85% Happiness Comes From…….

Raveen Chawla
3 min readJan 31, 2025

--

Have you ever thought of what actually makes people happy? You must be thinking about wealth, success, as well as personal achievements.

The research says that 85% of happiness comes from happy involvement with other people like relationships, friendship, social connections, and so on.

Similarly, 85% of the unhappiness comes from an unhappy environment with other people. The remaining 15% of happiness comes from your achievements.

(Source: hiddenbrain.org)

Role of social bonds in happiness

Human beings are not bound to stay isolated. From childhood to old age, our relationships help to frame our emotional health along with overall success. It can be family, friends, spouse, or social bonds.

  1. Social connections help to decrease stress- Your engagement or connection with others helps to release oxytocin, a hormone that improves bonding and reduces stress and anxiety.
  2. Stronger relationships help to have better health- The research shows that people having close relationships are likely to live longer as well as healthier lives.
  3. Enhances resilience- The emotional support from your loved ones during tough times helps to overcome bigger challenges.

Scientific evidence proving 85% happiness theory

The research conducted by the Harvard Study of Adult Development studied individuals for about 80 years. The findings were that:

a strong relationship was an important factor for a happy and fulfilling life.

Participants who reported deep social ties exhibited better health, lower depression levels, and life satisfaction. Other studies show that:

People having strong friendships, have a 50% chance of living longer compared to those without them.

Married people are likely to exhibit higher happiness levels compared to singles, only if the marriage is healthy.

Socially active seniors have a very low risk of dementia and cognitive issues.

These findings provide us the clarity that our interactions help to design our emotional health compared to any other factor.

Social involvement that helps to improve happiness

1. Family relationships: Family is the initial source of social connection. Strong family bonds are helpful during an emotional breakdown.

2. Friendships: Good friends provides laughter, companionship as well as emotional support. This has been proved in the research that individuals having close friendships are likely to have higher happiness and lower stress levels.

3. Romantic relationships: Intimacy and love significantly help in higher happiness. A healthy romantic relationship provides a deep sense of connection, companionship, and emotional support.

The level of happiness depends on how meaningful your relationship is with others. One deep connection can give you more joy compared to several shallow ones, so it is all about quality and not quantity.

Measures of healthy personality

1. How much you like yourself: Those who like themselves a lot are likely to have healthy personalities.

2. How much responsibility you accept: Those who accept a lot of responsibilities for themselves are healthy personalities. They refuse to blame other people, and they consider themselves to be the key agents for being happy.

3. How easily you forgive: The more easily you are able to forgive others, the more you will have a healthy personality because you won’t carry any grudge or negative towards others.

4. Positive expectations: The intensity or degree to which you look for positivity or goodness in everything and everybody around you.

5. How well you get along with others: The intensity or degree to which you feel connectivity with others. The more you feel connected, the more you will have a healthy personality.

Communities encourage connection and living beings thrive in that environment because they feel valued and supported.

Conclusion

Happiness is not the material position but rather the relationship we establish and nurture because 85% of happiness comes from our involvement or connectivity with others instead of personal achievements. The moment we strengthen our social bonds, we unlock a more fulfilling and deeper sense of joy.

If you want to live a happy and healthy life, invest in people because

Happiness is meant to be shared

Related searches

Follow for more updates

Follow Raveen Chawla on Medium

For related searches, click Articles, click Web-stories

--

--

Raveen Chawla
Raveen Chawla

Written by Raveen Chawla

Academic writer | Assignment writer | Subject matter expert | For more articles, visit https://updatedgeek.com/ Affiliate link https://amzn.to/40V5m33

No responses yet