Health Adda

In their pursuit to understand why some people live healthier and longer lives, and after chasing several measurable parameters such as blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, uric acid and smoking for over half a century, medical scientists are now tumbling upon an esoteric factor that has been conspicuously missing from medical books, called ‘happiness’ that could hold the key to our wellness. Happiness is quite like the hippo in the zoo. When you see it you can easily recognize it, but when someone asks you to describe it, it is not easy. It does not have the distinctive features like an elephant’s trunk or a leopards spots. And yet when you try counting people in office who are happy, or occasions when you have been happy, you know exactly who or what they are! Funny as it might sound, the arrival of “happiness” as a medical factor affecting our lives probably started when a group of German pragmatists tried to beat the Americans at their habit of measuring every aspect...