Happiness is not something ready made. It comes
from your own actions. --Dalai Lama
Five Science-Backed Strategies for More Happiness
--by Kira
M. Newman, syndicated from Greater
Good, Apr 29, 2016
Did
you know that happiness has its own holiday?
Four
years ago, the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed March 20 to be
the International Day of Happiness.
It’s easy to understand why they see happiness as something to celebrate: Happy
people are healthier; they get sick less often and live longer. Happy people
are more likely to get
married and have fulfilling
marriages, and they have
more friends. They make more money and are
more productive at work. Based on decades of research, it has become clear
that happiness is not just a personal issue; it’s a matter of public
health, global
economics, and national well-being.
But
it doesn’t come easy, as most of us know. Disappointments and annoyances grab
our attention like gnats, and even the good things in life seem to lose their
luster over time. Add to that a crammed schedule and mounting obligations, and
happiness might just seem out of reach—achievable for other people, perhaps, but
not us.
Fortunately,
research suggests that happiness is something we can cultivate with practice.
The Greater Good Science Center has collected many happiness practices on our website Greater Good in Action,
alongside other research-based exercises for fostering kindness, connection, and
resilience. Below are 11 of those happiness practices, grouped into five broader
strategies for a more fulfilling life.
1. Acknowledge the good
If
we don’t feel happy, it’s tempting to look for things to fix: the job that isn’t
prestigious enough, the apartment that’s too cramped, our partner’s annoying
habit. But focusing on all the negatives isn’t the surest route to feeling
better. Instead, a simple way to start cultivating happiness is by recognizing
the good.
In
the Three Good
Things exercise, for example, you
keep a journal devoted solely to the positives in your life. Each evening, you
write down three things that went well and add some detail about each, including
how they made you feel. For example, you might recall a heartfelt thank you from
a coworker, a quiet moment drinking tea, or your daughter’s infectious laughter.
Importantly, you also briefly explain why you think each good thing
happened—which focuses your attention on the enduring sources of goodness that
surround you.
A 2005
study invited participants to do
this practice daily for a week, and afterward they reported feeling happier and
less depressed than when they started. In fact, they maintained their happiness
boost six months later, illustrating how impactful it can be to focus on the
good things in life.
Many
of those good things lie just outside our doorstep, and we can practice noticing
them on aSavoringWalk. Here, you take
a 20-minute walk and observe the sights, sounds, and smells you
encounter—freshly cut grass, an epic skyscraper, a stranger’s smile. Each time
you notice something positive, take the time to absorb it and think about why
you enjoy it. On your subsequent Savoring Walks, strike out in different
directions to seek new things to admire.
In
a study
by Fred Bryant of Loyola University Chicago, participants who took Savoring
Walks daily for a week reported greater increases in happiness than participants
who went for walks as usual. “Making a conscious effort to notice and explicitly
acknowledge the various sources of joy around us can make us happier,” write
Bryant and Joseph Veroff in the book Savoring.
If
you have trouble seeing the good that’s already around you, another strategy is
to create some. InCreating
and Recalling Positive Events, you carve out time for yourself and fill your
schedule with enjoyment.
When
you have a day free, don’t rush around doing chores; instead, try three
different happy activities:
Something
you do alone, such as reading,
listening to music, or meditating.
Something
you do with others, such as going
out for coffee, riding your bike, or watching a movie.
Something
meaningful, such as volunteering,
helping a neighbor in need, or calling a friend who’s struggling.
If
your go-to happiness practice has been Netflix and a bowl of ice cream, this
exercise can reconnect you with different sources of satisfaction. These three
activities should offer you a sense of pleasure, engagement, and meaning, all
viable paths to a satisfying life. A 2014 study found that even psychiatric patients with
suicidal thoughts found value in doing this exercise, reporting more optimism
and less hopelessness afterward.
2. Add happiness through subtraction

Even
after we identify the positives in our life, we’re still prone to adapting to
them over time. A good thing repeated brings us less satisfaction, until it no
longer seems to contribute to our day-to-day mood at all; we take it for
granted. That’s why, sometimes, it’s a good idea to introduce a little
deprivation. 

In Mental
Subtraction of Positive Events, you call to mind a certain positive
event—the birth of a child, a career achievement, a special trip—and think of
all the circumstances that made it possible. How could things have turned out
differently? Just taking a moment to imagine this alternate reality creates a
favorable comparison, where suddenly our life looks quite good.
In a 2008 study, participants who performed this exercise reported feeling more gratitude and other positive emotions than participants who simply thought about past positive events without imagining their absence. Mental Subtraction seems to jolt us into the insight that the good things in our lives aren’t inevitable; we are, in fact, very lucky.
In a 2008 study, participants who performed this exercise reported feeling more gratitude and other positive emotions than participants who simply thought about past positive events without imagining their absence. Mental Subtraction seems to jolt us into the insight that the good things in our lives aren’t inevitable; we are, in fact, very lucky.
If
imagining absence isn’t quite enough for you, what about experiencing it for
real? In the Give It Uppractice, you
spend a week abstaining from a pleasure in order to appreciate it more fully.
This pleasure should be something that’s relatively abundant in your life, such
as eating chocolate or watching TV. At the end of the week, when you can finally
indulge, pay special attention to how it feels.
In
a 2013 study, people who
gave up chocolate savored it more and experienced a more positive mood when they
finally ate it at the end of the week, compared with people who ate chocolate as
usual. This exercise may not only open your eyes to a single pleasure (like the
miracle of cacao), but make you more conscious of life’s many other pleasures,
too.
3. Find meaning and purpose
Creating
and Recalling Positive Events reminds us that pleasure isn’t the only path to
bliss; meaning can also bring us happiness, albeit a quieter and more reflective
kind.
In
the Meaningful
Photos practice, you take pictures
of things that are meaningful to you and reflect on them. Over the course of a
week, look out for sources of meaning in your life—family members, favorite
spots, childhood mementos—and capture about nine or ten different images of
them. At the end of the week, spend an hour reflecting on them: What does each
photo represent, and why is it meaningful to you? Jot down some of those
thoughts if it’s helpful.
Amid
the chores and routines, life can sometimes feel dull and mundane. Reigniting
our sense of meaning can remind us what’s important, which boosts our energy and
gives us strength to face life’s stresses. In a2013
study, college students who completed this exercise not only boosted their
sense of meaning, but also reported greater positive emotions and life
satisfaction as well.
We
can also boost our energy and motivation by fostering a sense of purpose, and
the Best Possible
Selfexercise is one way to do that. Here, you journal for 15 minutes about
an ideal future in which everything is going as well as possible, from your
family and personal life to your career and health.
In
a 2006
study, participants who wrote about their Best Possible Selves daily for two
weeks reported greater positive emotions afterward, and their mood continued
increasing up to a month later if they kept up the practice.
This
exercise allows us to clarify our goals and priorities, painting a detailed
picture of where we want to be. This picture should be ambitious but realistic
so that it motivates us to make changes, rather than reminding us how imperfect
and disappointing our lives are now. When we reflect on our future this way, we
may feel more in control of our destiny.
4. Use your strengths
Just
as we hunt for things to fix in life, we also tend to obsess over flaws in
ourselves; our weaknesses loom large. But what if we put more time and attention
into our strengths and positive attributes?
The Use Your
Strengths exercise invites you to
consider your strengths of character—from creativity and perseverance to
kindness and humility—and put them into practice. Each day for a week, select a
strength and make a plan to use it in a new and different way. You can repeat
the same strength—directing your curiosity toward a work project one day and
toward your partner’s interests the next—or work on different strengths each
day. At the end of the week, synthesize the experience by writing about what you
did, how it made you feel, and what you learned.
In
a 2005
study, participants who engaged in this exercise for a week reported feeling
happier and less depressed, and that happiness boost lasted up to six months.
Use Your Strengths may help us transfer skills between home and work—applying
our professional creativity to our children’s school assignments or our domestic
kindness to our co-workers—and give us a confidence boost all around.
5. Connect with others
The
practices above invite us to turn inward, tinkering with our attitudes and the
way we view the world. But decades of science also suggest that turning outward and
connecting to the people around us is one of the surest routes to happiness.
As
a first step, you can try an adapted version of the Best
Possible Self exercise for relationships to give you insights into what kinds of
social connection you desire. In an ideal life, what would your relationships
with your spouse, family, and friends look like?
One
way to feel an immediate boost of connection is through Random Acts of
Kindness. Random Acts of Kindness don’t have to be flashy or extravagant;
they can be as simple as helping a friend with a chore or making breakfast for
your partner. You can also extend your circle of kindness to strangers and
community members, feeding a parking meter or offering a meal to someone in
need.
In
a 2005
study, participants who performed five acts of kindness on one day a week
for six weeks reported increases in happiness. (This didn’t happen when they
spread out their acts of kindness across the week, perhaps because a single kind
act may not feel noteworthy on its own.) Researchers also suggest varying your
acts of kindness over time to keep the practice fresh and dynamic.
Some
of your acts of kindness may involve giving, and the Make Giving Feel
Good practice helps ensure that
giving does, indeed, bring happiness. Researchers Elizabeth
Dunn and Michael Norton, among others, have found evidence that being kind
and generous does make us happier, but they’ve also found that acts of giving
are most effective when they meet these three criteria:
It’s
a choice: Give because you choose to, not because you feel pressured or
obligated to.
You
connect: Giving can be an
opportunity to make connections with the people you’re helping, so choose
activities where you get to spend time with recipients, like helping a friend
move or volunteering at a soup kitchen.
You
see the impact: If you’re donating
money, for example, don’t just give and move on. Find out what your money will
be used for—like new classroom supplies or a cooking stove.
In
a 2011
study, participants were offered a $10 Starbucks gift card to use in
different ways: They either gave it to someone, gave it to someone and joined
them for a drink, or used it on themselves while drinking with a friend. The
ones who gave the card away and spent time with the recipient—connecting
with them and seeing the impact of giving—felt happiest afterward.
Of
course, the pursuit of happiness isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and mugs of tea
and smiling children. Sometimes we need to tackle our insecurities and
weaknesses, and we can’t just ignore our draining jobs and nagging relatives.
But the practices here represent the other side of the coin, the one we often
neglect: seeing, appreciating, and mobilizing the good.
Be The Change:Try out one of the many
suggestions in this article, such as recognizing the good when you meet it and
affirming it, or connecting more with other people.
