Recently, Olivia and I did a podcast on happiness.

We discovered that when you look at statistics on happiness, they are very interesting.

Obviously, most things are subjective.

I mean, how do you really compare happiness?

But still, there are several studies that show there is a science to happiness.

We have the ability to increase our happiness.

The most interesting thing we discovered was that researchers found a huge jump in happiness when it came to the amount of time we spend in human interaction.

It was surprising to me that our happiness is significantly increased when we experience six to seven hours a day of human connection.

Six to seven hours—that is no where near the time most of us are getting when it comes to human interaction.

This is especially true if we are working from home or in an office where we are in our own little cubicles.

To be honest, I don’t even know if that includes our workplace. Maybe it does.

But in most jobs, there is rarely time to talk to colleagues. And I’m pretty sure it’s not exactly something employers are championing.

Six hours is a lot. I don’t know too many people who actually have that much human interaction in one day unless their job is dealing directly with people.

Even then, the research specifically states that it’s positive interactions with people that make a difference. And I’m fairly certain most workers in the people industry have the opposite experience when it comes to dealing with people.

But if we did have six to seven hours of positive interactions with people a day, the studies show that we would be twelve times happier.

Can you imagine your happiness increasing 12 times over what you are currently experiencing?

Twelve times greater happiness—that’s huge when you stop to think about it.

There is power in human connection.

If you didn’t recognize the power of human connection before, I hope you recognize it now.

There is incredible power when it comes to the connections we are making each and every day.

Connection is important for every other aspect of our lives, including our own happiness.

I have always known the value of connection, whether it’s business networking, creating relationships, or maintaining friendships.

But I never realized before the number of hours of human interaction we need each day. That is pretty significant to me.

The sad thing is, I can tell you right now that I know I don’t get in six to seven hours a day of human interaction, especially during the week.

I may get that much time on the weekends. But during the week, it can be very challenging to get six to seven hours of connection with other people.

With work and kids and working from home and then traveling for speeches, there is not a lot of time for connection.

Even with my husband, since he works in the hospital, he leaves by seven o’clock in the morning and sometimes doesn’t even get home until seven o’clock at night.

So, I definitely don’t get six to seven hours of human interaction every day.

But I would be twelve times happier if I did.

That is the power of human connection.

Your connection can be a text or online interaction.

Despite what some people think, social media and other online social interactions can actually count as part of our time connecting with others.

While I think this is great, I don’t think that many of us are actually connecting with others while on social media.

Instead, we’re scrolling through feeds, reading interesting posts, playing games, and allowing distractions to take our time away from actually connecting with others.

Connection is about actual human interaction with another person. And that interaction has to be positive in order for it to count towards greater happiness.

We all know that negative interactions on social media certainly do not increase our happiness, but quite the opposite.

If we want to increase our happiness through online connection, we need to be more intentional about our online communication and create meaningful, uplifting conversations.

Even though the research showed that online interactions counted toward our happiness, in-person interaction is the best connection of all.

Happiness is keeping your friends close.

One of the things we found interesting as we researched happiness for our podcast was that people are happiest when their close friends live less than a mile away.

When our friends are close, we can jump up and get to them anytime we need them or they need us.

Connection is so much easier when we have friends who we can rely on whenever we need them.

Having friends close by really does increase our happiness.

For me, sadly, some of my best friends aren’t close by. Still, we make sure we take time for one another. We plan it every year.

Our time together definitely does increase my happiness. Because when we are together, we make our time together intentional.

Our connection is important to us, and we take time to nurture that connection.

Happiness comes to each of us simply by being together.

The key to happiness is connection.

Because of this, it is so important that we maintain our relationships and friendships.

And it’s not just about having friendships and relationships. It’s about getting outside of ourselves and spending time with other people.

Because the more time we spend in human interaction, the happier we will be.

My challenge to you is to increase the amount of time you spend with other people this week.

There are so many people who live their lives alone. Find those people, search them out, and spend time with them.

Not only will it increase their happiness, but it will increase your happiness as well.

The time you spend with others in positive interaction is time that will be multiplied and added to your own happiness.

The world needs you. There are people who need your smile and friendly conversation.

In reality, we need each other.

For me, this is what makes the world such a beautiful place to be.