Reasons to be Cheerful!

Accentuate the Positive

I recently read of a study showing how having a positive outlook doesn’t just give you a short term boost but that it can also affect your future happiness. The research was undertaken by the University of California, where psychologists studied photos of 112 women taken for their year books in 1958. Using a process which noted the degree of muscle contractions in their faces they were able to gauge the levels of positive emotion displayed (i.e. how happy they seemed).

They then followed them up more than three decades later. They found that those who had photos showing genuine, happy smiles had become more organised, were higher achievers, and had the most positive attitudes towards marriage and personal well being and generally felt happier about their lives. That will make me think next time I’m posing for a photo…