge. Actually know what
this reminds me of. It's kind of like how the
Smurfs would always use the word smurf and this kind
(12:49):
of replacement for everything, and so they'd be like, We're
gonna smurf all the way up to the top of
Smurf Mountain to day. Have you seen smurfs recently? I
have not, exactly skinny means they're basically the smurfs of
our societies. Yet I get the point. I mean, you know, well, well,
as long as we're comparing cultures, we should yes, yeah,
we should probably talk a little bit about the happiness
(13:11):
of our country. You know, because free tuition and healthcare
that that that's one thing when it's a country of
about six million people. But the kind of happiness that
comes from things like that, it's trickier in a place
with over three hundred million citizens. Absolutely, But before we
dig into that, why don't we take a little break.
(13:39):
You're listening to part time Genius and we're talking about
the happiest places in the world. All right, mango. So
it looks like the US can fourt on this year's
World Happiness Report, which I mean, that's not too shabby
given how many countries are ranked. But you know, with
our economic prosperity, you maybe think we could manage a
little bit better than that. But we've already seen that
it's the country's overall environment and their sense of community
(14:01):
that actually determines the happiness of its citizens, and it
isn't really the economy. Was just going to say that
money doesn't matter. After all, the countries that top the
Happiness index all have these like healthy GDPs, and you
know the nations at the bottom of the list don't.
But money isn't everything, and for the U s it's
the social aspects that we really need to work on
if we ever want to muscle our way to the
(14:21):
top of the list. All right, well, that's fair enough,
but but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of happy
places in the US already In fact, Gallup recently teamed
up with nat Geo to find the twenty five happiest
cities in America. So how they pull that off? Well,
first they established a series of metrics that commonly indicate happiness.
And then they pulled data from about a quarter million
(14:42):
interviews conducted with adults in almost two hundred cities throughout
the US, and and then they used it to see
which cities ticked the most boxes on this list. So
I am, of course super curious to know who the
winner was, But first tell me about these metrics. Like,
I'm guessing it wasn't as simple as what was it pleasure,
pride and purpose that we talked about earlier. Not quite.
(15:02):
I mean, the study actually considered over a dozen different factors,
everything from civic engagement, vacation time, o b CD rates.
Actually this one was interesting. Even dental check up. Well,
nobody loves going to the dentist. So does that mean
that the key to happiness is having bad teeth? No, MAGA,
That was definitely not the studies take away. In fact,
it was actually the opposite of that. And and and
(15:24):
there was a higher level of satisfaction in places where
people made frequent trips to their dentists. Alright, So where
all these dentists loving Americans living really fixated on that? Well,
eight of the cities are in California, and of course
Honolulu scores a spot on the list. But according to study,
the single happiest place in America is actually Boulder, Colorado.
(15:46):
I mean that doesn't actually surprise me. Anytime I hear
about Boulder, it's usually something about how healthy the citizens
are or how much they exercise. And I've heard that
more people per capita walk or bike to work in
Boulder than almost any other city in the US. US. Yeah,
that's definitely true. Boulder has over three hundred miles of
bike roots, and their bike to work grade is actually
about seventeen times higher than the national average. And something
(16:10):
as simple as that leads to all these other boosts
and happiness from other things like cleaner air, fewer overweight citizens,
you know, stronger connection to the outdoors, all of these
other factors. All right, But obviously no place is perfect,
and there's got to be something negative we can mention.
So this doesn't seem like it's sponsored by the Boulder
Tourism Board. Yeah, I don't know. We love to talk
about lots of negative things here on part. But but
(16:33):
there is the fact that about forty nine of the
local survey for the study reported feeling stress on any
given day, and that that's also higher than the national average.
So the happiest city in the country is also one
of the most stressed out. Like, how does that even work? Well,
it's it seems strange on the surface, but the impression
I got was that the citizens are stressed because of
how active and engaged they are, not only in their
(16:53):
personal lives, but you know, in the wider community as well.
So it's a good kind of stress. Yeah, it's a
productive stress. And you may remember back from our longevity
episode where we talked about this that those that are
living the longest often do have some of these sources
of stress because they are so involved in the world
around them. So it's the kind that comes from working
to achieve a goal or to produce something worthwhile. So
(17:16):
it really does go back to that purpose driven happiness
that we were talking about earlier. Yeah, So it seems
like the more invested and connected you are to the
place where you live, the happier you become. And that's
true even when you have to continually strive to improve
your surroundings because that's the kind of work we find
most satisfying. It actually makes me think of the study
from Surry University in the UK called Places that Make Us.
(17:39):
So first of all, you know the idea of having
your own personal happy place, right, Yeah, like a physical
or actually even a mental place if as long as
it makes you feel calm or less anxious. So you know,
this might be a peaceful room in the house that
you've decorated, or or maybe just like a memory of
a great trip that you went on, sure, or in
and out you visited in California, that's right. But the
(18:00):
researchers that sorry wanted to better understand attraction that people
feel towards special places like that. So they round up
twenty volunteers and have them look at familiar images of
like houses and landscapes and objects that they'd identified as
like personally meaningful, and they also conducted these um fm
r I scans on their brains at the same time.
And when they measured the volunteers brain activity, researchers found
(18:23):
that the familiar places caused way more excitement in the
part of the brain linked with these emotional responses than
any of the objects did. Yeah. I mean specifically, these
happy places evoked feelings of belonging and as well as
like physical and emotional safety. And so do you think
that's like what's going on here with Boulder or what, yeah,
or any of these happy places? Really? I mean, I
(18:44):
think when a city or a country helps the citizens
strike that balance between pleasure and pride and purpose, that
whole place becomes a part of them, just like their
favorite room at home, where the vacation spot they returned
to every year. You might be on this something here
because you know, the process you're describing as real a
pretty organic one. You know, rather than constantly seeking out happiness,
(19:04):
it comes about pretty naturally, just through these opportunities that
our environment gives to us, which seems like the right
way to go, right. I Mean, I've seen a few
studies now that have actually shown the larger the focused
person puts on happiness, the less successful they are and
actually being happy, which is probably why people who buy,
you know, all these self help books about happiness never
seemed to stop at just one. Al Right, Well, what
(19:26):
do you say we close out the show with a
look at some of the places that make happiness look easy.
You know, no statistics, no metrics, just plain old happy places.
Yeah it sounds great, but why don't we take a
quick break first? Okay, man goes. So, as we said
(19:49):
earlier that GEO did a ranking of the happiest cities
in America and Boulder, Colorado came in number one. And
I'm happy to tell you that we've actually got the
Mayor of Bold, Colorado on the line. Mayor Suzanne Jones,
welcome to part time genius. Well, I'm happy to be here,
and congratulations on being named happiest city in America. Some
(20:11):
people are pleased and others are like, we're not that happy.
So would you mind telling us why Boulder is such
a happy place? Well, I think there's a couple of reasons.
Starters is that we are blessed to live in a
really beautiful place, and we've really invested a lot over
the years and protecting it. We were one of the
first cities to create an open space tax, and so
(20:32):
we've bought up forty acres of open space all around
our city. So there's lots of places to recreate and
see wildlife. So we tend to attract athletes and people
that love the outdoors, which tend to be happier people. Um.
But we also were university city, so almost a third
of our population or students and professors, and we also
(20:53):
have a dozen federal laboratories like the National Center for
Atmospheric Research. So we are bills with pe well that
are well educated and informed and engage and working on
everything from you know, the solution to climate change to
starting up a new high tech business. And so there's
a lot of um, good energy directed towards um making
(21:17):
the world a better place, um, but having a good
time while we do it, right, all right, that's pretty great.
You know. I feel like Boulder used to be a
little bit more of this kind of hidden gem that
that that people didn't necessarily know what a beautiful and
wonderful place it is. And it feels like more people
are coming there and that's maybe moving there or visiting there.
And so how have you guys dealt with this as
(21:39):
a as a city as you have grown? Well, I
will say that that is actually one of our biggest challenges.
Colorado's population is booming because it is a beautiful place
to be and the economy is doing well, and there's
a lot of people worried that we're gonna uh kill
the goose that laid the golden egg by you know,
loving this place to death. So I was gonna say
(22:00):
we are happy to be considered the happiest city, but
a lot of people would argue that, um, we should
keep that a secret because more people kind of is
challenging to manage. And so what plans do you see
from the Boulder's future. So I think one of our
big challenges is how do you, um keep being vibrant
(22:21):
and gritty and interesting and and you know, not too trendy.
And I think we wrestle with that because, um there's
a lot of growth pressure, and with that comes um
a real affordability challenge. So it's really expensive to live
here now, and that challenges diversity both economically and ethnically.
(22:42):
The other thing is when things things are going really well,
and the question is how do we um keep them
vibrant and interesting and evolving and yet also keep what
we love about this place as it is. These are
the problems that come with success. Boulders are really wonderful place.
I've note that the entire Denver metro area is really thriving,
(23:05):
right now, and it's it's a really wonderful place to
beat me. Yeah, that's great. Well, we know that we're
all very happy talking together today, but we do have
to put you to the test with a really, really challenging,
and some might say dumb quiz. So mango, what what
what quiz? Are we playing with Mayor Jones today? It's
(23:25):
called come on, everyone, get happy? All right? So here
we go. We got five questions for you, Mayor Jones.
You ready, I'm ready. Every answer includes the word happy. Oh,
that's right. Every answer includes the word happy. Okay, here
we go. Question number one. This show gave the world
the term jump the shark when Fonzie jumped a shark
on water skis. Oh yeah, that's right. It happened during
(23:48):
the fifth season, and while it seemed out of character
for the show, it was meant to showcase Henry Winkler's
real life water skiing skills. Oh wow, okay, alright. Question
number two. In the very first of These Kids Meals
sold by McDonald's, kids got either a mcdoodlers stencil, mc
wrist wallet or a McDonald land character erasers shaped like
(24:10):
Grimace or the Hamburglar. So what kids meal. Are we
talking about, well, happy meals? Of course, that's right. Two
for two question numbers. We told you it was a
really hard quiz. Question number three. Here we go. This
term came about in nineteen fourteen and wasn't initially associated
with bars or deals on snacks. Instead, it was used
(24:32):
to describe sixty minutes of scheduled entertainment that sailors would
get in the afternoons to alleviate boredom at sea. Well,
happy hours, and I will say Boulder is a great
place for that. We have lots of breweries and that's great. Yeah,
that's right. And until post prohibition, a happy hour could
include anything from live music to dancing to boxing matches.
(24:54):
Doesn't sound very happy, okay, alright? Number four, this song
sung once a year to most people, was used in
the first ever singing telegram to celebrate someone's special day.
It's happy something um happy Graham. I don't know. This
would be the happy birthday song. It was. Actually what
was this song originally called mango? It was? It was
(25:16):
originally called good morning to you, Good morning to you.
All right, you're three out of four. This is the
last one for the big big prize. Here we go well.
RI e M made a lot of money off of
this very happy song. According to lead singer Michael Stipe quote,
if there was one song that was sent into outer
space to represent r e M for the rest of time,
(25:36):
I would not want it to be that song shiny
happy people. Yeah, that's right, you got it. So how
did Mayor Jones do today? Mango? She went in amazing
four for five, which means she's going to get a
very top prize, a part Time Genius Certificate of Genius,
as well as a hearty congratulations. Well, congratulations again Mayor
Jones on being named the happiest city in America and
(25:59):
thanks for joining us on Part Time Genius. Okay, so
we've talked a lot today about measuring happiness and how
(26:19):
it does or doesn't relate to the g d P.
And I know we've mentioned this on a previous episode,
but I wanted to talk about a country that doesn't
gauge prosperity by gross domestic product but by g NH,
which is gross national happiness. Well, we might have said
no metrics, but that I think we should make an
exception for one as goofy as this, but we we
should remind our listeners. What place we're talking about? Yeah, Bhutan,
(26:41):
and it's if you don't know, it's the small but
this kingdom tucked away in the Himalayas. It's been around
for centuries, but its borders were close to tourists until
nineteen seventy four, which was just a few years after
the country revealed its new happiness based approach to measuring progress.
I mean, the whole country is about the size of Indiana,
so tourism is still regulated. I mean I did like
(27:02):
reading about it and talking about it before, but is
g n H Is that actually working for them there?
So according to the Boutanese, it is, and the country
released a study in two thousand fifteen that showed that
of the population identified it as either narrowly, extensively or
deeply happy. That's kind of arrange there. Narrowly too deeply,
(27:23):
so so what are they also happy about? Though? Lots
of stuff? So for one thing, life expectancy in Bhutan
has doubled over the last two decades. The country also
has an almost a hundred percent enrollment rate for children
in grade school. Has taken all kinds of steps to
protect its natural environment, including a monthly pedestrian day when
all private vehicles are completely banned from its roads. I mean,
(27:44):
that does sound pretty sweet, but I don't know, are
you sure they're not cooking the books just to make
life and Bhutan look a little bit better than it
actually is. I mean, it's not a realized Shango law
or anything, despite its reputation. But even the UN has
started to explore ways to apply Bhutan's g n H
model to other parts of the world. In fact, that
was the inspiration for their whole World Happiness Report project.
(28:04):
But if you're still uncommenced, listen to how Bhutan's Ministry
of Education makes the case for his country's unique approach
to progress. And these are his words. People always ask
how you can possibly have a nation of happy people,
But this is missing the point. G n H is
an aspiration instead of guiding principles through which we are
navigating our path towards a sustainable and equitable society. We
(28:25):
believe the world needs to do the same before it's
too late. I mean, they seem to have a point there,
which you know, I guess that's why at the first
sign of armageddon, I'm going to be booking a trip
straight to Finland. Why Finland, because the end of the
world can be stressful, and the Finish seems to know
how to unwind. I mean, after all, they're the only
country with a deeply ingrained sonic culture. You know, I've
(28:49):
been looking for a sonic culture. I don't know if
you've heard this, but the Finns had this deep love
for warm, wooden saunas, and this goes back centuries, so
much so that they're over three point three million saunas
for Finland's five point four million citizens. That's more than
half a sauna for each person, and that means these
things are just about everywhere. This is homes, offices, factories,
(29:11):
not to mention really unexpected places like airport, lounges, underground
mind even parliament. It was so much fun reading about
all these different weird places you'd see them. So I
don't know if you notice that I secretly love saunas
like they help you with hangovers, they make you feel
good up with sports. But I saw this thing in
gastro Obscura that you can actually cook a sausage and
(29:31):
a sauna as you sit there and then eat that
as a snack after and that turned me a little off. Really,
I thought you were gonna say that could like actually
raise the rating of the world happiness. But I do
get why Finland always ranks so highly is the Happiness report.
I mean, the whole country is just hanging around naked, relaxing,
you know, shooting the breeze in the cozy little sweat boxes. Well,
(29:53):
I will have you know that plenty of important work
gets done in these finished saunas too. And according to
a report from the BBC, former President Nobel Peace Prize
Laureate marty Ata Sari used sauna diplomacy and these are
these diplomatic meetings that actually take place in a sauna
and either this to move forward negotiations with countries like
Tanzania and Anesia, several others. And actually during the Cold
(30:17):
War they negotiated with Soviet diplomats in the sauna. How crazy.
That's amazing. Sauna diplomacy. I love that that that's the
real secret to happiness. But you know, if it's not saunas,
then I think the secret of happiness might have to
be monkey buffet festivals like the one this town in
Thailand holds once a year. All right, mag I feel
like you're kind of setting me up this one. And
(30:38):
and I'm hoping that monkeys aren't actually on the menu
at this monkey buffet festival. I've never heard of this,
definitely not. So monkeys are actually the guests of honor.
So each year, thousands of visitors flocked to the tiny
town of Lopuari, Thailand, and they watch as local long
tailed monkeys are pampered by their during residents. So, according
to legend, the monkeys are the descendants of Hanuman, who
(30:59):
is this into god. He's a heroic monkey king who
helped build the town of Lope Worri thousands of years ago.
So to honor Hanuman, the monkeys are now treating to
this feast of exotic fruits and stinky white rice and
other Thai favorites. I mean, the food is piled high.
I don't know if he's seen these photos, Like they're
huge buffet tables and more than three thousand monkeys joining
(31:21):
the feeding friends. Yeah, I mean, meanwhile, human spectators enjoy
all these monkey theme festivities like monkey dances and monkey
costume contests. I mean it does sound like fun. So,
I mean, is this some kind of ancient tradition the
town has kept up or how long has this actually
been going on. Yeah, so it's actually been held since
(31:41):
seriously ancient. Yeah, it's definitely not some sort of sacred
cultural tradition, but it's more of a marketing scheme of
this local businessman and he wanted to increase tourism. Delope
Bori and his plans actually been a huge success. I mean,
the festival continues to draw more and more visitors to
the town each year, much to the delight of hungry Monkey.
I'm sure it's at least drawing more monkeys to the
(32:02):
Towny here's that sounds like. And it's definitely the happiest
place in the world for those monkeys, I would have
to imagine, right, And I actually think there's a good
lesson there for the rest of us about finding your
own happy place, because in the end, ranking and comparing
the happiness levels of different places is kind of futile. Well,
I mean, I don't really like to think that we've
wasted the better part of an hour here. But what
(32:23):
do you mean by that? No, I don't mean that.
I just mean happiness is happiness, like either you have
it or you don't, and if you do, then you're lucky.
And if you don't, then it's time to try something new.
Because the difference between living in the number one happiest
place versus I don't know, the tenth or fourteenth happiest
places probably something you can make up on your own. Actually,
it's interesting that you say that, because I was checking
out this one study from the University of Edinburgh where
(32:45):
researchers determined that roughly fifty percent of human happiness is
genetically predetermined. So the idea is that some hardwired personality
traits like you know, being sociable or active or hard working,
that that actually caused happiness and the people who possessed them.
And many psychologists have actually suggested that ten of our
happiness is due to life circumstances, you know, like age
(33:07):
and income, education, location, a few things like that. Sure,
but what about the other Well, it's entirely up to us. Well,
I I know one thing that's guaranteed to make you
at least happier me too. That's that's eating one of
those sausages in a finished saun all right. I was
thinking something that's good too, So we'll go with that. Alright,
(33:38):
My first fact, let's see here, all right, Well, last
year computer scientists at the University of Vermont were on
the hunt for the happiest words in the English language,
so they turned to a crowdsource survey system and looked
at over ten thousand words. Some of the words that
turned up in the top two hundred were cupcakes, weekends, beach, victory, heaven, mother,
(34:00):
as well as both ha ha ha and ha ha
ha ha ha ha. Both of those were words, But
the happiest word was laughter. I like that. Well, you know,
we're in the middle of the holiday season here. It
was interesting to read about a few studies that have
shown that family rituals make people happier, and that is,
those who have rituals they practiced at Christmas or New
(34:22):
Year's or even Easter, whenever families tend to get together,
they felt closer to their families. And interestingly, the type
of rituals doesn't seem to matter as much as the
number of different rituals. So you know, stuff like East
reg hunts and family dinners at Thanksgiving, going to watch
New Year's celebration, that type of stuff, Well, that's pretty neat. Well,
I don't think most of us would be surprised to
know that spending time in nature makes people happier, But
(34:45):
there have been some pretty interesting findings from recent studies.
One out of the University of Michigan found the benefits
of walking in nature are found to be even more
significant when you walk with a group. Another one found
that exercising outdoors saw greater mental health than provements than
those who exercised indoors, And yet another one found that
those who simply looked at pictures of urban landscapes saw
(35:08):
more activity in the part of their brain linked to
negative emotions when compared to those who looked at natural scenes.
So to recap nature is good for us. So I
recently read about a study out of UC Davis where
psychologists had three different groups keep weekly journals, and the
first group they had to write about what they were
up to that week, the second talked about things that
(35:28):
were irritants that week, and the third wrote about things
they were grateful for. And sure enough, a couple months later,
those who have written about things they were thankful for
reported being more satisfied with their lives than the other groups.
They even had fewer negative physical symptoms like headaches and
running noses. Interesting all right, well, speaking of little daily things,
we can do to make ourselves happier. We we've talked
(35:49):
about the benefits of exercise on our mental health, but
I was actually curious to see what that meant in
terms of how much exercise. And it turns out that
just twenty minutes of exercise can actually boost your mood
for up to twelve hours. And of course those who
exercise regularly are generally found to feel a greater satisfaction
with their lives. Well, you open the show with a
fact about McDonald's, and I've actually been saving one about
(36:12):
Mickey D's. Did you know that in the two thousand
and fifteen Paid with Loving campaign that they ran, I
love that name, Pay with Love, and I can't say
I remember that way. Well, the idea was to encourage
people to do nice things, which would then put smiles
on people's faces. So they randomly chose a hundred customers
and asked them to do nice things as the payment
for a meal. And there was one account from a
customer who is not so psyched about this, and it
(36:34):
kind of made me laugh, so I wanted to share it.
Kate Beckleder, who happens to be an editor at The
Wall Street Journal, wrote quote, Suddenly, the cashier began clapping
and cheering, and the restaurant crew quickly gathered around her
and joined in. This can't be good, I thought, half
expecting someone to put a birthday sombrero on my head.
The cashier announced with glee, you get to pay with lovin.
Oh gosh. Confused, I again started to try to pay,
(36:57):
but no. My fellow customers seemed to look at it
with pity. As I drew my fate asked someone to dance.
I stood there for a mortified second or two, and
then the cashier mercifully suggested that we all danced together.
Not wanting to be a spoil sport, I forced a
smile and raised the roof a couple of times as
employees try to lure cringing customers into forming some kind
(37:18):
of congo line, asking them when they had last been
asked to dance. The public embarrassment ended soon enough, and
I slunk away with my free breakfast, thinking, now there's
an idea that never should have left the conference room,
that is so painful but hilarious to hear. And I mean,
not only did you match my Mickey D's story with
a better one, but the idea of someone raising the
(37:39):
roof for a hamburger. That is worth the win in itself,
so congratulations, I'm giving you the fact off. Thank you
so much, and thank you guys for listening. That's it
for today's episode. Don't forget we love to hear from you.
If you have any fun facts or any questions, you
can email us part time Genius at how stuff Works
dot com. You can also call us on our fact
hotline that's one eight four four pt Genius, or hit
(38:02):
us up on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so much for listening, Arch,
thanks again for listening. Farttime Genius is a production of
How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant
(38:24):
people who do the important things we couldn't even begin
to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown
made the theme song and does the mixy mixy sound thing.
Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gave. Louesier is
our lead researcher, with support from the research Army including
Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve. Jeff
Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
If you like what you heard. We hope you'll subscribe,
(38:46):
and if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Did we
forget Jason? Jason who
Guess what mango? What's that will? So when you think
of fast food stories and Moscow, what comes to mind first?
I don't know, maybe that old pizza hut Corbusho of
commercial exactly. And I used to think that was maybe
the most fun association of fast food with Moscow. But
I actually read another story recently and I think it
(00:20):
might be my favorite now. So did you know that
when McDonald's first opened in Moscow, they actually had to
train workers on how to smile and look friendly to know?
Why is that? Well, it turns out there's an old
proverb there that goes something along the lines of a
smile without reason is a sign of idiocy. That's pretty rough,
(00:40):
and um, I mean I guess it sounds like a
Russian proverb. Yeah, it's It's a phrase that obviously doesn't
apply to all Russians, but it did get me thinking.
You know, if if Russians are not known for smiling unnecessarily,
what places are you know, where are the happiest places
in the world and what are some of the secrets
to happiness in those places? So that's what we're talking
(01:01):
about today. Let's dive in h a their podcast. Listeners
(01:24):
welcome to hard Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
always I'm joined by my good friend man guest Ticketer.
And on the other side of the soundproof class wearing
the biggest smile you'll never see. That's our friend and
producer Tristan McNeil. It's actually getting a little unnerving. Now
what what is he smiling about? I don't think he'll
ever tell us. But good news is there will be
plenty of chances to smile later though, because today's show
(01:46):
we're talking all about happiness and you know, more specifically
the places in the world where you can find the
most of it. Now, happiness is highly subjective, of course,
and if you were to ask ten people to name
what makes them happy, you probably come away with ten
different answers. But there are actually some aspects of happiness
that are pretty universal. So we're going to talk about
what those factors are and how they manifest and upbeat
(02:09):
countries all over the globe. And we're also going to
try to get to the bottom of why Scandinavian countries
like Denmark and Norway always claim these top spots for
places ranked by happiness. Yeah, why why don't we start
with that? Because it really is crazy how Nordic countries
tend to dominate those lists. So the u N does
this ranking of the happiness levels and a hundred fifty
(02:30):
five countries called the World Happiness Report. They've done this
since two thousand twelve, and every year the top five
has always been some combination of Scandinavian countries, and this
year is no exception. Norway is actually ranked number one
for the first time, but it's followed closely by Denmark, Iceland,
Switzerland and Finland. So I'm guessing a lot of our
listeners are wondering what I'm wondering, and that is, is
(02:52):
this whole thing rigged? I mean, it's almost always freezing
cold in these Nordic countries. You know, they've got the
whole midnight sun thing where daylight last twenty four hours
for a month or so at a time. So no
way are these the happiest places on Earth? Right? Yeah?
I would have said the same thing before looking into it.
But surprisingly there's some researchers who actually think Scandinavia is
(03:13):
cold weather and all those long nights might be a
big reason why those countries both such high levels of happiness,
and the thinking is that such an unforgiving climate that
actually helps bring local communities together. I mean, the people
there depending on each other for survival as well as
for company in a way that people in most temperate
climates don't have to. And actually, there's this professor John
(03:35):
helli Well who was the editor for this year's Happiness Report,
and he compares this kind of mutual support system to
what we traditionally see with like rural farming communities, you know,
where people gather to help raise the neighbor's barn without
expecting any sort of payment in return. Well, it's pretty
interesting to think about it, and you know, it might
be strange to hear about cold places making people happy,
but the underlying premise actually lines up with a lot
(03:57):
of what I've read recently on the subject. And what
from this is that, well, basically that a person's environment
has a lot to do with how happy they feel.
There was this study this year that examined surveys completed
by about I think it was about half a million
Canadian immigrants, and these are people that had moved to
Canada from a hundred different countries over the course of
the past forty years or so. Many of the immigrants
(04:19):
home countries didn't rank anywhere near the top of the
Happiness Report, but Canada did. Now routinely places in the
top ten happiest countries, and actually this year it was
the first country outside of Scandinavia to chart at all.
It came in at number seven. That's crazy, but I'm
guessing these folks were happier after moving to Canada. Yeah,
that's right. And actually, just after a few years in Canada,
(04:41):
immigrants from less happy countries started to adopt the higher
happiness level of their new home. So even though things
like income and family life it stayed more or less
the same, these people were happier simply because of where
they were. Okay, but there has to be more play
here than just geography, right, they're probably specific characteristics of
life in Canada that leads to greater happiness, like the
(05:02):
way that uh, I don't know, Scandinavia's starkness helps foster community. Oh, definitely.
In fact, the researchers behind the World Happiness Report believe
that about seventy of human happiness is due to just
six factors. So they point out quality, social relationships, strong
economic growth, healthy life expectancy, generosity, trust, and the freedom
(05:23):
to live the life that's right for you. Now, any
country that delivers in even a few of these categories
is likely to have a fairly happy citizen base. I
mean that sounds right, though it still feels weird to
be talking about happiness in terms of metrics and rankings.
On one hand, it seems right that a country would
be concerned with the happiness of its citizens, you know,
the pursuit of it is mentioned in the first sentence
(05:45):
of our declaration of independence. But I can also understand
the argument that happiness is too vague and even like
fluffy a concept to be held up as this national goal.
I mean, this is philosophical, but like, what do we
even mean by happiness? Yeah, and it's it's a tough
question to answer. And happiness is is something we all
have experience with, or at least hopefully we have experience
(06:06):
with it. But it's much easier to talk about where
it comes from than it is to narrow it down
to a single definition. I was actually looking at this
National Geographic cover story that recently came out, and they
gave an overview of three countries that historically received high
marks for happiness, and the author of the story Dan
butN Or. He proposed that real lasting joy actually comes
(06:27):
from the interplay of three distinct kinds of happiness. There's pleasure, pride,
and purpose. Huh. So, uh, how do you come up
with those three? Well? I think partly because most measures
of happiness can be broken down into those three categories.
So going back to the six factors used for the
World Happiness Report, you know, take social relationships. They can
(06:47):
bring you pleasure, or generosity toward others can provide a
sense of purpose, or maybe the freedom to live how
you want can become you know, like a source of pride. Well,
you know, those three types of happiness actually line up
pretty well with three types of happiness that scientists have
been trying to get a handle on for years. So
I looked this up, and uh, there's something called experienced happiness,
(07:09):
and that's the term for the pleasure that comes from
everyday life. Is usually measured by how much a person
has smiled or laughed during a day, and then pride
that kind of corresponds with evaluative happiness. You know, you
can think of this as like life satisfaction, basically how
happy you are with your career or family, social status,
that type of thing. So researchers are often trying to
(07:30):
assess this by asking you to rank your lives on
a scale from zero to ten. So questions like, all
things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as
a whole nowadays? And you know, this does feel like
a very clinical approach to happiness, but I guess that's
what happens when you know you've got scientists and economists
that are thinking about the subject rather than say, like
philosophers for example. Yeah, so it's funny you should mention
(07:52):
philosophers because the concept of happiness that springs from purpose
actually originated with Aristotle. He rejected what he viewed as
alder happiness. That's the kind that yields short term enjoyment,
but you know, it doesn't deliver, it's it's kind of fleeting. Instead,
he believed that those who wish to lead these virtuous
lives just stry for a type of happiness you find
(08:12):
through lifelong learning and maybe helping others. Yeah, I mean
it makes a lot of sense. And then that GEO
article I was talking about earlier, they chose Denmark to
exemplify purpose driven happiness, and part of the reason why
is that over nine of Danish citizens are members of
some kind of social club or association, and more than
forty of them volunteer for civic groups. That kind of
(08:33):
fulfillment from social engagement and giving back to one's community.
It seems like the kind of happiness that Aristotle was
after that you were talking about before. Definitely, and it's
really cool that Dan Butner touched on that because most
of us take a more hedonistic approach to happiness, you know,
we want to maximize our pleasure and minimize our pain.
I wouldn't take his heart aligne against that approach, is Aristotle.
(08:54):
I do think he's right that there's this deeper kind
of happiness that comes from I don't know, finding meaning
and what you do with your time rather than just
how comfortable you are. Right. But but to be fair,
I mean, this kind of happiness can feel like somewhat
of a luxury at times, you know, learning new things
or helping others in need. That it often happens only
after our basic needs are provided for. And and that's
(09:15):
partly why purpose driven happiness seems to thrive in most
of these Scandinavian countries when they have a ton of
government programs that make sure no citizen goes without food
and housing and healthcare. Let me just actually listen to
how Butner describes the societal expectations of Danish citizens. Quote,
Danes grew up believing they have the right to healthcare, education,
(09:36):
and a financial safety net. University students draw government stipend
in addition to free tuition. New parents can take a
year long government paid parental lead, you know, nearly at
a full salary. This includes gay and lesbian parents as well.
People work hard in Denmark, but on average less than
forty hours a week, with at least five weeks of
(09:56):
vacation per year. I mean, you hear all that in
your realize how they have so much time for social
But it's also, like you think about it, it's like
a level of government support that would make Bernie Sanders black.
Probably so, But you know, Northern Europe seems to have
cracked the code on how to create this environment where
people feel secure enough to you know, pursue their passions
(10:17):
without having to constantly worry about how to make ends meet.
And it's not just sweeping government programs. I mean that
there's a more laid back approach to life that you
can see reflected in little ways too. For instance, have
you heard it, and this is something that I had
not heard of before, But in Norway it's called the
right to rome. No, what is it? It's this traditional
right to explore nature that Norway has acknowledged for centuries,
(10:39):
and so basically anyone is free to hike or camp
in any part of the country that they want. What
that sounds so crazy, I mean even if it's like
privately owned land. Yeah, that's the whole point. I can't
see this flying here. But it goes back to that
strong sense of community in Scandinavian countries that we talked about.
So even though someone owns a deed for a particular
piece of land, it's still a part of the shared
(11:01):
country and that means that every citizen has a right
to enjoy it at any time. And the old exceptions
to this or for private land that's been cultivated, so
things like parks and gardens or you know, maybe farm
fields or something like that. That's pretty cool and it
reminds me of like when I was a kid and
I just like we had a creek behind our yard
and we just like follow it through other people's yards
and stuff is awesome, But so is this like an
(11:23):
unwritten law or I don't know, something kind of like
common knowledge type thing. Well that's how it started out.
But actually Norway citizens feel so strongly about the importance
of of just being outdoors and outdoor recreation they actually
decided to make the right to roam a federal law
back in n That's amazing, you know. I mean, it's
(11:45):
not just purpose driven happiness that Scandinavians have mastered, so
they also have a knack for like the simple pleasures
of life. And in fact, there's this term that you
see on the internet used a lot now and it's
used in Denmark in Norway, and I know I'm butchering
the pronunciation. I think it's called hugo, but there isn't
this like English equivalent for it. But you can kind
of think of it of this like general feeling of
(12:07):
comfort and kinship or maybe contentedness, like it's something that
applies to anything from like a softly glowing candle to
a couple of coffee with friends. And actually found this
account from this Norwegian transplant to the United States who
did his best to try to sum up the idea.
And this is what he wrote. He wrote, it is
basically a state of well being, coziness, and ambiance. It
(12:28):
is a feeling of atmosphere and in action. You can
be a huge lig person, or you can describe a
cabin as huge lig. Or it could be used as
a verb. Let's huga ourselves with a meal, a visit,
a book, et cetera. Huga hugo huge. Actually know what
this reminds me of. It's kind of like how the
Smurfs would always use the word smurf and this kind
(12:49):
of replacement for everything, and so they'd be like, We're
gonna smurf all the way up to the top of
Smurf Mountain to day. Have you seen smurfs recently? I
have not, exactly skinny means they're basically the smurfs of
our societies. Yet I get the point. I mean, you know, well, well,
as long as we're comparing cultures, we should yes, yeah,
we should probably talk a little bit about the happiness
(13:11):
of our country. You know, because free tuition and healthcare
that that that's one thing when it's a country of
about six million people. But the kind of happiness that
comes from things like that, it's trickier in a place
with over three hundred million citizens. Absolutely, But before we
dig into that, why don't we take a little break.
(13:39):
You're listening to part time Genius and we're talking about
the happiest places in the world. All right, mango. So
it looks like the US can fourt on this year's
World Happiness Report, which I mean, that's not too shabby
given how many countries are ranked. But you know, with
our economic prosperity, you maybe think we could manage a
little bit better than that. But we've already seen that
it's the country's overall environment and their sense of community
(14:01):
that actually determines the happiness of its citizens, and it
isn't really the economy. Was just going to say that
money doesn't matter. After all, the countries that top the
Happiness index all have these like healthy GDPs, and you
know the nations at the bottom of the list don't.
But money isn't everything, and for the U s it's
the social aspects that we really need to work on
if we ever want to muscle our way to the
(14:21):
top of the list. All right, well, that's fair enough,
but but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of happy
places in the US already In fact, Gallup recently teamed
up with nat Geo to find the twenty five happiest
cities in America. So how they pull that off? Well,
first they established a series of metrics that commonly indicate happiness.
And then they pulled data from about a quarter million
(14:42):
interviews conducted with adults in almost two hundred cities throughout
the US, and and then they used it to see
which cities ticked the most boxes on this list. So
I am, of course super curious to know who the
winner was, But first tell me about these metrics. Like,
I'm guessing it wasn't as simple as what was it pleasure,
pride and purpose that we talked about earlier. Not quite.
(15:02):
I mean, the study actually considered over a dozen different factors,
everything from civic engagement, vacation time, o b CD rates.
Actually this one was interesting. Even dental check up. Well,
nobody loves going to the dentist. So does that mean
that the key to happiness is having bad teeth? No, MAGA,
That was definitely not the studies take away. In fact,
it was actually the opposite of that. And and and
(15:24):
there was a higher level of satisfaction in places where
people made frequent trips to their dentists. Alright, So where
all these dentists loving Americans living really fixated on that? Well,
eight of the cities are in California, and of course
Honolulu scores a spot on the list. But according to study,
the single happiest place in America is actually Boulder, Colorado.
(15:46):
I mean that doesn't actually surprise me. Anytime I hear
about Boulder, it's usually something about how healthy the citizens
are or how much they exercise. And I've heard that
more people per capita walk or bike to work in
Boulder than almost any other city in the US. US. Yeah,
that's definitely true. Boulder has over three hundred miles of
bike roots, and their bike to work grade is actually
about seventeen times higher than the national average. And something
(16:10):
as simple as that leads to all these other boosts
and happiness from other things like cleaner air, fewer overweight citizens,
you know, stronger connection to the outdoors, all of these
other factors. All right, But obviously no place is perfect,
and there's got to be something negative we can mention.
So this doesn't seem like it's sponsored by the Boulder
Tourism Board. Yeah, I don't know. We love to talk
about lots of negative things here on part. But but
(16:33):
there is the fact that about forty nine of the
local survey for the study reported feeling stress on any
given day, and that that's also higher than the national average.
So the happiest city in the country is also one
of the most stressed out. Like, how does that even work? Well,
it's it seems strange on the surface, but the impression
I got was that the citizens are stressed because of
how active and engaged they are, not only in their
(16:53):
personal lives, but you know, in the wider community as well.
So it's a good kind of stress. Yeah, it's a
productive stress. And you may remember back from our longevity
episode where we talked about this that those that are
living the longest often do have some of these sources
of stress because they are so involved in the world
around them. So it's the kind that comes from working
to achieve a goal or to produce something worthwhile. So
(17:16):
it really does go back to that purpose driven happiness
that we were talking about earlier. Yeah, So it seems
like the more invested and connected you are to the
place where you live, the happier you become. And that's
true even when you have to continually strive to improve
your surroundings because that's the kind of work we find
most satisfying. It actually makes me think of the study
from Surry University in the UK called Places that Make Us.
(17:39):
So first of all, you know the idea of having
your own personal happy place, right, Yeah, like a physical
or actually even a mental place if as long as
it makes you feel calm or less anxious. So you know,
this might be a peaceful room in the house that
you've decorated, or or maybe just like a memory of
a great trip that you went on, sure, or in
and out you visited in California, that's right. But the
(18:00):
researchers that sorry wanted to better understand attraction that people
feel towards special places like that. So they round up
twenty volunteers and have them look at familiar images of
like houses and landscapes and objects that they'd identified as
like personally meaningful, and they also conducted these um fm
r I scans on their brains at the same time.
And when they measured the volunteers brain activity, researchers found
(18:23):
that the familiar places caused way more excitement in the
part of the brain linked with these emotional responses than
any of the objects did. Yeah. I mean specifically, these
happy places evoked feelings of belonging and as well as
like physical and emotional safety. And so do you think
that's like what's going on here with Boulder or what, yeah,
or any of these happy places? Really? I mean, I
(18:44):
think when a city or a country helps the citizens
strike that balance between pleasure and pride and purpose, that
whole place becomes a part of them, just like their
favorite room at home, where the vacation spot they returned
to every year. You might be on this something here
because you know, the process you're describing as real a
pretty organic one. You know, rather than constantly seeking out happiness,
(19:04):
it comes about pretty naturally, just through these opportunities that
our environment gives to us, which seems like the right
way to go, right. I Mean, I've seen a few
studies now that have actually shown the larger the focused
person puts on happiness, the less successful they are and
actually being happy, which is probably why people who buy,
you know, all these self help books about happiness never
seemed to stop at just one. Al Right, Well, what
(19:26):
do you say we close out the show with a
look at some of the places that make happiness look easy.
You know, no statistics, no metrics, just plain old happy places.
Yeah it sounds great, but why don't we take a
quick break first? Okay, man goes. So, as we said
(19:49):
earlier that GEO did a ranking of the happiest cities
in America and Boulder, Colorado came in number one. And
I'm happy to tell you that we've actually got the
Mayor of Bold, Colorado on the line. Mayor Suzanne Jones,
welcome to part time genius. Well, I'm happy to be here,
and congratulations on being named happiest city in America. Some
(20:11):
people are pleased and others are like, we're not that happy.
So would you mind telling us why Boulder is such
a happy place? Well, I think there's a couple of reasons.
Starters is that we are blessed to live in a
really beautiful place, and we've really invested a lot over
the years and protecting it. We were one of the
first cities to create an open space tax, and so
(20:32):
we've bought up forty acres of open space all around
our city. So there's lots of places to recreate and
see wildlife. So we tend to attract athletes and people
that love the outdoors, which tend to be happier people. Um.
But we also were university city, so almost a third
of our population or students and professors, and we also
(20:53):
have a dozen federal laboratories like the National Center for
Atmospheric Research. So we are bills with pe well that
are well educated and informed and engage and working on
everything from you know, the solution to climate change to
starting up a new high tech business. And so there's
a lot of um, good energy directed towards um making
(21:17):
the world a better place, um, but having a good
time while we do it, right, all right, that's pretty great.
You know. I feel like Boulder used to be a
little bit more of this kind of hidden gem that
that that people didn't necessarily know what a beautiful and
wonderful place it is. And it feels like more people
are coming there and that's maybe moving there or visiting there.
And so how have you guys dealt with this as
(21:39):
a as a city as you have grown? Well, I
will say that that is actually one of our biggest challenges.
Colorado's population is booming because it is a beautiful place
to be and the economy is doing well, and there's
a lot of people worried that we're gonna uh kill
the goose that laid the golden egg by you know,
loving this place to death. So I was gonna say
(22:00):
we are happy to be considered the happiest city, but
a lot of people would argue that, um, we should
keep that a secret because more people kind of is
challenging to manage. And so what plans do you see
from the Boulder's future. So I think one of our
big challenges is how do you, um keep being vibrant
(22:21):
and gritty and interesting and and you know, not too trendy.
And I think we wrestle with that because, um there's
a lot of growth pressure, and with that comes um
a real affordability challenge. So it's really expensive to live
here now, and that challenges diversity both economically and ethnically.
(22:42):
The other thing is when things things are going really well,
and the question is how do we um keep them
vibrant and interesting and evolving and yet also keep what
we love about this place as it is. These are
the problems that come with success. Boulders are really wonderful place.
I've note that the entire Denver metro area is really thriving,
(23:05):
right now, and it's it's a really wonderful place to
beat me. Yeah, that's great. Well, we know that we're
all very happy talking together today, but we do have
to put you to the test with a really, really challenging,
and some might say dumb quiz. So mango, what what
what quiz? Are we playing with Mayor Jones today? It's
(23:25):
called come on, everyone, get happy? All right? So here
we go. We got five questions for you, Mayor Jones.
You ready, I'm ready. Every answer includes the word happy. Oh,
that's right. Every answer includes the word happy. Okay, here
we go. Question number one. This show gave the world
the term jump the shark when Fonzie jumped a shark
on water skis. Oh yeah, that's right. It happened during
(23:48):
the fifth season, and while it seemed out of character
for the show, it was meant to showcase Henry Winkler's
real life water skiing skills. Oh wow, okay, alright. Question
number two. In the very first of These Kids Meals
sold by McDonald's, kids got either a mcdoodlers stencil, mc
wrist wallet or a McDonald land character erasers shaped like
(24:10):
Grimace or the Hamburglar. So what kids meal. Are we
talking about, well, happy meals? Of course, that's right. Two
for two question numbers. We told you it was a
really hard quiz. Question number three. Here we go. This
term came about in nineteen fourteen and wasn't initially associated
with bars or deals on snacks. Instead, it was used
(24:32):
to describe sixty minutes of scheduled entertainment that sailors would
get in the afternoons to alleviate boredom at sea. Well,
happy hours, and I will say Boulder is a great
place for that. We have lots of breweries and that's great. Yeah,
that's right. And until post prohibition, a happy hour could
include anything from live music to dancing to boxing matches.
(24:54):
Doesn't sound very happy, okay, alright? Number four, this song
sung once a year to most people, was used in
the first ever singing telegram to celebrate someone's special day.
It's happy something um happy Graham. I don't know. This
would be the happy birthday song. It was. Actually what
was this song originally called mango? It was? It was
(25:16):
originally called good morning to you, Good morning to you.
All right, you're three out of four. This is the
last one for the big big prize. Here we go well.
RI e M made a lot of money off of
this very happy song. According to lead singer Michael Stipe quote,
if there was one song that was sent into outer
space to represent r e M for the rest of time,
(25:36):
I would not want it to be that song shiny
happy people. Yeah, that's right, you got it. So how
did Mayor Jones do today? Mango? She went in amazing
four for five, which means she's going to get a
very top prize, a part Time Genius Certificate of Genius,
as well as a hearty congratulations. Well, congratulations again Mayor
Jones on being named the happiest city in America and
(25:59):
thanks for joining us on Part Time Genius. Okay, so
we've talked a lot today about measuring happiness and how
(26:19):
it does or doesn't relate to the g d P.
And I know we've mentioned this on a previous episode,
but I wanted to talk about a country that doesn't
gauge prosperity by gross domestic product but by g NH,
which is gross national happiness. Well, we might have said
no metrics, but that I think we should make an
exception for one as goofy as this, but we we
should remind our listeners. What place we're talking about? Yeah, Bhutan,
(26:41):
and it's if you don't know, it's the small but
this kingdom tucked away in the Himalayas. It's been around
for centuries, but its borders were close to tourists until
nineteen seventy four, which was just a few years after
the country revealed its new happiness based approach to measuring progress.
I mean, the whole country is about the size of Indiana,
so tourism is still regulated. I mean I did like
(27:02):
reading about it and talking about it before, but is
g n H Is that actually working for them there?
So according to the Boutanese, it is, and the country
released a study in two thousand fifteen that showed that
of the population identified it as either narrowly, extensively or
deeply happy. That's kind of arrange there. Narrowly too deeply,
(27:23):
so so what are they also happy about? Though? Lots
of stuff? So for one thing, life expectancy in Bhutan
has doubled over the last two decades. The country also
has an almost a hundred percent enrollment rate for children
in grade school. Has taken all kinds of steps to
protect its natural environment, including a monthly pedestrian day when
all private vehicles are completely banned from its roads. I mean,
(27:44):
that does sound pretty sweet, but I don't know, are
you sure they're not cooking the books just to make
life and Bhutan look a little bit better than it
actually is. I mean, it's not a realized Shango law
or anything, despite its reputation. But even the UN has
started to explore ways to apply Bhutan's g n H
model to other parts of the world. In fact, that
was the inspiration for their whole World Happiness Report project.
(28:04):
But if you're still uncommenced, listen to how Bhutan's Ministry
of Education makes the case for his country's unique approach
to progress. And these are his words. People always ask
how you can possibly have a nation of happy people,
But this is missing the point. G n H is
an aspiration instead of guiding principles through which we are
navigating our path towards a sustainable and equitable society. We
(28:25):
believe the world needs to do the same before it's
too late. I mean, they seem to have a point there,
which you know, I guess that's why at the first
sign of armageddon, I'm going to be booking a trip
straight to Finland. Why Finland, because the end of the
world can be stressful, and the Finish seems to know
how to unwind. I mean, after all, they're the only
country with a deeply ingrained sonic culture. You know, I've
(28:49):
been looking for a sonic culture. I don't know if
you've heard this, but the Finns had this deep love
for warm, wooden saunas, and this goes back centuries, so
much so that they're over three point three million saunas
for Finland's five point four million citizens. That's more than
half a sauna for each person, and that means these
things are just about everywhere. This is homes, offices, factories,
(29:11):
not to mention really unexpected places like airport, lounges, underground
mind even parliament. It was so much fun reading about
all these different weird places you'd see them. So I
don't know if you notice that I secretly love saunas
like they help you with hangovers, they make you feel
good up with sports. But I saw this thing in
gastro Obscura that you can actually cook a sausage and
(29:31):
a sauna as you sit there and then eat that
as a snack after and that turned me a little off. Really,
I thought you were gonna say that could like actually
raise the rating of the world happiness. But I do
get why Finland always ranks so highly is the Happiness report.
I mean, the whole country is just hanging around naked, relaxing,
you know, shooting the breeze in the cozy little sweat boxes. Well,
(29:53):
I will have you know that plenty of important work
gets done in these finished saunas too. And according to
a report from the BBC, former President Nobel Peace Prize
Laureate marty Ata Sari used sauna diplomacy and these are
these diplomatic meetings that actually take place in a sauna
and either this to move forward negotiations with countries like
Tanzania and Anesia, several others. And actually during the Cold
(30:17):
War they negotiated with Soviet diplomats in the sauna. How crazy.
That's amazing. Sauna diplomacy. I love that that that's the
real secret to happiness. But you know, if it's not saunas,
then I think the secret of happiness might have to
be monkey buffet festivals like the one this town in
Thailand holds once a year. All right, mag I feel
like you're kind of setting me up this one. And
(30:38):
and I'm hoping that monkeys aren't actually on the menu
at this monkey buffet festival. I've never heard of this,
definitely not. So monkeys are actually the guests of honor.
So each year, thousands of visitors flocked to the tiny
town of Lopuari, Thailand, and they watch as local long
tailed monkeys are pampered by their during residents. So, according
to legend, the monkeys are the descendants of Hanuman, who
(30:59):
is this into god. He's a heroic monkey king who
helped build the town of Lope Worri thousands of years ago.
So to honor Hanuman, the monkeys are now treating to
this feast of exotic fruits and stinky white rice and
other Thai favorites. I mean, the food is piled high.
I don't know if he's seen these photos, Like they're
huge buffet tables and more than three thousand monkeys joining
(31:21):
the feeding friends. Yeah, I mean, meanwhile, human spectators enjoy
all these monkey theme festivities like monkey dances and monkey
costume contests. I mean it does sound like fun. So,
I mean, is this some kind of ancient tradition the
town has kept up or how long has this actually
been going on. Yeah, so it's actually been held since
(31:41):
seriously ancient. Yeah, it's definitely not some sort of sacred
cultural tradition, but it's more of a marketing scheme of
this local businessman and he wanted to increase tourism. Delope
Bori and his plans actually been a huge success. I mean,
the festival continues to draw more and more visitors to
the town each year, much to the delight of hungry Monkey.
I'm sure it's at least drawing more monkeys to the
(32:02):
Towny here's that sounds like. And it's definitely the happiest
place in the world for those monkeys, I would have
to imagine, right, And I actually think there's a good
lesson there for the rest of us about finding your
own happy place, because in the end, ranking and comparing
the happiness levels of different places is kind of futile. Well,
I mean, I don't really like to think that we've
wasted the better part of an hour here. But what
(32:23):
do you mean by that? No, I don't mean that.
I just mean happiness is happiness, like either you have
it or you don't, and if you do, then you're lucky.
And if you don't, then it's time to try something new.
Because the difference between living in the number one happiest
place versus I don't know, the tenth or fourteenth happiest
places probably something you can make up on your own. Actually,
it's interesting that you say that, because I was checking
out this one study from the University of Edinburgh where
(32:45):
researchers determined that roughly fifty percent of human happiness is
genetically predetermined. So the idea is that some hardwired personality
traits like you know, being sociable or active or hard working,
that that actually caused happiness and the people who possessed them.
And many psychologists have actually suggested that ten of our
happiness is due to life circumstances, you know, like age
(33:07):
and income, education, location, a few things like that. Sure,
but what about the other Well, it's entirely up to us. Well,
I I know one thing that's guaranteed to make you
at least happier me too. That's that's eating one of
those sausages in a finished saun all right. I was
thinking something that's good too, So we'll go with that. Alright,
(33:38):
My first fact, let's see here, all right, Well, last
year computer scientists at the University of Vermont were on
the hunt for the happiest words in the English language,
so they turned to a crowdsource survey system and looked
at over ten thousand words. Some of the words that
turned up in the top two hundred were cupcakes, weekends, beach, victory, heaven, mother,
(34:00):
as well as both ha ha ha and ha ha
ha ha ha ha. Both of those were words, But
the happiest word was laughter. I like that. Well, you know,
we're in the middle of the holiday season here. It
was interesting to read about a few studies that have
shown that family rituals make people happier, and that is,
those who have rituals they practiced at Christmas or New
(34:22):
Year's or even Easter, whenever families tend to get together,
they felt closer to their families. And interestingly, the type
of rituals doesn't seem to matter as much as the
number of different rituals. So you know, stuff like East
reg hunts and family dinners at Thanksgiving, going to watch
New Year's celebration, that type of stuff, Well, that's pretty neat. Well,
I don't think most of us would be surprised to
know that spending time in nature makes people happier, But
(34:45):
there have been some pretty interesting findings from recent studies.
One out of the University of Michigan found the benefits
of walking in nature are found to be even more
significant when you walk with a group. Another one found
that exercising outdoors saw greater mental health than provements than
those who exercised indoors, And yet another one found that
those who simply looked at pictures of urban landscapes saw
(35:08):
more activity in the part of their brain linked to
negative emotions when compared to those who looked at natural scenes.
So to recap nature is good for us. So I
recently read about a study out of UC Davis where
psychologists had three different groups keep weekly journals, and the
first group they had to write about what they were
up to that week, the second talked about things that
(35:28):
were irritants that week, and the third wrote about things
they were grateful for. And sure enough, a couple months later,
those who have written about things they were thankful for
reported being more satisfied with their lives than the other groups.
They even had fewer negative physical symptoms like headaches and
running noses. Interesting all right, well, speaking of little daily things,
we can do to make ourselves happier. We we've talked
(35:49):
about the benefits of exercise on our mental health, but
I was actually curious to see what that meant in
terms of how much exercise. And it turns out that
just twenty minutes of exercise can actually boost your mood
for up to twelve hours. And of course those who
exercise regularly are generally found to feel a greater satisfaction
with their lives. Well, you open the show with a
fact about McDonald's, and I've actually been saving one about
(36:12):
Mickey D's. Did you know that in the two thousand
and fifteen Paid with Loving campaign that they ran, I
love that name, Pay with Love, and I can't say
I remember that way. Well, the idea was to encourage
people to do nice things, which would then put smiles
on people's faces. So they randomly chose a hundred customers
and asked them to do nice things as the payment
for a meal. And there was one account from a
customer who is not so psyched about this, and it
(36:34):
kind of made me laugh, so I wanted to share it.
Kate Beckleder, who happens to be an editor at The
Wall Street Journal, wrote quote, Suddenly, the cashier began clapping
and cheering, and the restaurant crew quickly gathered around her
and joined in. This can't be good, I thought, half
expecting someone to put a birthday sombrero on my head.
The cashier announced with glee, you get to pay with lovin.
Oh gosh. Confused, I again started to try to pay,
(36:57):
but no. My fellow customers seemed to look at it
with pity. As I drew my fate asked someone to dance.
I stood there for a mortified second or two, and
then the cashier mercifully suggested that we all danced together.
Not wanting to be a spoil sport, I forced a
smile and raised the roof a couple of times as
employees try to lure cringing customers into forming some kind
(37:18):
of congo line, asking them when they had last been
asked to dance. The public embarrassment ended soon enough, and
I slunk away with my free breakfast, thinking, now there's
an idea that never should have left the conference room,
that is so painful but hilarious to hear. And I mean,
not only did you match my Mickey D's story with
a better one, but the idea of someone raising the
(37:39):
roof for a hamburger. That is worth the win in itself,
so congratulations, I'm giving you the fact off. Thank you
so much, and thank you guys for listening. That's it
for today's episode. Don't forget we love to hear from you.
If you have any fun facts or any questions, you
can email us part time Genius at how stuff Works
dot com. You can also call us on our fact
hotline that's one eight four four pt Genius, or hit
(38:02):
us up on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so much for listening, Arch,
thanks again for listening. Farttime Genius is a production of
How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant
(38:24):
people who do the important things we couldn't even begin
to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown
made the theme song and does the mixy mixy sound thing.
Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gave. Louesier is
our lead researcher, with support from the research Army including
Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve. Jeff
Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
If you like what you heard. We hope you'll subscribe,
(38:46):
and if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Did we
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