Puppies, Babies & Chocolate: Need a Mood Boost? Here Are the Things That Will Definitely Get You Smiling!

What do puppies, smiling babies and unexpected windfalls of cash all have in common? Well, they’re the main sources of joy in our life, according to a new study.

According to reports, today is officially the most depressing day of the year. Yes, if you’ve been feeling a bit ‘blah’ or out of sorts, you might want to give your dog a cuddle or YouTube some hilarious videos of babies having a giggle because according to scientists, these will instantly give you a major mood boost.

The Scotsman reports that scientists at Birkbeck University in London conducted the strange study into happiness to see just what exactly brings us the greatest pleasure in life, and the results were pretty interesting.

The boffins carried out a few ‘happiness tests’ on volunteers whose brainwaves were recorded while they engaged in different activities. Their level of happiness was ranked from minus 100 to plus 100.

Unsurprisingly chocolate ranked highly on the happiness scale

Believe it or not, finding a tenner generated the highest score on the happiness ranking system, coming in at an impressive 82.9. Next up was playing with puppies, which scored a respectable 67.5. Eating chocolate and looking at smiling babies ranked at 65 and 50.9.

Okay, fair enough that these things make us happy, but what about the things that upset us?

Listening to a badly played violin was (surprisingly) one of the most unpleasant experiences, coming in at minus 55.7 on the happiness scale. Gross images of rotten teeth and crying babies both produced a score of minus 38.4.

“Creating a scale like this reminds us there are certain things we can control every day to significantly boost our levels of pleasure, helping us combat depressing times like Blue Monday,” said Dr Funke Baffour, the consultant psychologist who was in charge of the study.

When you’re in a bad mood, what’s the one thing that can instantly cheer you up?