A new study has solved the long held belief that happiness is strongly linked to longevity. The team that presented their findings in The Lancet studied almost 700,000 women in Britain.

Although being unhappy or depressed might make you take less care of your health, according to the study it do not make you less healthy the findings of the new study contradicts what the previously conducted studies have shown in past.

The team led by the University of Oxford’s Professor Sir Richard Peto, for their study looked at the data from the UK Million Women Study, which tracked women’s health outcomes for a long period.

In the staring of the study, study participants were given questionnaires about their mental health and well-being. Results showed that almost 39% of the women reported that they were happy most of the time, 44% said they were usually happy, and 17% said they were unhappy.

It was found that unhappiness was also not linked to mortality over the long term. Researchers found that unhappy and happy people both had about the same risk of death overall, including that from heart disease and cancer.

According to study authors, poor health may be the thing that comes first, and can make a person unhappy, stressed, or feel out of control.

“Many still believe that stress or unhappiness can directly cause disease, but they are simply confusing cause and effect”, said Peto.

Study author Bette Liu said illness can make you unhappy but it does not make you ill. Their study has shown no direct effect of unhappiness or stress on mortality, said Liu.