What makes you happy? Adults do pretty much anything to get babies laughing, and who can deny that their laugher’s contagious. For instance, who could keep a straight face around these laughing quadruplets?

Recently, Adrian White a University of Leicester psychologist came out with a ‘world map of happiness.’

Data analyzed for this study came from UNESCO, the CIA, the New Economics Foundation, the WHO, the Veenhoven Database, the Latinbarometer, the Afrobarometer, and the UNHDR, to create a first world map of happiness.

Interestingly, the study came from findings of over 100 different studies around the world, which questioned 80,000 people worldwide. For this study data was analyzed for people’s responses to health, wealth and access to education.

The 20 happiest nations in the World are:
1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. The Bahamas
6. Finland
7. Sweden
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei
10. Canada
11. Ireland
12. Luxembourg
13. Costa Rica
14. Malta
15. The Netherlands
16. Antigua and Barbuda
17. Malaysia
18. New Zealand
19. Norway
20. The Seychelles

Other interesting results listed:
23. USA
41. UK
62. France
82. China
90. Japan
125. India
167. Russia

The least happy nations listed included …
176. Democratic Republic of the Congo
177. Zimbabwe
178. Burundi

What makes you happy? My more important question is … “Why do kindergarten age children laugh 300 times a day and adults laugh on average only 17 times a day?” What makes babies happy that we mid-lifers sometimes miss?

Hey, move me to Denmark - they seem to get it….