I have made a deep dive into 14th-16th Century England. It may not have been as bad as people think because:

1) Diet & Exercise: There was no sugar, and by necessity, the peasantry ate more veggies & grain, less meat, plus they had to do a great deal of physical labor. "stewpot cooking" (putting everything into a slow cooker over the fire, bones and all) was actually healthy and a good use of limited resources.

2) Family life: Partly due to #1 and their faith, families were strong (also partly by necessity). Much of what makes us cope is still love of family, to this day.

3) Disease: Rural peasants may have had an advantage over urban dwellers in disease avoidance (they weren't cramped as much in rat infested dwellings drinking from polluted sources)

4) The closer we look, the more clever they seem...they had songs, jokes, stories to entertain one another, they made cozy homes using materials , herbs, preserving methods almost forgotten today.

5) Though wars were present and brutal, they may have been relatively infrequent, and yeomen were generally archers with a high survival rate.

6) They had a surprisingly good court system, not unlike today's.

7) Most of my life was lived before internet and iphone, those haven't changed my happiness level. I suppose Medieval people might have a similar view about cars, planes, TV. The big game changer though: The printing press, which made it hard to suppress the common folk.

8) If they were totally miserable, I don't suppose they would have survived to have begat us.