Happiness can add several years to your life

Forget long walks and calorie-controlled diets, the best way to boost lifespan is: be happy.

That’s the conclusion of a new study, which shows that being happy can add several years to life.

“Happiness does not heal, but happiness protects against falling ill,” 24.com quoted Ruut Veenhoven of Rotterdam’s Erasmus University, as saying in a study to be published next month.

After reviewing 30 studies carried out worldwide over periods ranging from one to 60 years, the Dutch professor said the effects of happiness on longevity were “comparable to that of smoking or not”.

That special flair for feeling good, he said, could lengthen life by between 7.5 and 10 years.

In Veenhoven’s findings, published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, a scientific publication founded in 2000, the strongest effect on longevity was found among a group of US nuns followed through their adult life - perhaps reflecting the feel-good factor from belonging to a close-knit stress-free community with a sense of purpose.

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