This is called the Cantril ladder: it asks respondents to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0.They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale.The rankings are from nationally representative samples, for the years 2014-2016.They are based entirely on the survey scores, using the Gallup weights to make the estimates representative.Personal happiness is something we all aspire to; so what about national happiness? Is it possible to aggregate all those individual experiences into a happiness index that can be published quarterly, along with crime statistics, inflation rates and unemployment figures? Political leaders including Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama subscribe to the idea that measuring a nation’s well-being by its economic output – its GDP per capita – is a policy dead-end. The consideration of happiness and how to maximise it is hardly a new activity.
The rankings are based on answers to the main life evaluation question asked in the poll.
looked used the emotion words in over eight million books to map happiness over 200 years in six countries.
They found that tracking the words used gave very similar findings to more traditional measures of wellbeing.
Whether they're sipping on wine or bickering about the latest trends, the duo always bring a smile to people's faces.
Perhaps viewers smile extra wide for Hoda because of all that she's been through. So hopefully I'll be able to use that part of me to help other people."Hoda chose a course of treatment that would take away her ability to bear her own children, a reality she struggled to deal with especially given she and her now-ex-husband Burzis Kanga were separated at the time."Every time I swallow those pills, the pills are doing two things to me. It's all weird because part of me feels sad and part of me feels like I got this new beginning."Hoda and Burzis, a former tennis coach for the University of New Orleans, were married from 2005-2007, but she has never revealed the reason for their split.