Dental visits and satisfying jobs help make the Twin Cities one of the happiest metro areas in the country.
But poor body-mass-index scores and high smoking rates prevent it from topping the list, according to National Geographic Fellow and New York Times best-selling author Dan Buettner, a native of St. Paul.
Buettner, author of “The Blue Zones: Lessons from the World’s Happiest People,” partnered with Dan Witters of Gallup to find the happiest places in America. The Twin Cities came in at No. 22.
They conducted thousands of interviews, but most of the 90 questions on their survey weren’t about happiness. Instead, they asked questions such as:
- How often do you feel pain?
- Do you feel safe and secure?
- Do you do new and interesting things every day?
- Are you able to use your strengths to do what you do best every day?
- What are your smoking habits?
- How often do you visit the dentist?
- Have you received recognition for helping improve on the area where you live in the past 12 months?
- Do you always make time for vacation trips?
- Do you have money for everything you want to do?
- How many servings of vegetables do you eat per day?
Buettner and Witters did a massive data crunch of the answers, and ultimately Minneapolis-St. Paul came in 22nd of the 180 biggest metropolitan areas in the country.
Twin Cities folks scored extremely well in feeling active and productive every day, living without significant pain, making time for regular trips or vacation with families and friends, and using strengths daily, Buettner said.
He speculated the innovative health care and business cultures of the Twin Cities was part of the reason for the area’s high score. Though many people spend the majority of their waking hours at work, only about 30 percent of Americans actually like their jobs, Buettner said. The other 70 percent are trudging to and from work just to pay the bills.
“Minneapolis-St. Paul is not known for factory work. If people are just showing up and making widgets every day, they’re not likely to say they’re doing something new and interesting,” Buettner said. “MSP has more than its fair share of jobs where people are able to use their strengths every day, rather than just their muscles.”
The Twin Cities also consistently rank among the most bike-able metro areas (coming in second to Washington this year), another important factor in determining happiness, Buettner said. In Denmark, the happiest country in the world, bicycle rides account for half of all trips taken, he said.
“When people are biking, when they’re walking … they have a lower BMI, better air quality, less stress, fewer accidents, lower rates of obesity, a greater sense of security and more social time,” Buettner said. “The happiest people in America are socializing five to six hours a day.”
Eating five to six servings of vegetables a day makes people 20 percent happier, Buettner said. People who live by the water are 10 percent happier (a shout-out to Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes).
Visiting the dentist at least once a year is another category Twin Cities residents excel in, Buettner said, adding, “I know this will make my dentist very happy.”
Minnesota is also known for its high Hmong and Somali populations, and Buettner said that’s one of the unique factors that makes the Twin Cities so happy. Welcoming immigrants is directly correlated to higher levels of happiness, according to Buettner.
While certain qualities are obviously important to happiness — food, shelter, health care, education, mobility — the easiest way to improve happiness is to move to a place, like the Twin Cities, that has prime happiness conditions, Buettner said.
“Minneapolis-St. Paul is not happy because we’ve collectively decided to be joyful or because we somehow have a happier DNA than other cities,” Buettner said. “It’s because we’ve had good leadership for the past 100 years, and I’m hoping that this ranking will fuel them to continue that.”
