The best day ever: have scientists found the secret of happiness?

The Guardian

15-04-2025

Name: The perfect day.
Appearance: Data driven.
The perfect day? Huh. Good luck with that. You seem down – is your day going badly?
Honestly, it's a mixed bag. The world is sliding into geopolitical chaos and climate collapse while Jeff Bezos sends Katy Perry into space, but on the plus side, I've just made a great sandwich. Would you like to know how to make it better?
My sandwich? Impossible. No, your day.
Let me guess. Is it generational wealth? No, there's a new formula for how to have a good day.
A formula – what is this, GCSE chemistry? It's social science, actually. Researchers at the University of British Columbia have used machine-learning techniques to analyse data from the American Time Use Survey and work out how the amount of time people devoted to various activities determined whether they rated their day as 'better than typical'.
I see. So what's the formula? Well, there's six hours of family time and two hours with friends, plus an hour and a half of extra socialising, for a start.
Exhausting. Do introverts not contribute to the American Time Use Survey? Some of them seem to: one of the findings was that, while socialising was an important part of a better than average day, there was little benefit beyond two hours of it.
That makes sense – there's a limit to how long I want to spend talking with Dave next door about the bins. 'Some activities may be best in small doses, like a touch of salt when baking cookies,' the research team theorised. 'While other activities may be akin to chocolate chips, where more is almost always better.'
Very true. What else should I be doing? Well, speaking of chocolate chips, there's an hour of eating and drinking in there.
Easy. Anything else? Two hours of exercise.
Twice as much time exercising as eating and drinking? Madness. Data doesn't lie. Better than average days involved work, too, though not more than six hours of it.
Yes, six hours of work is plenty. I need time for zoning out watching TikToks of medieval dog names and murderous emus. Sorry, no – you should only be having an hour of screen time.
So how am I supposed to relax? Well, here's the strangest finding from this research: 'Time spent relaxing was always negatively associated with having a good day.'
What? Strange, isn't it? The research team think it's because most of that time is spent watching TV.
In the age of prestige streaming? Unlikely. It's probably because these days, we need lives stuffed with work, exercise and other people to distract ourselves from impending doom. Sssh, eat your sandwich.
Do say: 'Such a perfect day, drink sangria in the park.'
Don't say: 'For a period not exceeding one hour, followed by a two-hour high-intensity interval training workout.'