Study Shows New Jersey is One of the Happiest States

I think I’m a pretty happy person, hopefully you feel the same about yourself. However, there are times when we don’t feel that way. We receive bad news or have an experience that ruins our day. A study by WalletHub shows that New Jersey is One of the Happiest States.

They “examined the 50 states across 30 key metrics, ranging from the depression rate and the share of adults feeling productive to income growth and the unemployment rate.”

They found that New Jersey’s happiness is at a higher level than nearly all other states. We landed fifty in the country. The other four states that outranked us were Minnesota, Maryland, Hawaii, and Utah.

If you don’t feel you’re one of the happy people, there’s a class you can take to improve your happiness.

The researchers at the University of Bristol in the U.K. say you can train yourself to be happy.

They teach a class on happiness, and they’ve analyzed their graduates' responses as to how happy they are. Taking the class wasn't enough to keep them smiling. Like anything else, they needed to apply what they learned to maintain their happiness goal.

Professor Bruce Hood says, “It's like going to the gym, we can't expect to do one class and be fit forever. Just as with physical health, we have to continuously work on our mental health, otherwise, the improvements are temporary."

The Science of Happiness course teaches many things about keeping people smiling.

One of the lessons is something we teach our kids not to do. They say you should talk to strangers. Interacting with others and meeting new people can bring us joy.

One of the reasons for this is that loneliness impairs the immune system, and optimism increases life expectancy.

Surprisingly, they don’t frown on social media use like many other studies. The class teaches that the apps are fine unless you're a user who focuses your attention on your reputation.

Something I think we already know is that gift-giving brings us happiness. However, the reason is that it activates “reward centers” in our brains. They claim it gives us a better feeling than if we were spending money on ourselves.

Related: List of Songs That Create Happiness

One of the more interesting teachings is that you need to get proper sleep. Not just because your body needs it, but because it affects whether people like us.

I think we all realize that walking in nature brings us happiness and makes us feel good. Students of the class learn that it deactivates the part of the brain that leads to negative thoughts.

And finally, you can’t be happy if you’re not kind. This is especially true for those who didn’t rewind their VHS tapes before returning them to the video store in the eighties and nineties.

Be kind, rewind.

Have you ever felt that you looked really good, but then after taking a selfie, think, "Oh, my gosh. I look horrible. Please tell me I don't really look like that." Well, the good news is that you don't. There are a lot of factors that are in play when it comes to selfies. The truth is that selfies can really distort your look. That said, people have actually hated their mirror image since the beginning of time, Psychology Today points out, but that's not what's happening here. So, no, you don't really look like your selfies, and here's why.

Before we get into the reasons, it's safe to say we can blame the digital age. "Every digital camera uses algorithms to transform the different wavelengths of light that hit its sensor into an actual image," The Atlantic explains. There's an actual science about this that I'll get into below. But, before we get into the fakeness of selfies, here are some tips on getting a good "selfie" that look at least more like you than what you're used to getting with your camera phone.

My friend and coworker Kayla Morgan is all over TikTok, and she's also noticed influencers talk about the selfie game. "I've seen many influencers on platforms like Instagram and TikTok share their 'secrets' to the perfect videos and selfies," she says. So, what's the secret? "That secret is using your back camera, not the front. It makes perfect sense! My back camera has three different lenses, while my front camera facing me only has one. You can definitely see the difference in my content as well as other influencers I follow on social media." That's a great tip. I've been shooting music videos for my band, Upon Wings, lately, and I've been using only the selfie camera. It's not looking right, so I'm going to give that a try. Experiment with using the back camera and remember, no matter what, you don't really look like that.

Now, read on for the science behind why you don't really look like your selfies.

Lenses flatten our image. Photographer Nadia Meli spoke with Cosmopolitan.com about this reality. "Our bodies and faces do not look the same in the mirror, on a professional DSLR, on the phone camera, the front lens the back lens - all of these don't show us how we actually look either!" she said via the magazine. "Lenses always flatten us, it's just 2D, not 3D and doesn't give an accurate representation of what we see when someone is in front of us IRL!" Crazy, right? She added that the camera actually fails to capture what's really in front of it.

Upworthy.com explains why selfie cameras are the absolute worst. They state, "Cellphone selfie cameras usually have an even smaller focal length than the 40 mm shown here (Winters points out that the iPhone 13 Pro Max selfie camera has the equivalent of a 23 mm focal length), so they distort facial features even more." They add that other factors are how far away you are from the camera, because the closer you are, the more distorted your photos will be. Another reason the camera doesn't capture what we look like in real life, aside from the lenses, is the 2D factor. You're not going to look the same on a 2D photo as you will in real life. Lighting is also a huge issue. Lighting can make or break a photo.

Selfies can make your nose look much bigger than it really is. "For years, I've heard patients and family members say, 'Oh, look at my nose, it looks so big,' when they show me a selfie," Dr. Paskhover tells Yahoo. "I was always telling my patients, that's not how you really look." Selfies simply distort your nose shaped, due to the lens and your distance from it.

"The image you see in the mirror is reversed compared to the image that others see face-to-face with you," Psychology Today explains. "Your friends are familiar with your non-reversed image, while you are familiar with your reversed image in a regular mirror." That totally makes sense.

The Huffington Post points out that, "Different camera lenses can change the way people look in photos." They add that, "the shorter the lens, the wider it’s going to make your face." So, make note if you don't want your face to look super wide.