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Key points
- Research shows that some countries are happier than others.
- Countries and U.S. cities with cold winters are some of the happiest.
- Parks make a big difference in happiness.
One of the best ways to boost your happiness is to surround yourself with happy people.
And it matters where you live. Here are some clues to choosing a happy place:
According to the 2024 version of a long-running report, the four countries where people are happiest are Scandinavian. The reason may be that people feel supported by their communities, including the government. Israel is in fifth place.
The new report shows the differences by age. There are some surprises. Happiness at every age has risen sharply in Central and Eastern Europe, but people ages 15 to 24 have been getting gloomier in the United States and Canada, and also in Western Europe but less so. Looking only at people under the age of 30, Israel is second to the top in a happiness ranking. Why might that be? In Israel, 20-year-olds have already served in the military, which may give them a more mature (and apparently happier) perspective. However, the data come from before the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel from Hamas and the ensuing war in Gaza and political conflicts within Israel. The happiest country for 20-somethings is Lithuania, where the standard of living has soared in recent decades making them feel especially fortunate.
Warm weather isn't key
Those Scandinavian countries—and Lithuania—have rough winters. It turns out some of the happiest cities in the United States also have cold months. The happiest U.S. city, according to a study this year, is Arlington, Virginia, despite bad traffic. People get lots of exercise and tend to be well-off. Plano, Texas, is in second place. But Boise City, Idaho; Anchorage, Alaska; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Minneapolis, Minnesota, all make the top 15, proving that snow and wind aren't soul-killers.
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Parks are grand
There is lots of evidence that time in greenery is good for us. Another recent study analyzed tweets to gauge the impact of city parks and conclude where parks made the city residents happiest. On this list, Indianapolis, Austin, Los Angeles, Jacksonville, and Chicago are at the top, in that order. Parks provided happiness boosts across all seasons, months, weeks, days, and times of day, not just weekends, summer, or holidays, as you might expect. City parks lift mood as much as Christmas, the research team found.
Judged by tweets, Hawaii often scores as the happiest state. People tweet about the beach. Louisiana and Beaumont, Texas, come in at the bottom. The research team codes tweets based on the number of happy-seeming words (rainbow, love, beauty, hope, wonderful, wine, for example) or sad (damn, boo, ugly, smoke, hate, lied).
Curses, deemed negative, made a big difference in the results. Analyzing the overall emotional tone of a writer or speaker by counting the number of different types of words is a standard technique in psychological research—the newest thing here is that the researchers applied the method to tweets.
Being surrounded by happy (or unhappy) people can dramatically affect your own well-being. You might consider favoring a place with strong social supports, a better-off population that exercises, and vibrant parks. Don't assume that mild winters will help, unless you know that the winter is hard on you. In that case, you might look into whether a sunlamp or getting outside earlier could help with seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
However, if you feel low and can't move, or not anytime soon, you might head to the greenest place nearby. Research also confirms something most of us already know: It helps to watch an upbeat movie classic like "The Wizard of Oz" or "Harold and Maude."
