Four secrets of the happiest Londoners: The perfect salary, commute time, hours of sleep and morning alarm time
Londoners may be accused of being a miserable bunch (and tourists standing on the wrong side of the escalator are often blamed), but there are a few things that will perk us right up.
Surprisingly, getting up at 5am is one of them. Or that's according to findings of research into the habits of 12,000 Londoners by Time Out for its annual City Living Survey, anyway…
Getting a rather ambitious 9.5 hours of sleep every night, earning an even more ambitious £120,000 salary, and enjoying a short and sweet 20-minute commute are the other secrets of the happiest people in the city.
Read more: This is what a typical London commuter looks like
Combine those four things and you have the perfect formula for happiness – although that does leave a bit of a conundrum: you'd have to hit the hay at 7.30pm to get the required shut-eye to rise at 5am.
How does that match up to reality? Most of us rise nearly two hours later, and are getting two hours less sleep than required for optimum happiness. Our commute is almost double and our salaries are, on average, four times less.
Perhaps we finally have an explanation for grumpy Londoners after all. Here's how the ideal and reality compare.
