Being happy may not have anything to do with how long you live. While it seems to be common knowledge that the happier you are the longer and better you will live, a recent study contradicted this traditional thought process. “A series of studies had shown that how happy people are, strongly predicts how long they are going to live. Ideas included detrimental changes in stress hormones or the immune system resulting in a higher risk of death. But the research team in the UK and Australia said those studies failed to deal with reverse causality – namely, that people who are ill are not very happy.” The study stated that happiness had to deal with health state and therefore people who described themselves as unhappy died sooner because they were suffering from a health condition that made them perceive their mood as unhappy.