From the point of view of science, the New Year holidays are really terrible

Let's be honest - not everyone lovescelebrate The New Year. So even if you don’t look like the protagonist of a 1957 children's book entitled How the Grinch Stole Christmas, you will surely have one or even several of these acquaintances. But do not blame them for all mortal sins and in the absence of an expression of happiness on their faces in anticipation of triumph. The fact is that there are very good reasons for not loving the New Year or at least doubting the need to celebrate it in a big way.

New Year can be celebrated or not celebrated, the main thing is that during the holiday and preparing for it in your life there is as little stress as possible

Unjustified expectations

Love Christmas and New Year movies andDo you review the “Irony of Fate” every year? Then you know perfectly well what good mood everyone should have on New Year's Eve. So why in reality it always turns out that you lose friends in a crowded bar, wait forever in a queue for drinks, or wait an hour in the cold for a ridiculously expensive taxi? A study conducted by a group of psychologists and economists on how exactly we experience happiness is able to answer these questions. In a 1999 paper, a group of scientists from the University of California and Duke University offered evidence that those who plan to have a great time on New Year's Eve are likely to be the most miserable of all.

In a study conducted in severalweeks before the New Year, scientists interviewed 475 people about their plans for New Year's Eve - whether they will celebrate, how big the party will be, how much time and money they will spend on preparing and whether they expect the holiday to be very pleasant. Researchers then contacted the people interviewed a few weeks after the New Year and again asked them the same questions. The results showed that the vast majority - namely 83% of respondents were disappointed with the celebration of the New Year. Moreover, people whose expectations were too high were more disappointed than others. However, scientists cannot say exactly why this is happening.

By the way, on our channel in Yandex.Zen you will find even more interesting articles about what makes us happy.

According to The Washington Post,the results of another study by the same team of specialists at about the same time confirms the idea that trying to feel happy is one of the quickest ways to be disappointed. Researchers compare this effect with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics, which states that when we try to measure the particle’s energy, we influence its energy level. To similar energy particles, an attempt to measure one's own level of happiness seems to change it.

The pursuit of happiness can be self-destructive

And how will you celebrate the New Year? Share your ideas of having a good time in the comments and with the participants of our Telegram chat

Another psychological study alsoconfirms the theory that the pursuit of happiness is paradoxically suicidal. In a paper published in 2011, Iris Mauss of the University of California at Berkeley found that women who value happiness more than others report lower levels of life satisfaction and are more likely to experience stress. Nevertheless, the findings of the researchers about the New Year's celebration are not a call to abandon parties, but simply information in order to learn how to manage their own expectations. But this is also a powerful argument in favor of the fact that you do not need to feel guilty if you prefer to spend New Year's Eve at home in your pajamas.