Skip to main content

Wine and the Happiness Connection

One of the more interesting things I came across when I was researching the factors influencing longevity for Age Gets Better with Wine was the fact that happy, connected people live longer. It makes sense intuitively of course, but what makes it particularly encouraging is that nurturing our connections to community and friends, something we can simply decide to do, has a large influence on lifespan. Throw in a little wine, some exercise, and healthy eating and you’ve got it made.


It turns out that connectedness is linked to happiness too. In their book Connected: The Surprising Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, researchers Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler reveal that networks wield more control over our lives than we realize. Through our social networks, even beyond our circles of friends, we tend to be either overweight, happy, sad, successful or not in measurable ways. Knowing happy people increases the odds of you being happy by 9%, while having unhappy people around lowers it by 7%. Being geographically close helps too, upping the odds of contagious happiness by as much as 25% if they live within a mile or so. What is interesting is that the people you don’t know, but those with whom you associate do, also measurably impact your sense of well being.

What we can’t seem to escape entirely is our genetically determined happiness “set point.” Apparently this is the most important factor, contributing half of whatever it is that gives our spirits a lift. Another 40% relates to our choices; what we choose to do and how we decide to live our lives (This is where wine and friends come in; see also my post on Dec. 21 about how wine might combat depression.) A mere 10% apparently relates to circumstances, such as wealth and health.

So big surprise, money can’t buy happiness. But deciding to have happy people in your life gets it for free.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Revisiting resveratrol: new findings rekindle anti-aging debate

Just when we thought the bloom was off the rosé for resveratrol, the anti-oxidant polyphenol from red wine with multiple anti-aging properties, along comes new research giving life to the debate. But first a bit of background: As I detailed in my book Age Gets Better with Wine , it is well-documented that wine drinkers live longer and have lower rates of many diseases of aging. Much or the credit for this has been given to resveratrol, though there isn’t nearly enough of it in wine to explain the effects. Nevertheless, I dubbed it the “miracle molecule” and when it was reported to activate a unique life-extension phenomenon via a genetic trigger called SIRT, an industry was born, led by Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, quickly acquired by pharma giant Glaxo. The hope was that resveratrol science could lead to compounds enabling people to live up to 150 years and with a good quality of life. But alas, researchers from other labs could not duplicate the results, and clinical studies disa...

Should wine labels make health claims?

Winemakers have been in a debate for some years now with the U.S. Department of Treasury's Alcohol, Tax and Trade Bureau (formerly the ATF, for Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms--yeah, that made a lot of sense) about ingredient listing for wines, particularly since the healthful properties of wine polyphenols such as resveratrol have been widely publicised. A couple of years back, an Oregon pinot noir producer gained approval for a fairly benign claim: "Pinot noir develops a natural defense against botrytis (mold) in our moist, cool climate - the antioxidant resveratrol." Since resveratrol is indeed produced in the skins of grapes subjected to certain environmental stresses such as mold, and Oregon's climate is certifiably moist, it seems a fairly harmless claim. However, the feds simultaneously disallowed placing the same wording on another vintage from the same producer, citing concern about making therapeutic claims on labels or creating "misleading" associa...