If I were to ask you what you want most in life my guess is most people will say some version of “I want to be happier”
Starting in 1938, two researchers from Harvard, – Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz, followed 724 people as they lived out their lives. This is the world’s longest happiness study.
They followed a mix of male Harvard students and low-income males in Boston as they built careers, married, had children and eventually retired.
Every five years the researchers took health records from the participants and every two years they asked a set of detailed questions. As science developed, they were able to take DNA samples and perform scans.
Happiness is something you can achieve
Waldinger said “we learnt that people believe happiness is something they can achieve – if they buy that house or get a promotion or lose enough weight then happiness will follow.
We act as if it is a destination we well get to if we tick the right boxes, but the data very clearly shows this this is simply not true. And that is a good thing, as contentment is no longer something out of reach, but eminently achievable for all of us”
One of the very exciting findings is that it is never too late to be happy. You can thrive at any age. And one of the ways to be more productive in every area of your life is to just be happier.
Happy people accomplish more. Happy people have more friends. Happy people have better health.
Here are 5 science-based ways to be happier
1. Smile
Just the act of turning your frown into a smile can make you feel better. (not a fake smile that just uses your mouth muscles, but one that goes to your eyes as well) And if you back that up with positive thoughts it is even more effective.
Smiling makes us feel good, increases our ability to think. It decreases some of the pain we feel in difficult circumstances. Psychologists call this the facial feedback hypothesis. Even forcing a smile when we don’t feel like it is enough to lift our mood slightly.
Isn’t that cool. Try it now. Think of something that makes you smile and feel those facial muscles turn up. Do you feel happier?
2. Exercise
Oh no, not that one again!! But the research shows that even 7 minutes of exercise can change your mood.
Anyone can fit in 7 minutes.
Research shows that exercise has a profound effect on our happiness and is an effective strategy for overcoming depression.
But you do not have to be depressed to benefit.
Exercise can help you relax, increase your brain power and improve your body image – even if you don’t lose any weight. It increases your happiness hormones and decreases stress.
Try a quick and simple 7 minutes of exercise, especially in the sun and see how much better you feel straight away. After 6 months the change will be dramatic.
3. Sleep
Yep, we have heard this one before too.
But did you know that negative stimuli is processed by the amygdala; positive or neutral memories get processed by the hippocampus. Sleep deprivation hits the hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories yet recall gloomy memories just fine.
This is part of the process of EFT where we work with the negative memories of an event, and then by using the tapping technique we are able to relax the system and change the thoughts that are held in the amygdala and reprocess them into happy thoughts.
Often to the point of not remembering, and certainly not being triggered negatively by the difficult memories.
Sleep has so many benefits for overall health, weight, and now happiness. The extra hour or two working is not worth it.
4. Family and friends
Not staying in touch with friends and family is one of the top five regrets of the dying.
The Harvard happiness expert Daniel Gilbert explains:
We are happy when we have family, we are happy when we have friends and almost all the other things we think make us happy are actually just ways of getting more family and friends”
A study published in the Journal of Socioeconomics found that “an increase in the level of social involvement is worth up to an extra $85,000 a year in terms of life satisfaction. Actual changes in income, on the other hand, buy very little happiness.”
And the big surprise – It is not about the number of people who you feel you can count on and do things for you, but the satisfaction comes to those who help their friends and neighbours advising and caring”
5. Gratitude
This is a very simple strategy, but one I have found to be very powerful.
27 years ago, I had a baby girl who was very sick for the first year of her life, (she is fine now), and she cried all the time. It was heart breaking and really hard. I cried a lot too.
I learnt about the idea of writing down three things I was grateful for that day. Some days it was hard to find three things. But that tiny exercise changed my life, and probably changed hers too, as I started to calm down and became less stressed, she calmed down too.
It works best if you write it down, not just think it. There are days that feel hard, and it feels like there was no good in the day, but as you sit and think, ready to write, your memory of the day changes.
Some days it might just be that the sun shone, or you had a nice hot shower. But these are things to be grateful for.
Just a small sample of happiness results
This is just a small sample of the results that were found in the 70-year study on happiness, but each of these steps is something we can all do easily every day, that will have a profound effect on us, our happiness, our productivity and our long term health.
Which one of these are you going to prioritize in your life? I would love to hear.
If you would like to chat with me about how I can help you achieve more happiness in your life. Book in for a free chat here