Are You Happy?

As cited by the Daily Mail, scientists have cracked the happy code.

[...]Dr Amit Sood, who led the research, says 40 to 50 per cent of your happiness depends on the choices you make and where you place your focus each day.

'You can choose to live focusing on what is right and beautiful in your life,' said Dr Sood who is the author of a new book, 'The Mayo Clinic Handbook for Happiness: A Four-Step Plan for Resilient Living.
Practices include doing something known as the 5-3-2 technique.

[...]This involves making your first thought in the morning about five people that you're grateful to have in your life.

For the first three minutes you meet your family, meet them like a long lost friend, Dr Sood advises.

And he says, for the first two seconds when you see another person, send a silent 'I wish you well'.

The second step in the book's plan is building emotional resilience through gratitude, compassion, acceptance and forgiveness.

So who's happy?

Israel is one of the top five happiest countries in the world, according to a new Better Life Index report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

“Israelis are more satisfied with their lives than the OECD average. When asked to rate their general satisfaction with life on a scale from 0 to 10, Israelis gave it a 7.4 grade, higher than the OECD average of 6.6,” reads the report.

Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, and Finland took the top four spots in global happiness. The United States did not crack the top 10 for the fifth consecutive year.