Tuesday, July 5, 2011

From the department of the bleeding obvious...

I've just spent a wonderful couple of days up near Stowmarket with my good lady, resting and relaxing, drinking more than the government alcohol points limit and eating more than they recommend too, we spent a day in Norwich wandering all over, buying the sort of gifts for family that are both interesting and quite forgettable, mostly mustards and fudge all local and all reasonably priced.
So it was with interest that I noticed this article in the Express...

PEOPLE satisfied with life are less likely to get heart disease, research shows.
And the more happy people are with their “lot”, the greater the protection.
Depression and anxiety are well known for putting people at higher risk. Now scientists have proved the benefit of a satisfying life boosting heart health.
Dr Julia Boehm of Harvard School of Public Health, said: “Taken together, this research indicates that being satisfied with specific life domains – in particular one’s job, family, sex life, and self – is a positive health asset.”
The study polled 8,000 British civil servants with an average age of 49 and included love relationships, leisure, standard of living, job, family and sex.
Dr Boehm said: “These findings suggest that interventions to bolster positive psychological states – not just alleviate negative psychological states – may be relevant among high-risk individuals.”
Wow, wonder how much it cost them to discover those little gems? I have a feeling many of us could have deduced that for nothing that happy, satisfied with life people will live longer than those under a great deal of stress.
One of the things that I did notice about Norwich, other than it's a pretty nice place to visit, was the general air of happiness about the people living there, happy people, happy town and quite homogeneous too, other than a very few different nationalities most of whom I could only tell by language, there were no signs of multiculturalism to be seen. I guess I've kind of got used to seeing the odd/bad side of multiculturalism where I live and where I've worked, so it was odd to be in a place where it didn't seem to be happening. No ghetto's, not burkhas, no weird ethnic dress, just a few odd looking Goth students.
I know it's just my perception, but it did strike me that where multiculturalism isn't, people seemed happier, something that politicians should perhaps take note of, assuming they want us to be happier.
If not, well all we have to do is bring down the government and get rid of all those stupid laws, rules and regulations that stress us out and we'll be fixed.

1 annotations:

BG! said...

"The study polled 8,000 British civil servants..."

Those Harvard boffins really went to great lengths to find a representative cross-section of the population.

I'll wager they think we all stroll around with brollies and bowler hats.

Eejuts.