Pursuing Happiness

Each person has a set point for happiness. It is impacted by genetics, family and life experiences. Your happiness level is also greatly influenced by daily thoughts and behaviors, perhaps even more profoundly than any other influence. What you think about, and what you choose to do each day makes a big difference in both your own life and every life you touch.

Positive psychology is a field of inquiry that began to be identified in 1998 by University of Pennsylvania psychology professor, writer and researcher Martin Seligman. He's the author of Authentic Happiness and Learned Optimism. It is based on the idea that psychology shouldn't just focus on mental illness and pathology, but also lead in the pursuit and understanding of what helps people create meaning, contentment, joy, resiliency and wellness.

Shawn Achor, M.A. is a Harvard scholar, educator, business consultant and writer who has spent over 12 years studying what makes people happy. His TED talk about happiness is one of their 20 most viewed lessons. He is a big advocate of positive psychology, and wrote The Happiness Advantage. Achor is interested in how happiness improves work success.

It's not like people who are happy don't feel unhappiness. They do, and it's important. Sometimes unhappiness is a key indicator that you need to change something in your life. You may need to assert yourself more, change jobs, or upgrade or end a relationship that's not working well. The opposite of happiness is actually apathy, when one doesn't care and doesn't believe what you do matters. Positive psychology strives to help people see that what they think, feel, and do does matter a great deal.

Here are some positive psychology strategies for feeling happier:

1. Each day, identify 3 different things you are grateful for. It helps build appreciation.

2. Send a thank you email, note, or give an in person thank you every day. It helps build connection.

3. Reflect each day, and either visualize or write down a little about one meaningful experience you have had recently. Rerun the experience through your mind as if it was happening now.

4. Still your mind for 20 minutes a day. Sit quietly. No distractions. Usher thoughts out as they pop up.

5. Move every day for at least 30 minutes.

6. Notice emotional pain and address it; don't numb it with alcohol, substances or addictive behavior.

7. Reach out to others. Say 'hi" and smile to others you meet throughout the day. Break the self-absorption cycle that many people are caught in.

8. Help someone else, whether officially through volunteering or informally when you are aware of other people's needs and do what you can to lift others up.

Your thoughts, feelings and behaviors matter. Connecting with others and staying focused on your own true north helps. Think of these happiness habits as happiness hygiene. Just like you shower and brush your teeth daily, these behaviors are most effective in lifting your mood if you do them every day. Let's be intentional about doing the things that make us happier and more aware of our impact on each other.

How Rituals Increase Satisfaction

Would birthday cake taste as good without the lit candles and the song? Probably not.

We use rituals every day: morning rituals, evening rituals, holiday and birthday rituals, anniversary rituals, as well as religious rituals. They increase meaning, significance, and evoke a sense of tradition and family. New research also suggests ritual behaviors increase the satisfaction in behaviors like eating.

A recent story on NPR (June 20, 2013) by their social science correspondent, Shankar Vedantam, covered a soon to be published article by Harvard University Behavioral Scientist Francesca Gino and colleagues, Kathleen Vohs, Yajin Wang and Michael Norton, giving evidence to the idea that creating rituals before eating increases the satisfaction of the experience.

Gino's study had volunteers divided into two groups, with each person being given a chocolate bar to eat. Half were instructed to follow a procedure where they carefully unwrapped half the bar, savored it, and ate the second half later. The second group just went ahead and ate their bar all at once. 

Guess which group enjoyed their chocolate bar more? It was the first group who ate their chocolate more mindfully. This process was retested with carrots, and the same effect occurred. Those who ate more mindfully experienced better taste and indicated they would pay more for the experience.

What did the researchers conclude? Performing rituals before eating increases the satisfaction and enjoyment of eating. The ritual must be done each time in the same way, like communion at a church service. 

So, singing happy birthday and blowing out the candles after making wishes before eating the birthday cake will likely increase the enjoyment of the cake. A shared toast or prayer before dinner will add to the meaning and satisfaction of dinner.

The researchers determined that it is not enough to observe a ritual, it is essentially different to participate in it. It's the active participation that seems key.

There are rituals which have existed for thousands of years, traditions we either inherit from our families or create for ourselves, and habits which we develop. Ritualistic behavior can get out of hand and become a problem if it makes us obsessive, but the right amount of ritual in your life can make your life more satisfying, enjoyable, and meaningful. (Not to mention tastier!)

You might reflect on how traditions and rituals in your day and your week make your life better. Perhaps you enjoy a first cup of coffee or tea each morning, bond with your dog through play, water your flowers after work, tuck in your children in bed with stories and cuddling, enjoy a walk in your neighborhood and notice little changes as the seasons pass. Mindfulness in living does create more meaning in the small things of everyday life, including the chocolate.