Laughter is the Best Medicine

Surround yourself with happy people and you, too, shall be happy. We think we know this, but a recent study conducted by Harvard Medical School and the University of California in San Diego, have some new research for us:

In a study that looked at the happiness of nearly 5000 individuals over a period of twenty years, researchers found that when an individual becomes happy, the network effect can be measured up to three degrees. One person's happiness triggers a chain reaction that benefits not only their friends, but their friends' friends, and their friends' friends' friends. The effect lasts for up to one year.
The flip side, interestingly, is not the case: Sadness does not spread through social networks as robustly as happiness. Happiness appears to love company more so than misery.

Here's the whole article.