Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. When I was a kid growing up in Iowa,

both my parents smoked, my mom smoked cigarettes, and my dad smoked cigars. And I remember on winter trips when we

get in the car I would have to stick my nose out the window, just crack the window a

little bit just so I could get some fresh air. It was a long trip sometimes.

Even though as a kid I clearly realized that smoking wasn't something good for us.

Later, through my studies and academic experiences, I learned

that smoking is really, really bad for us. And as I dove into health and being healthy

and health articles and journals, what I read over and over again

is the best thing you can do for your health is not smoke.

My dad didn't smoke cigars very much and he quit a long time ago and he's still alive today.

My mother on the other hand had a much more challenging time quitting.

She did end up succeeding at it, but she only made it to her mid-60s, while her mother

lived to be 90. So smoking, as we probably all know now, isn't very good for us.

Again, it's probably the most important thing we can do for our health,

more than eating, well, or exercise, is just not smoke. But I wanted to share a real interesting study that I found that

talks about happiness in regards to health. It was done in 2008 from researchers from Erasmus University Rotterdam and was published in the Journal of

Happiness Studies.

There are three interesting aspects of this study.

One is that happiness doesn't seem to affect us if we're already

chronically ill. If we're chronically ill, we're going to stay ill no matter how happy or

unhappy we are.

Though I would argue strongly that we're going to be a lot more

...