Happiness doesn't lead to a longer life

摘要

Sorry self-help authors, the common assumption that being happy will boost your lifespan is looking decidedly unwell. A team led by Richard Peto at the University of Oxford asked more than 700,000 women in the UK about their health and how happy and relaxed they felt. Ten years later, after allowing for any initial disparities in health, there turned out to be no difference in death rate between those who said they were happy and those who were unhappy (The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/50140-6736(15)01087-9).