How To Measure Your Health And Happiness

What if there were a way to measure how healthy and happy you are as compared to the rest of the population? Would you be interested in knowing how you rate? I’ve got to admit my curiosity was peaked by an article in Tuesday’s Associated Press written by Kevin Freking.

• Based on research data, at least half of Americans are fighting the battle to maintain their happiness and general state of health
• Out of 100,000 people who agreed to interviews for a project called the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index (wow, that’s a mouthful), 47 percent stated they were managing but it was still a struggle, and 4 percent were feeling the pain and suffering side of life
• Personal assessments taken reported 49 percent of respondents thrived, were content where they were right now in their lives, and were on track for where they would like to be five years into the future
• Characteristics of the “active thrivers” included less time spent being sick, higher wages and they were better educated
• Characteristics of the “struggling to thrives” included, obviously, the flip side of those things the “thrivers” had overcome. Things such as inability to meet basic needs and expenses, inadequate funds for proper medication, food or shelter.
• To see who’s happier and healthier than we are, we can look at Denmark with only 1 percent of respondents experiencing suffering
• Wrap your mind around this, now researchers are attempting to measure health and happiness levels by using your zip code (with all the political implications), your occupation, how long it takes you to commute, and even how much or how little you are exercising
• The project performed by Healthways also benefits employers showing which employees or industries are more likely to have workers unhappy with the work environment
• Another area which can be measured is how performance is affected if an ill worker reports to work anyway. The research can even pinpoint how many days of work a person will most likely miss based on what’s wrong with them and what they think about the environment they are working in
• With a price tag of more than $20 million a year, Freking reports that the project interviews more than 1,000 individuals a day.
• You can see the complete details by visiting the Gallup or Healthways websites