From NYMag Science of Us:
Happiness vs Emotional Diversity
We already know that stress is bad for our health, and in recent years, a growing collection of research has taken things a step further, suggesting that beyond a simple lack of stress, it’s happiness that holds the key to health. The emotion doesn’t just make life more pleasant, studies have found; happier people feel better and live longer, too. ... Lead author Anthony Ong, professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology and professor of geriatrics and palliative medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, compares our emotional landscape to an ecosystem: “Emodiversity draws from research in the natural sciences on the benefits of biodiversity,” he says. An environment is healthier when various species all serve their own functional roles, and suffers when any one species is depleted or becomes overabundant, throwing off the balance. Similarly, he explains, emotions serve functional roles for people, helping them prioritize and regulate behavior to adapt to a given situation.
