Want to be happy? Lower your expectations

Their weather is miserable and their diet is depressing, but yet citizens of Denmark are happier than the rest of the Western world. What gives?

According to researchers, it's because Danes have low expectations. "If you're a big guy, you expect to be on the top all the time and you're disappointed when things don't go well. But when you're down at the bottom like us, you hang on, you don't expect much, and once in a while you win, and it's that much better," says Kaare Christensen, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. Sounds like Dr. Christensen practices what she preaches.

When surveyed, the Danish consistently report gloomy outcomes for the year to come. So, even though they're genetically very similar to their depressive Scandinavian cousins in Sweden and Norway, when Danes discover, much to their surprise, that "not everything is getting more rotten in the state of Denmark," they're pumped.

Say it with me: "this day is going to suck." There, don't you feel better?