To celebrate the International Day of Happiness, The Happiness Challenge podcast is dedicating all March episodes to exploring the World Happiness Report - a renowned publication on global wellbeing released especially for this occasion.

In this episode, Klaudia dives into the 2024 report’s surprising findings on age and happiness. Tune in to discover: How does our happiness change as we age, and what does the latest science say about it?

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Hello happiness seekers. Welcome.

My name is Claudia and you are listening to the Happiness Challenge, a podcast where I test drive the best happiness hacks that science has on offer. And it's March, which is my favorite month. First of all, it marks the start of spring. I mean, like finally.

Secondly, both my husband and I, we celebrate our birthdays, so party time. But also March 20th is the official International Day of Happiness.

It's an annual celebration established by the United nations to recognize the importance of happiness in our lives and in the society.

But in the meantime, in order to celebrate the International Day of Happiness, I thought it would be a great idea to dive deeper into the previous World Happiness Reports, which are generally published publish around the International Day of Happiness. What are these reports? What data do they reveal about happiness? And most importantly, what can we learn from them? Now?

Unfortunately, as much as those reports are incredible, let's be honest, who has time and motivation to read over 260 pages? I mean, I know now you'll be pleased to know that I do. I absolutely love reading those reports because they just packed with incredible insights.

So let's dive into it. So just very quickly, as introduction, the World Happiness Report is absolutely the leading publication on global well being.

It blends insights from 140 different countries, is topped up with expert analysis from top researchers across various fields. So if you ever in need of good, solid, reliable data, that is the publication to get it from.

It's published annually by the University of Oxford's well Being Research center in partnership with Gallup and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Overall, the mission is to empower people worldwide with the knowledge needed to foster greater happiness for themselves and others.

So now you might have heard the U shape theory that happiness is quite high when we are young, then it dips in midlife and then rises again as we get older. But is that really the whole story? And this is where the report really surprises us, because according to the report, it absolutely depends.

In some countries happiness does follow a U shape, where people tend to report higher happiness in their youth below 30 and then higher happiness in older age above 60, with a noticeable dip in midlife between 30 to 60. But even there there are some interesting differences.

For example, nor Sweden, Germany, France and the United Kingdom are countries where they follow the U shape. But the older generation are significantly happier than the younger generation. In other places the opposite is true.

For example, Portugal and Greece show the reverse pattern. People are actually significantly happier in the youth than in older age.

But then actually when we look overall across Western Europe, happiness actually doesn't follow that U shaped pattern. Happiness levels are relatively flat across the lifespan, showing little change as people age, which is also interesting.

And finally, some countries do not follow U shape pattern at all. Countries of Central and Eastern Europe show much higher life evaluations for young people, with steady decline across age groups thereafter.

So happiness actually declines steadily with age, rather there bounces back later in life. So what is very clear here, there is no universal curve.

Our happiness journeys are absolutely shaped by culture, society and individual circumstances. So of course looking at this data, I want to straight away know, hey, what actually influences these ups and downs?

So there are few things that the report highlights. First of all, social connections.

Our relationships absolutely matter at every age, but especially as we get older, we need to pay more attention to that social support. Having friends, family or a supportive community is strongly linked to to higher happiness at later stage in life.

The second one, again probably not very surprising. Physical and mental health play a huge role in happiness at the later stages of life.

So investing in healthy habits early on can really pay off later in life.

It's really important to think, no matter what age you are now, what kind of things you want to be doing physically in your last decade of your life, climbing a mountain, traveling across the globe, being physically active to go shopping on your own, whatever it is, and how can you work backwards from that so that you now exercising, taking care of your well being, thinking about your physical health right now so that you'll be able to make that happen. And the third factor is purpose.

Feeling useful and having goals, whether through work, volunteering and hobbies, boosts happiness at any stage of life. But we need to be here extra cautious because with age, our curiosity and appetite for learning new things decreases.

So let's not forget that and think about our purpose in life. And also purpose is an antidote to that maybe feeling of being stuck or not moving forward during that midlife dip when it comes to our happiness.

So for me, the key inspiring takeaway here is where we cannot control aging, we can influence how happy we feel as we age. So again, research really suggests in that report that people who stay socially active look after their health and nature.

That sense of purpose are more likely to report higher well being no matter their age. So those are the three components to really look look after.

So I really love this because it reminds us that happiness isn't just about youth or specific milestones. It's about the choices we make every day, like reaching out to a friend, taking a walk, or learning something new. Age isn't a barrier at all.

It's very much a journey and we do have a power to shape it. So Whether you are 25 or 75, ask yourself what one small step you can take today to boost your happiness. Maybe it is reconnected with someone.

Maybe it's trying to new activity, maybe simply savoring some ordinary moments. Because happiness is actually a lifelong adventure.

And I'm trying to remind myself that since I'm celebrating my birthday this month and I am one year older after all. So thank you so much for listening to the Happiness Challenge. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with your friends. Spread a little more happiness.

Check out my book, the Alphabet of Happiness and also subscribe to my weekly newsletter on Substack. You can find all of the information on my website, the happinesschallenge.co.uk until next time. As always, I dare you to be happy. Bye.