I think almost everyone knows that when you sneeze ore cough and you have a cold, this can easily be given to another person. But would you have expected that happiness is contagious to?

A study published in a British medical journal proclaims it is. They even think this ‘revolutionary’ study could have consequences for the public health.

The researchers discovered that groups of lucky and unlucky people get formed by the people around them. The place where this people live (so the distance between them) is also very important. For instance, when a friend lives like 800 meters away your happiness could increase with 42 percent. But would this friend live 1,5 kilometres ore more away this percentage could sink with 25 percent or more.

A chance unhappiness could also increase with 8 percent if you live with a happy partner, 14 percent with happy relatives (if they don’t live far away), and even 34 percent if you have happy neighbours.

The level of happiness of an individual spreads itself like a wave through a social network. The authors of this study think this is the way groups of happy ore unhappy people get formed.

You can think of different ways we could use this information in our daily life. Or even to help people. For instance, when someone is depressed.

I can understand why the researchers think this study could be revolutionary.