5 ways to rewire your brain for happiness
The United States ranks 24th out of 100 on the list of happiest countries, according to the latest World Happiness Report. Being in the top 25% seems fair when you consider everything that's happening in the world, but the stats aren't great when you look at the happiness of people aged 30 and younger. In this demographic, the U.S. falls to number 62 on the list.
'It's unsettling, because it was always youth that pulled the happiness levels up on these scales,' says Jennifer Moss, author of Unlocking Happiness at Work: How a Data-driven Happiness Strategy Fuels Purpose, Passion and Performance. 'They're the ones that are supposed to be the hopeful, pushing-back-against-the-status-quo generation. Right now, they're struggling, and I think this is the canary in the coal mine.'
Still, the report found a lot of good in the world. Participants were asked 'Have you helped a stranger or someone you didn't know who needed help in the past month?' Seventy-one percent of Americans said 'yes.' That seems like a reason for hope, right?
'In reality, we're actually more prosocial than we've ever been,' says Moss. 'We just hear about how awful and terrible and unhappy the world is.'
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