Is Greece the Hardest Working Country in the EU?

ONCE in a while an opinion poll throws up an insight that is very revealing.

Last week it was the Pew Global survey of European countries. Among the usual questions about attitudes to the euro and the European Union, people in eight nations (Britain, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Poland and Spain) were asked which country in the European Union is the hardest-working.

The Greeks ignored the obvious answer (Germany) and instead nominated themselves.

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6 Ways to Reduce Stress

Stress sucks. According to the American Psychological Association, stress can result in headache, muscle tension, muscle pain, chest pain, fatigue, upset stomach, insomnia, anxiety, restlessness, lack of motivation, lack of focus, irritability, depression, eating problems, addiction … and social withdrawal. Yow!

Fortunately, stress isn’t inevitable, even in today’s hyper-connected, highly competitive world.

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The Economics of Happiness

New studies — including a report on the happiest countries on the planet — suggest that building a theory of “happynomics” is harder than you’d think.

Economists can measure unemployment, GDP growth, and housing prices. But do they know how to measure happiness? If they did, what would we even do with the results?

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Somtimes Thinking is a Bad Idea

Sometimes thinking is a bad idea. Ian Leslie draws on Dylan, Djokovic and academic research to put the case for unthinking…

A fundamental paradox of human psychology is that thinking can be bad for us. When we follow our own thoughts too closely, we can lose our bearings, as our inner chatter drowns out common sense. A study of shopping behaviour found that the less information people were given about a brand of jam, the better the choice they made. When offered details of ingredients, they got befuddled by their options and ended up choosing a jam they didn’t like.

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