Emotional Health Key to Happiness

The Guardian recently posted this provocative headline: "Emotional health in childhood is the key to future happiness."  The article reports ...

"Richard Layard and his colleagues at the Wellbeing Research Programme at the London School of Economics Centre for Economic Performance conclude that a child’s emotional health is far more important to their satisfaction levels as an adult than other factors, such as if they achieve academic success when young, or wealth when older.  The authors explain that evaluating the quality of a child’s emotional health is based on analysing a range of internal factors in a person’s early life, including whether they endured unhappiness, sleeplessness, eating disorders, bedwetting, fearfulness, or tiredness....

"Many people have assumed income is the most important factor in an adult’s life satisfaction.  But the academics say their data makes clear this is far less important than emotional health — both in a child and in an adult.  Income only explains about 1% of the variation in life satisfaction among people in the UK — one-sixth of the fraction explained by emotional health, they note.  Or, to put it another way, money really cannot buy you happiness."

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