‘If you’re happy and you know it…’ is a popular children’s song, during which the singers are asked to show how happy they are by clapping their hands, stamping their feet or shouting ‘We are!’ The truth is, however, that this country — as many other parts of the world — has not had a lot to clap its hands, stamp its feet or shout about recently. Ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in many British casualties, the global financial crisis has seen an erosion of public confidence in our financial markets, and there has been a marked increase in unemployment in recent months. Add to this a worldwide swine flu pandemic and the promised barbecue summer weather that produced downpours of sustained rain instead, and it is not too hard to see why Britain is still in the doldrums.
However, help is now at hand, in the form of the British ‘Dunkirk spirit’ of optimism over adversity, with so-called positive psychologists like Professor Richard Wiseman at the University of Hertfordshire leading the way. His recent innovative research involved more than 10,000 volunteers being invited to go online and try one of four proven ‘mood-busting’ techniques to cheer up Britain. Professor Wiseman stated that, ‘It is well known that happiness is catching and we hope to spread happiness around the UK. No-one has ever tried to cheer up a country before, and now is the right time to do it, with everyone feeling gloomy from the recession…It is a mad idea but it might just work.’
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