Is pessimism pointless? Britain has always prided itself on its miserabilist outlook. But some say a sunnier disposition might be what is needed to drag the nation out of its rut.
Gloom kills. Time to cheer up, formula proves
It’s official: The UK is the second-most miserable nation in the world.
Glossary
Yemen - The poorest country in the Gulf region is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.
International Poverty Line - The International Poverty Line represents the international equivalent of what $1.90 could buy in the United States of America in 2011.
Internally displaced - People who have had to leave their homes in one part of a country and move to another part of the same country, often due to war.
GDP - Short for Gross Domestic Product, the measure of all the goods and services produced inside a country.
Birmingham - A major city in England. It has a population of more than one million.
Uzbekistan - A Central Asian nation and former Soviet republic, home to nearly 35 million people.
Stagnated - Stopped growing.
Serotonin - A chemical messenger believed to boost people's mood.
Fatalistic - The idea that all events are due to fate and cannot be changed with action.
Houthis - An Islamist rebel group that controls a large part of Yemen. They are allies of Hamas in Gaza.
Red Sea - A seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean. To its right is Saudi Arabia, to its left the coast of north Africa.
Gaza - The smaller of two Palestinian territories, home to two million people. It is located on the Mediterranean coast, bordered by Israel and Egypt.