Cheering up the World, 59 Seconds at a Time

Alert! In just a few days, you can help cheer up the world. Do not miss your opportunity to be part of a mass global happiness epidemic.

"The Science of Happiness" is an "ambitious study" in which participants (namely, you!) will carry out a one-minute "happiness boosting exercise" every day for a week. The "mass participation project" (involving "a huge number of people") aims for nothing less than "cheering up the world!"

University of Hertfordshire psychologist Richard Wiseman, whose other ultra-scientific experiments have proved both that British men are the most romantic in the world and that the thought of babies keeps potential thieves honest, thinks his scheme will work for a simple reason: "Because emotions are contagious their increased happiness should pass to those around them." And by "those around him" he means, of course, "the world!"

The experiment starts on Aug. 3, so get your smiling muscles in shape. You'll have exactly one week, until Aug. 7, to both get yourself happy in one minute a day and make everyone else around you happy, too. It will be a real experiment because various groups will be assigned different exercises, "so we will be able to identify the most effective way of increasing happiness." Some of these ways apparently involve sending a nice email, doing a favor, making a compliment or giving a small gift. I feel happier already!

As I said, this is very scientific, so there will be a poll "to measure Britain’s level of happiness at the start and end of the project." If only I had known you could quantify the happiness of an entire nation so easily. I'm sure there are ways I could have been making a lot of money doing that.

Wiseman's new book, 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot, most likely explains the reasoning behind this project.

I'll leave it up to the more ambitious readers out there to discover why the title references 59 instead of 60 seconds. Though I will note that cutting corners like that is going to make it way harder for everyone to get happy. I'm just saying. I could smile at, like, five old ladies in one second.

Anyway, here's Wiseman himself explaining his project. The video, you'll note, is only 36 seconds long. Is this any way to succeed?

Image courtesy of stock.xchang.