Just Moving Makes You Happy

Just moving around makes people more happy. Or maybe not moving makes people less happy. While you figure it out, think about this: a new study conducted at the University of Cambridge used an app to track motion over a 17 month period for 10,000 people, who answered random questions about their mood. Gretchen Reynolds of the New York Times reports on the study, which asked participants whether whether, in the past 15 minutes, they had been sitting, standing, walking, running, lying down or doing something else. Reynolds tells us that people turned out to feel happier when they had been moving in the past quarter-hour than when they had been sitting or lying down, even though most of the physical activity that people reported was gentle walking. Wait, there’s more. Movement and happiness were consistently related all day long, on workdays and weekends. And more: people who moved more frequently said they enjoyed greater life satisfaction over all than those who reported spending most of their time in a chair.

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