Research claims that Malaysia is ranked 5th out of the ten happiest countries in the world.
According to the Global Mind Project’s fourth annual “Mental State of the World” study, the Dominican Republic is among the ten happiest nations. Other countries on the list include Tanzania, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Venezuela, Tanzania, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Uruguay.
The nonprofit neuroscience research organization Sapien Labs produced the analysis, which conducted an anonymous online survey with 419,175 respondents from 71 countries.
The top ten unhappiest nations were also in the survey. With Uzbekistan at the top and the UK, South Africa, Brazil, Tajikistan, Australia, Egypt, Ireland, Iraq, and Yemen in order of ranking.
The survey’s goal is to find a person’s Mental Health Quotient (MHQ). It evaluates 47 mental health-related factors in six categories. They are drive and motivation, mood and outlook, social self, mind-body connection, cognition, adaptation, and resilience.
The study also gathered data on lifestyle, relationships with family and friends, and personal trauma.
Based on their responses, participants in the survey receive a score and positioned on a scale from thriving to troubled.
Tanzania (88), Sri Lanka (89), and the Dominican Republic (91) all scored average MHQ scores out of 300.
Malaysia scored 85%, up 2.9% from the year before.
According to Sapiens Lab, MHQ scores from this year don’t differ from those from 2021 and 2022, which saw a significant decline during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This raises important questions about the lasting impact of the pandemic and how shifts in the way we live and work and the amplification of existing habits like remote working, online communication, consumption of ultra-processed food, use of single-use plastics have cumulatively pushed us into a space of poorer mental well-being,” it added.
Additionally, according to Sapiens Lab, the Covid-19 epidemic made mental health declines worse for people under the age of 35.
“As in previous years, several African and Latin American countries topped the country rankings, while wealthier countries of the Core Anglosphere such as the United Kingdom and Australia are towards the bottom,” it said.
“This pattern suggests that greater wealth and economic development do not necessarily lead to greater mental well-being,” it added.
