Want feelgood factor? Well, don't just sit there - do something

THE key to happiness is to keep busy, scientists have revealed.

Even doing meaningless or unnecessary tasks makes you feel better than sitting around bored and inert, they say.

Unfortunately, our instinct is to be lazy because, unless we have a reason for being active, we choose to stare blankly into space - an evolutionary development that ensures we conserve energy.

Forced to wait for a quarter of an hour in the airport luggage lounge, for instance, leaves many of us miserable. But if it was placed further away and we had to spend the same length of time walking there, we would be much happier about it.

Occupied people are in a much better frame of mind than their slothful counterparts - but we just cannot bring ourselves to be industrious without some sort of motive.

Behavioural scientist Professor Christopher Hsee said: "The general phenomenon I am interested in is why people are so busy doing what they are doing in modern society.

"People are running around, working hard, way beyond the basic level."

There are reasons, of course, such as making a living, earning money, accruing fame, helping others, and so on.

But Prof Hsee, from the University of Chicago, said: "I think there is something deeper. We have excessive energy and we want to avoid idleness."

In his study, 98 students completed a survey and then had to wait 15 minutes before the next one would be ready.

They could drop off the completed questionnaire at a nearby location and wait out the remaining time or leave it at a place further away, where walking back and forth would keep them busy for the duration.

Either way, they would receive a chocolate bar when they handed in their survey.

But not everyone chose to go to the faraway location. If the same chocolate was offered at both locations, then 68 per cent chose the lazy option, delivering the questionnaire just outside the room.

By contrast, if the choice of either a dark or white bar was available, then most (59 per cent) chose the far away option - no matter which kind of chocolate was offered.

In other words, Prof Hsee said, the students' instinct was for idleness, but when they had an excuse for walking further, most of them took the "busy" route.

Crucially, when asked afterwards, the students who had taken the walk reported feeling significantly happier, consistent with Prof Hsee's theory that we are happier when busy.

He believes it may be possible to use this principle - people like being busy, and they like being able to justify being busy - to benefit society.

He said: "If we can devise a mechanism for idle people to engage in activity that is at least not harmful, I think it is better than destructive busyness.

"People may increase the happiness of their idle housekeepers by letting in some mice and prompting the housekeepers to clean up," Prof Hsee said. "Governments may increase the happiness of idle citizens by having them build bridges that are actually useless."

His findings are published in Psychological Science.