Unlocking the secret of eternal happiness

TV Watch with Dave O’Connell

Now that Luis Suarez has paid a huge price for interrupting his World Cup for a bite of Italian, he might check out the RTE Player to have a look at Maureen Gaffney’s two part RTE series simply entitled How To Be Happy. The irony is that he’s probably closer to happiness than he realises – not because he earns £200,000 a week or is acclaimed as a fantastic if flawed footballer – but because he has a smile that could light up a planet … unless you’re Italian and see his smile heading for your shoulder.

But smiling – in its more traditional sense – is, apparently, the first secret to happiness.

Researchers at Berkley University tracked a group of women in a College Yearbook over the next 30 years – and found that the ones with the warmer, more genuine, full smiles meant a life less anxious and less distressing.

The women were examined at 27, 42 and 52 – and they were by and large more successful, happier, and at 52, they still saw their husbands as the love of their lives.

Breda is a middle-aged woman from Thurles who doesn’t like to smile because of her slightly prominent teeth – but now she’s doing more of it and finds it’s sending off what she calls a transmission to the interior and now she’s happier.

So now she’s grinning like she’s had ten Mojitos at a hen party.

And even if smiling doesn’t come naturally to you, Welsh psychologists point out that you can train to smile by holding a pen in your mouth to force your lips upwards.

Just remember to take it out afterwards or you’ll have difficulty talking, or you’ll swallow the ink.

Maureen Gaffney is one of those rare psychologists who talk in everyday language – and makes sense – but even she can resort to trite stats once in a while.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.