Science tells us 47 is when we are at our unhappiest — so what can we do about it?

Professor Brendan Kelly tells Suzanne Harrington the seven strategies for finding happiness

When Douglas Adams wrote his comedy science fiction series The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, he declared 42 the answer to life, the universe and everything. Science fact, however, shows that 47.2 in human years is when we feel furthest from comedy; it is the average age, globally, when we feel glummest. The U-bend of human chronology. The midlife slump.

As psychiatrist Brendan Kelly approached his 47th birthday, he wondered if he too would dip into misery. He decided to have a psychological, scientific and cultural look at happiness — to figure out who feels it most and least and why and, more importantly, what we can actively do to cultivate it.

Professor Brendan Kelly

Obviously, we can’t be happy all the time — that would be really annoying. However, in The Science of Happiness, Professor Kelly offers six principles for a happy life and seven strategies to help get there. He crams a ton of research in, without ever being too jargony. So, even if you’ve recently turned 47 and haven’t smiled since blowing out your candles, at least you can read this and understand why.

He looks at why Scandinavia constantly tops the World Happiness Rankings. (Should we move to Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden or Denmark?) Are women happier than men? Does having a baby make you happier? Can money make you happy and, if so, how much? Do religion and politics matter to your happiness?

Dissatisfaction is normal

First, reassure yourself that midlife dissatisfaction is completely normal across the entire plane. Jonathan Rauch, author of The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After Midlife, suggests normalising and recognising this dip as an acknowledged phenomenon. You are not alone. It happens to most of us and will pass.

The 2020 World Happiness Report, which represents 95% of the global adult population from 153 countries, showed how Finland and the rest of Scandinavia is the world’s happiest region because of social equality, gender equality, and economic equality. You can probably spot the key word there. 

The UK was 13th and Ireland 16th. China is happier than India (respectively 94th and 144th). 

Afghanistan — poverty ravaged, invaded and war torn — is the least happy

There are also cultural differences in happiness: ‘arbejdsglæde’ means ‘happiness at work’ in Denmark, while ‘dolce far niente’ is the ‘sweetness of doing nothing' in Italy. ‘Mai pen rai’ means ‘don’t worry’ in Thailand and ‘þetta reddast’ is ‘resilience’ in Icelandic. All contribute to our core happiness.

In terms of happiness and gender, we all know that women suffer more from depression, but have far lower suicide rates. However, across industrialised nations, research shows how women’s happiness plunged between 1972 and 2006. This was/is due to increased equality in the workplace not being matched with increased equality at home; as well as working full-time paid jobs, women continue doing the majority of unpaid childcare and donkey work in the home. In real terms, gender equality lags behind socio-economic equality — women still work more for less money. Cue happiness disparity.

Having a baby increases happiness the year before the birth and the year after the birth, before returning to its normal baseline. Statistically, for women, relational happiness nosedives post natally, before levelling out again. 

An OECD survey of 22 countries showed how non-parents are happier than parents in several countries, most notably in the US and Ireland. This is not because we hate children, but is down to less paid parental leave and affordable childcare.

More money, however, does not make you happier — once you are not in poverty. The ideal income is apparently $75,000 (around €67,000), but anything above that does not make you happier. 

Spending money on others makes you happier than spending it on yourself, as does earning your income rather than inheriting it 

Religion can increase the happiness of the individual more than communities. And conservatives are happier than liberals, which frankly is galling.

Factors impeding happiness

From a psychological perspective, Prof Kelly identifies three main factors impeding “our confused, counterproductive approach to happiness”. 

Firstly, “we dread disappointment even more than we desire happiness,” he writes. “The desire to avoid disappointing other people and ourselves routinely trumps our unspoken desire to be happier. We dread failure far more than we covet success. This seriously limits our happiness.”

The second reason is that “many of us are embarrassed about the desire to be happier. We feel that enduring a life of hardship and suffering somehow reflects well on us, compared to a life of enjoyment and ease. We are slow to discard our comforting myths of martyrdom.” 

Oh dear. It seems the I’ll-just-sit-here-in-the-dark mentality lingers.

And thirdly, is the “struggle to balance the impact of our life choices with the impact of external factors that are outside our control”. 

In other words, when things are going well, we think we are in total control of our happiness; when things go tits up, we suffer from paralysis and a sense of failure. 

With some understatement, Prof Kelly reminds us that “this is unwise”. 

Different kinds of happiness

He also reminds us that there are two kinds of happiness — hedonic (a spontaneous trip to Vegas) versus eudaemonic (saving up for a new garden shed). While the former can provide a quick hit of short-term pleasure, the latter results in longer-lasting, deeper contentment.

With all this in mind, Prof Kelly offers six principles for a happy life. Shazam! Here they are: seeking balance (moderation in all things); focusing on love (for ourselves and others); deepening acceptance (accepting what we cannot change and changing what we can, which is basically the 12-step serenity prayer applied to all aspects of life); practising gratitude (starting with acknowledging how lucky we are to be alive); avoiding comparison with others (compare and despair is the root of much unhappiness); and believing in something that matters to you. 

This can be anything, he says: “Politics, religion, philosophy, football or even the emotional lives of minor celebrities. 

It does not really matter what you believe in, as long as you believe in something

And remember to take it easy. You can’t always be tickety boo. 

“Happiness is like a butterfly,” said 19th-century philosopher Henry David Thoreau. “The more you chase it, the more it will elude, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”

Extracts from Prof Kelly’s 'The Science of Happiness'

Sleep/wake up

• If you are an adult, aim to sleep for between 7 and 9 hours in every 24 hours.
•  Avoid naps during the day.
•  Keep your bedroom dark, cool, comfortable and free of distractions (especially screens).
•  In bed, relaxation exercises or breathing techniques can help to settle your racing thoughts as you try to sleep.

Dreams and daydreams

• The more we accept the strangeness of dreams, the happier we will be.
•  Daydreams matter just as much as night dreams.
• Let your mind wander at appropriate times: daydreaming during a tedious meeting is perfectly acceptable and even recommended; daydreaming while driving a car is not.

Diet and eating

• We place too much symbolic importance on food. De-link food from meanings, emotions and self-esteem. See food for precisely what it is: just food.
• Certain nutrients, such as vitamin B12, can help with brain health.
• Radical diets don’t work. They are unrealistic, unsustainable and frequently ridiculous.
• Avoid distractions as you prepare and consume your food. When you eat, just eat.
• Have the occasional chocolate brownie. They are treasure too.

Exercise, moving and stopping moving

• Regular exercise enhances physical health, increases mental wellbeing and boosts our happiness.
• Humans were designed to move, so we function best with regular exercise.
• Adults need to be physically active every day — do at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity each week.
• Fit in some strengthening activities that work all your major muscles two or three days each week.
• The key to establishing a regular exercise habit is that our chosen activities should be sustainable, convenient, enjoyable and (ideally) sociable.
• Sit still afterwards. This is an important part of exercise.

Doing and stopping doing

• Too often, we equate work with productivity, and activity with value. Try to dismantle these beliefs.
• Declutter today. Our lives are filled with unnecessary tasks, unfounded beliefs and physical objects that weigh us down rather than move us forward.
• Identify the objects and activities that bring you happiness and focus on these.
• Meditation helps. Learning to sit still in our own presence is an important life skill. Try it. Create the time. Practise.

Connecting with and disconnecting from other people

• The first step to connecting better with other people is connecting better with ourselves.
• The second step is to deepen, enrich and renew the relationships you already have with your partner, family members, friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Reach out.
• Remain open to accidental friendships.
• Being part of something bigger matters deeply. A sense of belonging nourishes us, even if we never explicitly draw on the support that it offers.
• We sometimes need to disconnect and take time alone. This can be for short periods, such as evening walks without the phone, or longer periods, like weekend retreats. Just go.

Losing yourself

• Even if we do not travel to foreign climes, we can still lose ourselves in the moment if we become utterly absorbed in a given activity and enter a state of ‘flow’ or ‘no self’.
• We enter a state of flow when we concentrate fully and use all our skills.
• The rest of the world and our ‘selves’ simply melt away.
• This is the ‘empty mind’ of meditation. This is happiness. This is freedom.