Matthieu Richard makes a great presentation on the phenomenal plasticity of the brain. The deliberate actions one can take to reach a sense of well being will resonate with the readers of my articles on Happiness. It’s time to start mind training!
New scientific research that shows we can alter the emotional landscape of our brains from anxiety to happiness – and from almost any state to another state – by learning (and continuously practicing!) the right techniques.
Read the article at:
http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/200803_omag_happiness
An article on the Freakonomics blog repudiates the notion that happiness is contagious. While an increase in your friend’s happiness statistically significantly increases your happiness level, Justin Wolfers contends that the cause is the shared emotional experiences and environments that friends share.
There is no good way to differentiate in the data whether an individual’s increase in happiness is due to his friend’s increase in happiness or to some shared external event that increased both your happiness levels (e.g.; your favorite baseball team just won the World Series).
However, now that I think about it, Justin Wolfer’s explanation seems more probable. Amusingly in the same British Medical Journal where the James Fowler and Nicholas Christakis released their happiness is contagious article, Ethan Cohen-Cole and Jason Fletcher setup an experiment which “proved” that height, headaches and acne are contagious in order to prove that silly experimental setups lead to silly conclusions :)
Read the article at:
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/is-happiness-contagious/?emc=eta1
A new study suggests that your happiness is heavily influenced by the happiness of the people around you.
Read the article in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/health/05happy.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print
There is a great series of interviews on the topic of happiness on Ted.com.
Check them out at:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/themes/what_makes_us_happy.html
As a supposed “expert on happiness” (try googling expert on happiness for fun), I am often asked to summarize what I have learned from the books and articles I have read and have written about. For all you lazy bums out there, here is the condensed version :)
Most people, through a combination of education and genes, have a set level of happiness. While circumstances may change that level, we usually revert back to our mean.
Despite that, there are 10 things you can do to improve your mean level of happiness. They sound artificial, but they work.
So the 10 things are:
1. Be grateful for what you have – as bad as you may think you have it, by the very fact you are reading this you are better off than 95% of the population of the world – if not more. You are likely healthy and have great opportunities. Try the following: every night before you go to sleep write down 3 good things that happened to you that day. It’s artificial but it works. You will sleep better and be happier.
2. Be optimistic. Even if slightly delusional, you will lead a happier life. Optimism breeds confidence.
3. Maintain a few close and meaningful friendships. We only exist to the extent that we exist in the eyes of the people we care about. Have acquaintances (after all we human are social animals). Invest the time you need to have deep friendships with your family, friends, etc.
4. Minimize your commute. It’s a variable out of your control (traffic, strikes, etc.) and it can take time away from personal time and/or work. If you do commute, use it as an opportunity to indulge your interests, for example listen to NPR, read the economist, learn a language … sing.
5. Give your body the sleep it needs: you will function better, think better, be happier. Of note: some sleep studies suggest people feel better rested when they wake up at the same time every morning.
6. Have dreams and aspirations. It’s the journey that matters, not the destination. Dreams provide direction. They can be as big or small as you want. If you achieve them, get new ones.
7. Don’t confuse money with happiness. Contrary to popular belief, we adjust very well to a lower standard of living. However, as we adapt to our current comfort level we may become materialistic and more risk adverse. Money is like pancakes – one tenth of a pancake leaves you starving, but after 4 or 5 you do not crave more.
8. Find love – from your puppies, friends, family, and/or significant other.
9. Exercise a lot: the adrenaline, endorphins and opiates released are great for you.
10. Have lots of sex. You will be happier for longer than you anticipate. Happiness extends beyond the coital period to the next day.
One last point: You might think that being happy makes you smile but reverse causality holds too: smiling makes you happy. Individuals receiving botox report improvements in self esteem, and happiness. Because they cannot frown- even subconsciously, they are perceived differently by others and unlearn frowning for months beyond the effect of the drug.
That’s it :) It’s now in your hands so go ahead and be happy!
The advent of positive psychology, as mentioned in my recent posts on happiness, is leading to a revolution in psychological counseling. As depression, anxiety and other ills seem to be largely caused by negative thoughts, psychologists have turned to cognitive behavioral therapy to teach patients how to focus on the positive and prevent negative thoughts from creeping into their minds.
Even better, patients rapidly show dramatic improvement and sessions typically end after 10 to 25 visits. CBT has been shown to work, often better than drugs, for depression, anxiety, insomnia and hypochondria. It seems to quell insomnia better than Ambien over the long term. It is as effective as Paxil for moderate to severe depression. Moreover, only 31% of CBT patients had a relapse versus 76% who stopped taking Paxil.
The April 9 issue of Forbes had a great cover on CBT. You can read the full article at: http://members.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0409/080.html
It’s interesting how gullible we humans are. If we read something or watch it in a documentary, we are more likely to believe it. Then there is the magic of Google. If you write enough on a topic, you start showing up in search results on the topic – regardless of how much you really know. Soon enough someone comes along taking you for an expert in the field and asks to interview you.
And so I was pleasantly surprised to be mistaken for an “International Expert on Happiness” and asked to answer a few questions. I started by telling my interviewer that she was up for a big disappointment if she thought I was an expert on happiness, but decided to play along.
I reproduce some of my answers below for your reading pleasure :)
How would you define happiness?
Happiness is an emotional or affective state that is characterized by feelings of enjoyment and satisfaction. As such, like being in love, you are either happy or not, but don’t necessarily know why – you just are. As a result, many people define happiness as things they do or have, as Charlie Brown does below:
HAPPINESS
From You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown
(Clark Gesner)
Happiness is finding a pencil.
Sleeping in moon light.
Telling the time.
Happiness is learning to whistle.
Tying your shoe
For the very first time.
Happiness is playing the drum
In your own school band.
And happiness is walking hand in hand.
Happiness is two kinds of ice cream.
Knowing a secret.
Climbing a tree.
Happiness is five different crayons.
Catching a firefly.
Setting him free.
And happiness is being alone every now and then.
And happiness is coming home again.
Happiness is morning and evening,
Daytime and nighttime too.
For happiness is anyone and anything at all
That’s loved by you.
Happiness is having a sister.
Sharing a sandwich.
Getting along.
Happiness is singing together
When day is through,
And happiness is those who sing with you.
Happiness is morning and evening,
Daytime and nighttime too.
For happiness is anyone and anything at all
That’s loved by you.
However, while doing those things makes Charlie Brown happy – sometimes – they may not work for you.
What do you consider to be an important step toward happiness?
Despite what I said above there are clear deliberate steps you can take towards being happy.
Specifically:
You might argue that things like “being grateful” are not easy to do, but even something as artificial as writing three good things that happened to you today in a notebook every day has been proven to work extremely well!
Do you believe it is possible for an individual to be truly content most of the time?
Absolutely! Many people are generally happy just because – based on a combination of their upbringing and genes. However, even if by default you were only of average happiness, you can take the 11 deliberate steps mentioned above to make you significantly happier.
Non-sequiturish conclusion: The average academic journal article is read by 7 people, including the author’s mom. Maybe the real experts should be writing blogs :)
I recently came across an interesting article on the science of happiness in Harvard Magazine recounting the emergence of “positive psychology” as a field of study, its findings and the emergence of new research areas such as the study of joy instead of happiness.
Many of the findings will be familiar to the readers of my previous posts on happiness. However, a few of the research results were surprising such as the fact that having kids tends to slightly decrease happiness.
Here are two interesting paragraphs:
“Nobel Prize-winning psychologist and behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman of Princeton (see “The Marketplace of Perceptions,” March-April 2006, page 50) asked thousands of subjects to keep diaries of episodes during a day—including feelings, activities, companions, and places—and then identified some correlates of happiness. “Commuting to work was way down there—people are in a terrible mood when they commute,” Etcoff says. “Sleep has an enormous effect. If you don’t sleep well, you feel bad. TV watching is just OK, and time spent with the kids is actually low on the mood chart.” Having intimate relations topped the list of positives, followed by socializing—testimony to how important the “need to belong” is to human satisfaction.”
.
.
.
“Gilbert reconsiders his grandmother’s advice on how to live happily ever after: “Find a nice girl, have children, settle down.” Research shows, he says, that the first idea works: married people are happier, healthier, live longer, are richer per capita, and have more sex than single people. But having children “has only a small effect on happiness, and it is a negative one,” he explains. “People report being least happy when their children are toddlers and adolescents, the ages when kids require the most from the parents.” As far as settling down to make a living—well, if money moves you into the middle class, buying food, warmth, and dental treatment—yes, it makes you happier. “The difference between an annual income of $5,000 and one of $50,000 is dramatic,” Gilbert says. “But going from $50,000 to $50 million will not dramatically affect happiness. It’s like eating pancakes: the first one is delicious, the second one is good, the third OK. By the fifth pancake, you’re at a point where an infinite number more pancakes will not satisfy you to any greater degree. But no one stops earning money or striving for more money after they reach $50,000.”
Read the full article at: http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/010783.html
You are currently browsing the Musings of an Entrepreneur weblog archives for the 'Happiness' category.
 |
Subscribe to this site's RSS feed.
Comments(1)