March this year once again saw the publication of the annual World Happiness Report. The latest international rankings put Finland at number one and several other Nordic countries dominating the top 10.
As always, there are those who question the validity and meaning of the data in this report, including many Finnish people. After all, these rankings are based on a single question asking people to evaluate the quality of their life on a zero to ten scale. It’s not the most rigorous research approach.
However, if this isn’t the right way to measure happiness, what is? This is a thornier issue than you might expect because, despite everyone recognising it and actively seeking it out, it’s hard to say, scientifically, what happiness actually is.
You might think it’s obvious: happiness is an emotion. Right? Sure. But emotions are similarly hard to define, beyond invoking terms like “feelings”.
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Indeed, most dictionaries define happiness as “the feeling of being happy”. This has the bizarre quality of being correct while containing no useful information whatsoever.
Definitions of happiness are slightly more varied. Most reference pleasure in some form. Few people would argue that happiness involves pleasure. It follows, then, that happiness is the emotion you feel when experiencing pleasure.
Except, when considering all the different experiences that people derive pleasure from, you’d have to include sad music, scary films and tragic stories – not exactly the most cheerful list. While individual tastes vary considerably, it’s clear that people can readily feel pleasure while experiencing emotional states that aren’t happiness.
Another phrase that comes up often when exploring the definition of happiness is contentment. Most people can relate to this. The experience of having everything done, everything just right, is a very enjoyable one. It certainly makes us happy.
But another expression of happiness is euphoria. Being ecstatic, overjoyed, giddy with excitement at the brilliant thing you’re experiencing. Nobody would argue against the fact that someone in such a state is clearly happy.
But then, so is someone who’s undeniably content. And these two states are essentially incompatible.
Surely nobody has ever experienced an intense rush of contentment? Sat in their comfiest armchair at the end of a long day, all jobs done and everything taken care of, with an aged whisky in one hand and their favourite paperback in the other, all the while practically fizzing with pure ecstasy, thinking, “I’m so relaxed! This is amazing!” That’s just not how we work.
This suggests that what we think of as happiness is down to multiple different processes in our brains. There’s the reward pathway, which is responsible for pleasure, of course. But we already know that’s not the whole story.
This is borne out in the neuroscientific data. According to the available evidence, there is no ‘happiness centre’ in the human brain. What we think of as happiness is more likely a sort of umbrella term, a handy label we apply to all the myriad ways in which we can feel good or positive.
Indeed, it can often be that what we think of as happiness isn’t due to something happening in our brains, but something not happening. Sometimes, happiness can be experienced via the reduction or removal of activity in the stress-producing parts of the brain, which are typically always ‘on’, to a degree.
In many ways, that’s why alcohol is as popular as it is. At the smallest doses, it suppresses the higher parts of our brain that worry and stress about consequences and other people’s judgement. This lowers our stress, making us happier as a result.
Maybe that’s where the neurological division is? Contentment is happiness produced by the removal of stress, while ecstasy, joy and euphoria are the result of excess stimulation and activity in the reward pathway. It’s a theory, of sorts.
As ever, this isn’t likely to be the whole story. Our brains are too complex for that. The theme of the 2025 World Happiness Report was belonging and kindness. This makes sense; humans are incredibly social, empathetic beings, so much of our happiness is contingent on those around us. There’s a significant link between empathy and happiness, which means acts of kindness and belonging may indeed be a significant component of it.
The importance of empathy and connections, or validation, on happiness can have its downsides, too. For instance, you could have everything any human could ever hope to have in terms of money, power and security, but if you feel people don’t like you, happiness can still prove elusive.
Ultimately, it’s very hard to measure happiness if we can’t specify what it actually is in the scientific sense. But that doesn’t mean we should begrudge anyone who assumes otherwise. As long as they’re happy.
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