Tag: World Happiness Report

Posted on in health and wellness, lifestyle, science of happiness, travel

Take the Finnish Masterclass on happiness

Wilderness guide Petri Kokkonen, one of the instructors

It’s 10 degrees and raining right now in Finland, and yet those crazy Finns are all probably happily curled up inside in their cozy houses in front of a roaring fire with their thick, brightly-coloured woolen socks, sipping a cup of hot coffee or glogi.

Finland has been named the happiest country in the world for the last eight consecutive years in a row, according to the World Happiness Report.

Now you too can channel your inner finn and learn the Finnish methods of happiness by taking Finland’s free Masterclass of Happiness course online this fall.

After watching five online videos narrated by expert coaches on four central themes, you’ll be tasked with an assignment. The four central themes are connection to nature, health and balance, design and the everyday, and food and wellbeing.

After you complete each lesson, you’ll receive a certificate.

To give you a flavour of what to expect, in the first lesson, Petri Kokkonen, a wilderness guide who lives in the remote Vätsäri region, will help you experience the peace and tranquility of nature in daily life and help you become one with nature.

In the segment on design, design professional Taina Snellman-Langenskiöld talks about how much our homes and the spaces we visit affect our well-being.

Full disclosure: this course and site is run by Visit Finland, the country’s tourism operator and it will suggest how you can further your happiness journey with travel suggestions at the end. I became aware of it when they ran a contest the first year it was offered and held in person in Finland. The success of the course and contest made Visit Finland realize they were on to something, and they made it available to everyone online. Now the tagline “Visit Finland—the happiness country in the world” features predominantly in their advertising.

This week’s #HappyAct is to find your inner Finn and take the Masterclass in Happiness.

Related: Read about hygge, the ancient Danish tradition of creating a warm atmosphere to relax in with friends and family.

Posted on in community, global relations, health and wellness, science of happiness

Findings from the 2025 World Happiness Report

man sharing a meal in Africa with others

The 2025 World Happiness Report was released on March 20, the International Day of Happiness. The first World Happiness Report was published in 2012 after Bhutan, a country that measures its success based on the happiness of its people urged the UN and national governments to “give more importance to happiness and well-being in determining how to achieve and measure social and economic development.”

Since then, the report has been measuring which countries in the world have the happiest citizens and exploring various themes related to global happiness including age, generation, gender, migration, sustainable development, benevolence, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on global well-being.

As always, the results of this year’s report are fascinating (you can read the full report here.) The authors chose the theme “Caring and Sharing”, delving into how caring and sharing and specifically three benevolent acts, donating, volunteering and helping strangers can make people happier.

The Happiest Countries

Finland ranked #1 for the eighth year in a row while Canada ranked 18th. The US fell off the list of the top 20 happiest countries to #24. One troubling statistic is that in general, the western industrial countries are now less happy than they were between 2005 and 2010 with the US, Canada and Switzerland experiencing the biggest drops.

Here are the top 20 happiest countries in order:

Finland
Denmark
Iceland
Sweden
Netherlands
Costa Rica
Norway
Israel (if you’re wondering about Israel, it scored highest in several areas, including the quality of social connection amongst youth)
Luxembourg
Mexico
Australia
New Zealand
Switzerland
Belgium
Ireland
Lithuania
Austria
Canada
Slovenia
Czechia

Key findings

Beyond health and wealth, simple acts of caring and sharing can influence happiness, including sharing meals with others, having somebody to count on for social support, and household size.

  • While it’s well documented that people who live alone are unhappier, research shows that happiness rises with household sizes up to four people, but above that happiness declines.
  • We are too pessimistic about kindness in our communities, and this pessimism is contributing to our unhappiness. For example, when wallets were dropped in the street by researchers, the proportion of returned wallets was far higher than people expected.
  • One interesting piece of research and a positive from the global pandemic is we’ve seen a “benevolence” bump of 10% since COVID-19. The pandemic taught us to think and care for others more, and that benevolence has continued.
  • One disturbing trend is young people in North America and Western Europe now report the lowest well-being and happiness among all age groups. In 2023, 19% of young adults across the world reported having no one they could count on for social support, a 39% increase compared to 2006. In fact, the fall in the United States’ happiness ranking is largely due to the decline in well-being among Americans under 30.
  • When society is more benevolent, the people who benefit most are those who are least happy. As a result, happiness is more equally distributed in countries with higher levels of expected benevolence

So what does this year’s report tell us and what simple happy acts can we all do to promote caring and sharing?

  • Share meals together: people who eat frequently with others are happier
  • Be kind and don’t underestimate the kindness of others
  • Try not to live alone
  • Build social connections and don’t be afraid to reach out to people
  • Practice benevolent acts–do what you can to volunteer, donate or help a stranger (several African countries reported low scores for donating but scored very high for helping strangers which helped their happiness scores)

Finally remember that caring is “twice-blessed”: it blesses those who give and those who receive. Have a happy week.

Posted on in health and wellness, inspiration, lifestyle, science of happiness

Climbing the ladder of happiness

world happiness report

If you imagine a ladder whose rungs are numbered zero to 10, and zero represents your worst possible life and 10 represents your best, which rung would you be on? 

This is the question asked of people around the world every year for the World Happiness Report. Last year marked the tenth anniversary of the report which uses global survey data to report how people evaluate their happiness in more than 150 countries. The study researchers will reveal the results of the 2023 report at noon tomorrow, March 20, the International Day of Happiness.

What’s interesting is Finland has ranked #1 for the past five years in a row, followed by Denmark and Iceland in second and third place in last year’s report. Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Israel and New Zealand all ranked among the top 10 ‘happiest’ countries in the world. Canada ranked 15th and the US 16th.

I dug a little deeper to understand why Finns have ranked #1 for the past five years. I’ve never been to Finland, and have only had a few Finnish friends over the years.  

Finns are not exactly known for their exuberance. There is a Finnish saying, ‘If you’re happy, you should hide it”. Their happiness manifests itself as more of a deep contentment, part of their hygge culture.

One thing the study illuminates, and is true in all the northern European nations who rank the happiest every year, is having access to the basics is a strong baseline for happiness.

In Finland, everyone has access to guaranteed health care, tuition-free school, a living wage, affordable housing, and free universal daycare from eight months until the start of formal education at age seven. It also doesn’t hurt that all Finns get five weeks of vacation every year.

But a key reason why Finland ranks #1 each year is their emphasis on family, friends, relationships and not on accumulating wealth or material possessions. They have their priorities straight.

This week’s #HappyAct is to watch for tomorrow’s report and ask yourself the question, which rung would you be on?

Ed note: If you’d like to read the full report, go to worldhappiness.report. I highly recommend taking 20 minutes to read a few of the sub-reports which are fascinating. For instance, in the report “Exploring the biological basis of happiness”, the researchers concluded that genetics does play a role in happiness. In fact, one study that tracked the lives of identical and fraternal twins found remarkably, that identical twins who were reared apart (100% genetically identical, no shared environmental influences or experiences) turned out to be more similar with respect to their well-being than fraternal twins who grew up together.

Another study on optimism during the pandemic found that while most participants experienced decreases in their optimism and meaning in life during COVID-19, for more than a third of the participants, their levels of optimism and meaning in life remained stable. Fascinating stuff.