lol, that's right, bridges to nowhere and long walks to baggage claims makes us happier. Until that is we realize the bridge goes nowhere & the workers at the airport would have been just as glad to take our baggage right to us.

As an Occupational Therapist, I was excited to read the title of this article, thinking it would continue to advance the knowledge base of members of our society about the healthful benefits of participating in meaningful occupations. LOL!!! The thought that people would be happier building bridges to nowhere may be true when working with a group of people with dementia, but the thought that our government should support giving members of our society such meaningless work is ridiculous. Katie's comment (above) hits the nail on the head.

Nevertheless, there is a growing body of knowledge (occupational science) that shows what we all know to be true: participation in meaningful activities (occupations) promote satisfaction with life. It is my JOY to be an Occupational Therapist, serving people with brain injury, and the aging-in-place population, to identify what those occupations are, and to return to participation in them and in our communities.

More information can be found at aota.org There is a GREAT need for Occupational Therapy practitioners in our society. And we don't support building bridges to nowhere to make people happy! (Unless they are on specialty units with Alzheimer's Disease.....or were model bridge builders and love the idea.....)

as Louise Lasser once quote:

'Happiness is like a butterfly--
if you chase it, it will elude you.
But if you turn your thoughts to other things
it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.

Staying busy is part of the equation for sure.

This is dumb. period. I guess the researchers had nothing better to do, so they desided to 'experiment' with this 'theory'. Wow. just....wow. but they're "happier' now. Knowing that they have contributed to mankinds great minds and knowled.......forget it, the scarcasm is killing me! I need to go off and do my own experiment.....mabey MONEY contributes to happiness? has that been scientifically proven yet?...

As "mjmotr" said above, I'm disappointed in the article, because what it SHOULD have said is that staying busy is very important to mental health, but mainly if it involves long-term meaningful activities, not random ways of filling short periods of dead time.  When I retired from the military a few years ago, I started a second career as a high-school teacher.  This was a difficult transition, going from a job which I had completely mastered to a new job in which I had to learn everything from scratch.  But I think it was crucial to my mental health to do so.  Several of my buddies, who retired at the same age as I was, have already passed away since retirement.  I think if you do a study comparing elderly people who work to ones who stay at home, I think the ones who work will be in much better health, both mentally and physically.  Just look at Betty White, the actress!

The choice is "sink or swim", in my opinion.  It's better to keep swimming, but it has to be something you think is important and meaningful.

For most people simple work may be the best method, but I believe what brings people happiness is feeling like their time has value and wasn't wasted. Whether that means being paid for it, doing a chore, or even purposeful meditation, we all know that time and our allocated amount of it for our lifetime are finite numbers and there is no rewind button.

I'm not as concerned with being constantly busy, though I do tend to stay fairly busy anyway, but more with whether I feel like I've really accomplished anything that day. If I have, I feel complete. If I feel like the bulk of the day was wasted, I really feel like something is missing and regret that I can't go back to reuse that time for some gainful use. Relaxation is a gainful use of time for recharging. Spending most of a day at an airport due to canceled flights or bad weather has to be on the top of my list for the biggest waste of time, even while trying to read or work or whatever to help pass the hours.

Like many studies, this one may be measuring a side effect. Is it possible that in a crazy, materialistic, world where few actually feel like their lives are under control. The study may simply reflect that if people are idle they may actually have time to think about what they don't have and can't get and the fragility of their job/financial/social situation. The most miserable time for many of is is the time we think about ourselves.

No s--t Dick Tracy. I thought everyone knew this, ever since time began. Shows how many simpletons we have in this world.

It seems this is a test of how well we use unexpected free time.

Were any of the students able to pull out their cellphones, answer email or read the paper online while they waited? These activities could make them happy.

Was the walk a welcome relief from being cooped up with researchers and their psychological studies?

It seems there could be many different interpretations of the results given the way the study was portrayed in this article.

Idle time can certainly bring us happiness if we know how to use it well - see the Creating Happiness Blog - http://CreatingHappinessBlog.com posting Make The Most of Each Moment http://www.creatinghappinessblog.com/2010/06/make-the-most-of-each-moment.html

So we can assume, R A S, from your pissy and nasty response that you're almost completely idle and have not control over anything in your life?

Government wants people to be healthy.I thought it to be great.