United Nations headquarters

The Universal Language of Happiness

Live Happy was right at home at the U.N.’s second annual International Day of Happiness panel discussions on Thursday, March 20, held at the international headquarters in New York City.The day, designated by the U.N. in 2012 to recognize “the relevance of happiness and wellbeing as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings around the world and the importance of their recognition in public policy,” brought together scientists, educators, historians, ambassadors, entrepreneurs and others to discuss the topic of global happiness. Many of the speakers were thought leaders whose research, ideas and ideals Live Happy calls upon to “provide the bridge between science and statistics and real life,” said Editor in Chief Karol DeWulf Nickell at the event’s luncheon. “We all have our own happiness stories.”Many of the day’s speakers certainly had tales to tell. Former Iraq Ambassador Dr. Hamid Al Bayati shared his moving realization that although he was wrongfully imprisoned some years ago, he could find happiness in knowing he was a better person than those who had tortured him. On a lighter note, NBC news anchor Pat Battle confessed as she took the microphone that she had a run her stocking, but was choosing to be happy because she knew there were plenty of drugstores where she could buy new ones when she got back to her office at 30 Rock.These stories represent the kind of emotional generosity that Live Happy hopes to encourage. “Most people aren’t aware of all the happiness that’s available to them,” Live Happy Founder Jeff Olson told the audience. “They don’t realize that it isn’t money or fame or relationships that will bring them happiness—but that happiness is the precursor to those things.”Jeff said he realized that through the magazine and social media, he could create an environment for sharing happiness that would bring people together who never would have connected otherwise.“Social media is being used to show that we can share our stories more frequently and with people we normally wouldn’t—it removes traditional barriers,” Karol said. “By posting your story of happiness, it multiplies, all because of technology.”That philosophy melds perfectly with the sage advice with which Kamila Jacob, envoy coordinator for the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, ended her own talk: “Take two minutes to sit and ask yourself: ‘What makes me feel happy?’ Then share that thought with someone else—spread your happiness! Pay it forward!”
Read More
Image of ancient Greek people bearing urns

Celebrations of Happiness Past

“Happy Birthday” trips easily off the tongue, along with “Happy Holidays” and “Happy Halloween.” But the advent of the United Nation’s International Day of Happiness on March 20th poses a problem. Just what are we supposed to say?Have a happy… Happiness Day? The phrase might seem a little redundant, as if we are celebrating celebration. Surely we do enough of that already. From happy hour to New Year’s Eve, citizens of the 21st century seem to be pursuing happiness 24/7. So at first glance it might seem strange—and strangely modern—to set aside a day to reflect on happiness. In order to put things in perspective, it might help to consider how happiness has been celebrated in the past. It turns out that the idea of devoting a day to reflect on what makes us as a society happyis not a newfangled invention. Rituals in the ancient world The ancient Greeks and Romans, for example, paid homage to their “good demon”—a guardian spirit or angel that was thought to accompanypeople throughout their lives. The ancient Greek word for good demon is eu daimon, and eudaimon was the main Greek word for happy.It made sense that you looked after your happiness not only by giving thanks and paying homage to your 'demon' on special days—pouring out libations of wine, burning incense, making sacrifices, or saying a prayer—but also by living virtuously, and so treating your spirit well. Good conduct was considered the way to cultivate a happy life. But if both Greeks and Romans commemorated happiness in relation to virtue, they were also quick to celebrate the pleasures of the flesh. Every year, the Romans honored their goddess Felicitas (felicity) in two annual festivals, one held in the summer, the other in the fall, with a good deal of feasting, dancing, drinkingand rejoicing.This bounteous goddess personified happiness in the form of divinely inspired blessedness, fecundity and fortune, and was often featured on the back of coins, with her trademark cornucopia, bursting with ripe fruits of the earth, a symbol of worldly prosperity. It is interesting, and perhaps revealing of the way festival-goers celebrated in her honor, that the Romans also used the phallus to symbolize felicity. Hic Habitat Felicitas (here dwells happiness), reads the inscription of a prodigious specimen preserved on the wall of a bakery in Pompeii.It bids bread—the stuff of life—to rise and fill us with energy and fecundity, so that we can make more life in turn.Be fruitful and multiply!(Or at least go through the motions.) From body to spirit Early Christians tended to frown at such pagan rejoicing. Toppling the idol of Felicitas, they proclaimed their own celebration of felicity—perpetual felicity to be exact. Perpetua and Felicitas were two Christian martyrs, young women who in the year 203 AD were fed to wild animals in the Roman coliseum at Carthage. In dying this horrible death, which they freely, even joyfully, accepted, the two women provided an inspiring example of faith and of the higher happiness—the “Perpetual Felicity”—that was understood as its reward. Canonized as saints, Perpetua and Felicitas are still celebrated every year in an official Catholic feast day. True, the organizers of the United Nations celebration probably did not have these various traditions in mind when they declared March 20 as International Day of Happiness. And yet the government officials in the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, who first suggested the idea, were certainly familiar with aspects of the venerable wisdom that these ancient festivals honored. The future of happiness Healthy living, cultivation of the spirit, a bit of prosperity, and proper attendance to the needs of the body and soul have long been thought of as essential to a happy life. Today, aspects of these insights that linking virtue and compassion to joy and wellbeing are being revived, confirmed, and expanded by the scientific study of happiness, which is finding modern truth in ancient wisdom, while adding some of its own. March 20th affords an opportunity to learn a little more about this exciting work, and how we might pursue happiness more fully and productively in the other 364 days of the year. So yes, Have a happy Happiness Day! And many others besides.
Read More
Illustration of a growing mind

The Science of Post-Traumatic Growth

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in May 1980, 13-year-old Cari Lightner was walking to a church carnival just a few blocks from her home in Fair Oaks, CA, when she was hit by a car and thrown 125 feet in the air. The driver didn’t stop. He was, Cari’s mother Candace would later learn, drunk and out on bail for another drunken driving hit and run. Cari did not survive. Five months after her daughter’s death, Candace held a press conference on Capitol Hill, announcing the formation of MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. In the 33 years since then, the non-profit’s public advocacy work has helped save more than 300,000 lives. Carlos Arredondo, 52, was sitting in the bleachers near the finish line of the Boston Marathon when the bombs went off. He had been waiting to greet runners from Tough Ruck, activeduty National Guard soldiers who march the course carrying 40-pound military backpacks, or “rucks,” to honor comrades killed in combat or lost to suicide. Arredondo clutched an American flag and photos of his two deceased sons—Alexander, who died in a firefight in Iraq in 2004, and Brian, who, deeply depressed over his older brother’s death, hanged himself seven years later. Spotting a young runner with both legs blown off below the knee, Arredondo rushed from the stands, smothered the flames that were still burning the runner’s legs with his hands, then ripped a T-shirt into makeshift tourniquets. An iconic photograph from the day captured Arredondo, in his cowboy hat, his hands soaked in blood, pushing the 27-year old Jeff Bauman in a wheelchair. He would later say, “I had my son on my mind” as he repeated to Bauman, “Stay with me, stay with me.” Strength AfterUpheaval These stories are all illustrations of what experts call post-traumatic growth, or PTG, the phenomenon of people becoming stronger and creating a more meaningful life in the wake of staggering tragedy or trauma. They don’t just bounce back—that would be resilience—in significant ways, they bounce higher than they ever did before. The term PTG was coined in 1995 by Richard Tedeschi, Ph.D., and Lawrence Calhoun, Ph.D., psychologists at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. “We’d been working with bereaved parents for about a decade,” Richard says. “They’d been through the most shattering kind of loss imaginable. I observed how much they helped each other, how compassionate they were toward other parents who had lost children, how in the midst of their own grief they often wanted to do something about changing the circumstances that had led to their child’s death to prevent other families from suffering the kind of loss they were experiencing. These were remarkable and grounded people who were clear about their priorities in life.” None of these parents, Richard stresses, believed that their child’s death was a good thing. They would have given up all their newfound activism, insights and altruism, their re-ordered sense of what really matters in life, to have their child back. “The process of growth does not eliminate the pain of loss and tragedy,” Lawrence says. “We don’t use words like healing, recovery or closure.” But out of loss there is often gain, he says. And in ways that can be deeply profound, a staggering crisis can often change people for the better. The SuperheroWithin Us We’ve always known that people often grow stronger and discover a sense of mission after tragedy strikes. It’s the stuff of our superheroes, real and fictional. Batman’s caped crusade against crime was inspired by his witnessing the murder of his parents. When Christopher Reeve, the actor who played another superhero, was left a quadriplegic by an equestrian accident, he briefly considered suicide. Instead, with Superman-like resolve, he became a powerful advocate for people with spinal-cord injuries. The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, which outlived him and his wife, has awarded more than $81 million to researchers working on a cure for paralysis. In some ways, the term PTG gave experts the language to express, and recognize, something that was hiding in plain sight: trauma’s potential to transform us in positive ways. “Mental health professionals have a long history of looking only at what’s wrong with human functioning,” says psychologist Anna A. Berardi, Ph.D., who directs the Trauma Response Institute at George Fox University in Portland, OR. “But if you ask people, “Have you been through something difficult and come out the other side stronger, wiser and more compassionate?” the majority of us would answer yes. That’s powerful proof that as humans we’re wired to grow as a result of hardship.” The concept of PTG is a striking contrast to PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, the lens through which we’ve viewed trauma for the past few decades. First applied to veterans of the Vietnam War, PTSD entered the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the guidebook to psychiatric diagnosis, in 1980. It became embedded in our popular culture as well. “During those post-Vietnam years the main character in shows like Hawaii 5-0 was often the crazed, paranoid Vietnam veteran who’s going to shoot up innocent people,” says Lawrence. Soon PTSD was being evoked after any type of catastrophic event, natural disasters like Hurricanes Katrina or Sandy, acts of violence such as 9/11 or the mass shootings in Columbine and Newtown. A psychiatrist’s warning that survivors were likely to start showing symptoms of PTSD—vivid flashbacks, emotional numbing, high levels of anxiety and depression, substance abuse— became a staple of the media’s catastrophe coverage. In fact, PTSD is relatively rare. According to statistics from the Department of Veteran Affairs, an estimated 3.6 percent of Americans will experience PTSD during the course of a given year, a fraction of the more than 50 percent of those who report at least one traumatic event. Many more will find that they’ve gained something from their ordeal. “A small percentage of people cannot return to their previous level of functioning after a traumatic event,” says Anna. “Most people emerge from a trauma wiser, with a deeper appreciation of life.” PTG is much more than a new acronym, says psychologist Stephen Joseph, Ph.D., the co-director of the Center for Trauma, Resilience and Growth in Nottingham, England, and author of the book What Doesn't Kill Us: The New Psychology of Posttraumatic Growth. “It promises,” he writes, “to radically alter our ideas about trauma— especially the notion that trauma inevitably leads to a damaged and dysfunctional life.” The Paradox of Gain After Loss Post-traumatic growth is a response to a seismic event that rocks your world to its very core. Your psychological house isn’t merely rattled—it’s leveled. “Trauma disrupts your core beliefs,” says Judith Mangelsdorf, Ph.D., a trauma researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. “It’s so far from what you’ve experienced in your life that you can’t integrate it into your belief system. You’re walking home down a street that you thought was safe, and you’re raped. Your core beliefs are shattered.” It’s not the trauma itself that leads to growth but the process of rebuilding, of creating new anchors in a life that has become unmoored. In 2004 Anna traveled to Indonesia as a mental-health first responder after the tsunami that killed over 225,000 people. Entire villages had been wiped out. “The challenge that faced the survivors,” Anna says, “is at the end of the day, can you build your capacity to comprehend what’s happened, and to find meaning in your life?” She recalls one local doctor who was helping tend to the injured. He’d lost his entire family—wife, sons, parents, siblings. “Everything was gone,” Anna says, “but he said, ‘Every day I thank God that I have air to breathe, and I can still use my body and my mind to serve. I’m praying to Allah that I can use this tragedy to learn how to love better.’ ” Anna pauses, then continues. “I was humbled by him.” If that’s a snapshot of post-traumatic growth, the long view is fuzzier. People who go on to a richly redefined life after a crisis may begin with reactions to their trauma that are so violent and extreme, it’s difficult to imagine they can survive, much less thrive. When Carlos Arredondo learned that his son had been killed in a hail of gunfire in Najaf, Iraq, he doused himself with gasoline and lit a propane torch. Suffering second- and third-degree burns, he attended Alexander’s funeral on a stretcher. Distress doesn’t end when growth begins. “You’re talking about the paradox of loss and gain happening at the same time,” says Richard. “It’s a messy, clumsy and difficult path.” Posttraumatic stress and post-traumatic growth may keep company for the rest of our lives. “These experiences co-exist,” says Calhoun. “When someone loses a child, growth may make that pain bearable and may provide meaning to your life. And as time goes on you will have more good days than bad days, but you will always be a bereaved parent.” Five Areas of Positive Change If heart-wrenching loss is part of the human condition so is its flipside: being propelled by the crisis to make positive, meaningful life changes. Researchers have documented post-traumatic growth in Vietnam POWs, the survivors of serious car accidents in Tokyo, women who have battled breast cancer, soldiers who were held as prisoners of war in the Middle East, Germans who survived the Dresden bombings, Turkish earthquake survivors, Bosnian war refugees. Every trauma is a singular one and everyone’s reactions a mix of his or her unique history, resources, biology and temperament. But patterns exist. Richard and Lawrence, who developed an assessment tool called the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, found that people experience growth in five broad areas. They have a deeper appreciation of life, they experience new possibilities for themselves, their relationships are closer, they feel more spiritually satisfied and they experience a greater sense of personal strength. Judith Mangelsdorf volunteers at the Björn Schulz Foundation in Berlin. Established in 1997 by the parents of an 8-year-old boy who died of leukemia, the foundation operates hospices and provides a wide range of support services to the families of children who are terminally ill. Judith has watched many families move from paralyzing grief through intense self-reflection to a broader way of seeing their role in the world. She offers a sketch of how loss can become a catalyst for positive change. Immediately after the death of a child, parents are, she says, in total despair. “They are suffering so much they feel it’s the end of their life,” she says. “Many wake up night after night with the same dream of their child suffering.” Because you are so clearly suffering, she says, people who care about you show their support. A friend moves into your guest room, your employer says to take as much time off as you need, someone from the church spends an hour with you every day. “You’re still filled with sorrow and searching for answers to the question of why this happened,” says Judith, “but you realize that there are people in your life you can really rely on. And slowly, there may come a point when you think that while you can’t change your own destiny, you may be able to help others.” Many of the parents Judith works with at the Björn Schulz Foundation go on to become “voluntary family companions,” offering compassion to others who are experiencing the anguish of saying goodbye to a dying child. What We Can Learn from Trauma Thrivers Judith says that witnessing these transformations has changed her. She has more perspective, for starters. “Being appreciative of life is something that is very present for me,” she says. After she finishes her last therapy session of the day, she often walks down to the Spree River with her partner, who is also a psychologist. “We take a bottle of wine,” she says, “sit with our feet in the river and talk about what went well—not wrong—that day.” A strong social network and experiencing positive emotions on a daily basis are two things, she says, that help people deal with crisis. She suggests to her patients, and to friends, simple techniques to enhance both. Make a list of five things that make your day a better day—a walk in the park with the dog, a latte at Starbucks, cuddling with your partner, a chat with your sister, 30 minutes spent reading a novel—and try to do them more often. Practice random acts of kindness. When you go to the grocery store ask your 88-year-old neighbor if there’s anything she needs. Ask Richard, who has studied trauma now for over three decades, what we can do to strengthen our potential to experience post-traumatic growth, and he suggests that’s the wrong question to pose. The more meaningful exploration, he says, is what lessons we can take from people who have emerged from trauma stronger, wiser and more compassionate. What do people like Carlos Arredondo, Christopher Reeve, the friend who came out of her breast cancer treatment with stronger family ties, the co-worker who has reshuffled his priorities after a fire destroyed his home have to teach us? “If you can figure out how to live your life as a fully functioning, fully engaged human being,” he says, “you won’t need trauma to transform you, because you’ve already done the work.” Read more: Learning to Thrive With Post-Traumatic Growth
Read More
Skier

The Flow in All of Us

For decades now, scientists have found that being in flow translates to accelerated performance, a shortcut on the path to mastery. Creativity, learning and progression move at warp speed when a person is in flow.Some say coders on flow built the Internet. And that any time a game is won in overtime or a major breakthrough occurs in the sciences or the arts, flow is at the heart of it.“We have known for over 50 years that flow is the state of consciousness where we feel and perform our best,” says Steven Kotler, the director of research for the FlowGenomeProject, based in Austin, Texas. “But we haven’t been good at accessing flow. If we can decode how people are finding flow, then we can find the answers to society.”Steven, who’s an award-winning journalist and a lifelong skier, started researching flow decades ago by talking to scientists who, he realized, studied flow but didn’t often experience it themselves. Then he’d speak with action sports athletes who got into flow on a daily basis without even trying to.“I’m talking to these athletes and I started thinking, wow, they have flow-hacking tips,” Steven says. “Today’s adventure athletes are the best flow hackers we’ve ever seen. They’ve become masters.”Steven has written a book on this subject called The Rise of Superman, which will be published in March. The book documents some of the world’s top action sports athletes—including skier JT Holmes, surfer Laird Hamilton, snowboarders Travis Rice and Jeremy Jones, and others—and how they access flow.To achieve flow, most researchers agree that you need a few internal elements: clear goals that are challenging but within reach, uninterrupted concentration and immediate feedback.In his book, Steven interviews Dr. Robb Gaffney, a former professional extreme skier who now works as a psychiatrist, with his office at the base of California’s Squaw Valley ski area.Robb, a scientist and an athlete, is both a student of flow and a master of it.“Being an athlete has helped me understand the flow states of athletes and perhapsflow states people achieve in other situations,” Robb said recently. “Most folks in my field have never experienced flow by carving down a steep mountainside, but it’s very likely they’ve found it while doingdifferent things.”That perhaps, is the most important thing to know, and a sentiment that most flow researchers agree upon. Although certain athletes seem to have found the doorway into flow, you don’t have to go skiing off a cliff in order to find your way there.“I believe flow states come from a myriad of different situations,” Robb says. “Thebulk of flow experiences on the planet might exist outside the athletic realm.The fact that I’ve had just as many flow state experiences whileworkingin my office as I have had on the snow—those 60-minute sessions that seem to last two minutes—makes me realize that flow doesn’t need to be triggered by my sport.”Steven says it’s a mistake to believe that flow only comes from physical risk. “You get a tremendous amount of flow in business or at start-ups,” he says. “There are a lot of mental, social and financial risks. High consequences drive people into flow, but you can replace the physical consequences with mental and social risks.”
Read More
Top 10 Happiest Major Market Cities

Top 10 Happiest Major Market Cities

It’s no secret that happiness is subjective. The things that make people happy in New York may not be the same for people in Los Angeles. Whether it’s family, finances or football, what makes Americans happy is literally all over the map. Recently, Harris Interactive, a market research firm, released a poll showing that 33 percent of all Americans say they are “very happy.”The Harris Poll Happiness Index asked a series of questions to roughly 2,100 Americans ages 18 and up living in the biggest cities in the country, to calculate the nation’s overall happiness. Relationships with family and friends, spiritual beliefs, financial situations and health concerns were some of the factors used to gauge the results. Of the top 10 major market cities polled, the Dallas/Fort Worth area ranked the happiest, with 38 percent describing themselves as “very happy.” San Francisco wound up at the bottom, with only 28 percent saying they were perfectly content. While San Francisco ranks at the bottom of the list, most in the City by the Bay feel that the future is bright. New Yorkers, who worry about financial issues, are frustrated with work and feel no one is listening to them when it comes to national decisions, worry the least about their health. Chicagoans feel the opposite with 67 percent agreeing that their concerns about national issues are being heard. They also are most likely to use hobbies and pastimes to lighten their moods. Residents of Dallas, Houston and Atlanta are likely to say that their spiritual beliefs are a positive guiding force in their lives, and they generally feel their voices are being heard when it comes to national decisions. Bostonians are least likely to worry about their financial situation, and people from Los Angeles are least likely to say that their work is frustrating. When it comes to personal relationships, Washington, D.C., leads the pack with most agreeing that being with friends and family brings them happiness. Philadelphia, affectionately known as the City of Brotherly Love, comes in second in both relationship categories; however, Philly outranks the nation’s capital on the overall happiness list because 86 percent of residents generally feel happy with their lives. That beats out all nine other cities. From the stone tablets in Moses’ hands all the way to David Letterman’s nightly staple, we have always had top 10 lists. Periodically we will report on the findings from various research polls to see where happiness is popping up in the world. We are social people who like to improve our wellbeing by feeling connected, and the data proves that happiness is contagious. See where your city ranks in the Harris Poll Happiness Index Dallas/Fort Worth – 38 percent “very happy” Houston – 36 percent “very happy” Philadelphia – 34 percent “very happy” Atlanta – 34 percent “very happy” Los Angeles – 33 percent “very happy” New York City metro area – 33 percent “very happy” Washington, D.C. – 33 percent “very happy” Chicago – 32 percent “very happy” Boston – 31 percent “very happy” San Francisco – 28 percent “very happy”
Read More
A man sits relaxing on a peer by a lake.

The New Pursuit of Happiness

After a challenging week at work, Saturday afternoon beckons—a stretch of free time to do with whatever you like. You want, reasonably enough, to spend those precious hours in a way that will bring you the most happiness. So you decide to: a. Whip up a batch of piña coladas, park yourself on the couch and catch up on six episodes of The Real Housewives of New Jersey while munching on two or three (or four) red velvet cupcakes. b. Go door to door beseeching your neighbors to sign a petition demanding a traffic light be installed on the corner of Fourth and Fig, followed by two hours spent picking up litter and dog droppings from the local park. Which scenario do you choose? OK, both choices are fairly preposterous. But they offer a clear-cut illustration of what experts see as two paths to happiness. Choice A is an example of hedonia. This is in-the-moment pleasure with no limits or rules. It’s self-gratifying, self-serving; the consumption of things and experiences that produce positive feelings and no pain. Hedonia is the fast-food version of happiness, or, as Michael Steger, Ph.D., director of the Laboratory for the Study of Meaning and Quality of Life at Colorado State University, puts it, “Hedonia is doing whatever the hell you want.” Choice B is entirely more sober, a type of satisfaction that experts call eudaimonia. (You can already tell that this is a far more effortful path; the word itself is nearly impossible to spell correctly or to pronounce. u-dy-MOH-ni-a—if you’d like to try.) Eudaimonia is centered on fulfilling our potential; it’s driven by virtue and a higher purpose: service to others. This is a condition we achieve, says Alan S. Waterman, Ph.D., a leading happiness researcher and professor emeritus in psychology at The College of New Jersey, when we live in accordance with our truest self. The concepts of both hedonia and eudaimonia date back to the Greeks. Trust us, you would not have wanted to give Aristotle the job of picking up a keg for the Sigma Phi frat party. As he saw it, those who conceived of happiness as pleasure and gratification were “the most vulgar,” or barely human. “The life they decide on,” he scolded, “is a life for grazing animals.” Eudaimonia, on the other hand was “an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.” In the last few years, scientists in the field of positive psychology have taken up an examination of these two components of happiness. Their investigations are providing some valuable insights into how each impacts our psychological and physical health. Spoiler alert: The research doesn’t provide any clear-cut answers to what will lead to my or your happiest life. “Within each person lies the ultimate compass,” Michael says. But some of the provocative questions this new research is raising can help you find your true north. Stepping Off the Hedonic Treadmill Are you happy now? Right now? How about now? If you were participating in a modern-day happiness study, you might be asked to complete an online daily log. You might have to check off which activities in a list of several dozen you’d engaged in during the previous 12 hours and to then rate your feelings of satisfaction. Or, you might be texted randomly throughout the day, asked what you’re doing and how you feel. When social scientists add up all these caught-in-amber scores and analyze them this way and that, they end up with ratings of both right-now happiness and big-picture, or global, wellbeing. What these studies generally show is that hedonic behaviors have a short shelf life. Catch someone in the middle of, say, watching an Adam Sandler comedy or scarfing down a Snickers bar, and they’re likely to be pretty content. But a few hours, or even minutes, after the credits roll or the candy wrapper has been tossed aside, those feelings of pleasure recede. The buzz of eudaimonic behavior, however, lingers. In a study that Michael conducted, the hedonic behaviors he included on a questionnaire were things like “bought a new piece of jewelry or electronics equipment just for myself” and “relaxed by watching television or playing video games.” Among the eudaimonic activities were “volunteered my time,” “listened carefully to another’s point of view” and “persevered at a valued goal even in the face of obstacles.” People who engaged in more eudaimonic activities not only reported feeling greater satisfaction, stronger positive emotions and more meaning in life, but those feelings spilled over into the next day. They had what could be called a happiness hangover. What’s more, other studies have shown that eudaimonic behavior confers health benefits, too, including a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s and a decreased risk of heart disease. Considering the health halo that happiness affords, it’s a shame we’re so bad at predicting what’s actually likely to make us happy. You don’t need studies to prove this is the case (though plenty do). Your own experience and that of your friends—especially the perpetually grumpy ones—provide plenty of evidence. The bigger house, the faster car, the latest gizmo-loaded smartphone—all may provide a temporary mood boost, but before long we grow accustomed to these pleasures. In a phenomenon that experts call “hedonic adaptation,” our level of happiness reverts to what it was before we had these fancy baubles. We’re trapped on the “the hedonic treadmill,” holding steady at our happiness set point. For a long time researchers believed that our happiness set point was immutable, as much a matter of genetics as the color of our eyes. But lately experts are taking a fresh look at this theory and concluding that our happiness baseline may not be so static after all. A group of researchers at MIT, Harvard Business School and Duke University confirmed that major life events—like winning the lottery—don’t do much to move our happiness needle in any enduring way. But—here’s the good news—small changes in behavior can boost your baseline happiness over time. The researchers looked at two behaviors—attending religious services of any type and getting physical exercise. Each time people went to, say, a yoga class or the gym, their church or their synagogue, they experienced a little uptick in happiness. Repeated regularly, these shots of happiness had a cumulative effect that led to a permanent change in wellbeing. The participants in the study had, the researchers concluded, stepped off the hedonic treadmill “one small step at a time.” Happiness expert Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., is a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside, and the author of the books The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't, What Shouldn’t Make You Happy, but Doesand The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want. Lately, she’s turned her attention to ways to thwart hedonic adaptation. What she’s finding is that effortful, intentional activities can slow down or sidestep happiness habituation. If materialism leads to a happiness dead end, intrinsic goals take us on a scenic route. Building close relationships, investing in the community, mastering new skills, savoring pleasurable experiences are all strategies that can help us, she says, “stretch happiness.” Savoring is a strategy that Michael Steger employs daily. We can refresh our experiences, he says, by being mindful of opportunities to luxuriate. Now living in Colorado after growing up in “really flat, boring” Minnesota, he says, he spends a few minutes every day gazing at the mountains. “I don’t want to become inured to the beauty of the natural landscape around me,” he says. “If I’m just seeing rocks, I’ll push myself to look harder, to see where the clouds are over the mountains, or how a recent rainfall has changed the backdrop.” Easy Does It? Not For True Happiness “A man’s reach should always exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?” the poet Robert Browning wrote. He could have been talking about eudaimonia in that couplet. “Eudaimonia has more to do with striving than achieving,” says Dr. Antonella Delle Fave, a professor at the University of Milan who has studied life satisfaction across the globe. “It’s about developing and growing into the best person we can be.” That effort doesn’t always feel good. “Eudaimonia can be an experience where you’re not happy or even satisfied,” Antonella says. “If you’re engaged in a very difficult work task, you may be absorbed in the project and using all your resources to face a challenge that you feel is meaningful. That generates a feeling of wellbeing…eventually. In the moment, there may be more discomfort than pleasure. Providing support to a friend who has suffered a loss, volunteering in a neighborhood blighted by poverty, training for a triathlon—these also provide a context for engagement that is meaningful, but they are far from carefree activities. Diana Nyad at 64 successfully completing the grueling 110-mile, 53-hour swim from Cuba to Florida, reminding herself to “find a way” with each stroke, was an immeasurably fulfilling experience, but hardly a day at the beach. So why bother with things that are hard? In Antonella’s studies of people in Australia, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and South Africa, one clear consistency was this: Boredom is a health risk. It turns out that staying within the confines of your comfort zone, partaking only in those hedonic experiences that are at your fingertips—a good meal, an escapist movie, a shopping trip to the mall—is strongly linked to depression. “The worst, most disruptive condition that we found in terms of overall wellbeing was apathy,” she says. “People who didn’t perceive challenges in their lives that called upon them to develop skills and resources had the lowest levels of life satisfaction. In the long run, a life of ease does not allow you to develop into a more complex, mature person.” Michael agrees. “I’m suspicious of things that are too easy,” he says. “When we look back at our lives many of the things that are most fulfilling, like raising children, making the commitment to be monogamous, taking a job that’s really challenging—require lots of labor, sacrifice, effort and deferred satisfaction over a long period of time. Lots of sleepless nights and cleaning up baby puke might make us pretty miserable in the moment, but we’ll later see those years through a rosy filter. That conflict is exactly what’s amazing about being human, which is that we’re building lives and meaning over the long haul.” Moving Beyond Mere Pleasure Maybe happiness isn’t the goal after all. Instead, perhaps we want to embrace, as Zorba the Greek put it, “the full catastrophe of life.” That’s the position taken by Edward Deci, Ph.D., and Richard Ryan, Ph.D., two leading researchers on human motivation at the University of Rochester. “I think it’s perfectly fine for people to be pursuing happiness,” Edward says. “On the other hand, I think there are a lot of other things that are pretty important to pursue. I like to pursue sadness. Sadness is an important human emotion. When my beloved dog dies, I want to experience the kinds of feelings that are associated with that. We have a wide range of human emotions, and I’m interested in pursuing them all in appropriate situations expressed in appropriate ways.” What’s more, adds Richard, happiness shouldn’t be mistaken for wellness. “If I’m a well-supplied drug addict,” he says. “I may be doing things that I know are ultimately harmful, but at the moment I’m happy.” So, how does “life, liberty and the pursuit of flourishing” sound? Okay, maybe we don’t need to rewrite the Declaration of Independence, but Edward and Richard suggest that “flourishing,” a concept that dates back to high-minded Aristotle, will serve us better than happiness as a life goal. Flourishing, or thriving, results from fulfilling three basic psychological needs. First we need to experience relatedness, or meaningful connections to other people. Whether it’s family, a romantic partner or friends, “I need to feel,” says Edward, “that there are people in this world that I care for, that I want to help when they need help and who would also be willing to help me when I need help.” A sense of competence—that you have the skills and resources to deal effectively with the world—is another basic psychological need. The third basic need is autonomy. “You need to feel that you’re doing the things that you want to be doing,” says Richard, “rather than that life is pushing you around.” Happiness, as it turns out, is a fortunate byproduct of this “life of excellence.” Studies show, Richard says, that when people pursue extrinsic goals that have to do with material things, image or fame, they’re less happy—even if they’re successful in becoming rich and famous—than people who are primarily interested in intrinsic goals like relationships, personal growth and giving to their communities. Don’t panic: Edward and Richard’s research doesn’t mean we need to aspire to Mother Teresa-like goodness. “We are not all superstars,” says Edward. “But we can all be kind to the elderly widow who lives next door, try to be nice to the people we meet on the street and, if we have the time or means, find a way to contribute to organizations that are doing good in the world.” Michael points it in even more pedestrian terms. “You can say, ‘I’m going to be less of an annoying person,’ ” he says. “I want people to feel better after they’ve interacted with me. That’s not curing cancer or solving the problem of poverty, but it is opening ourselves to embrace the concerns of others in some small way.” How to Spend That Saturday Afternoon In the world outside the psych lab, most activities are neither purely hedonic nor entirely eudaimonic but a combination of both. “In many cases things that are fun often dovetail with things that are noble,” says Michael. “To me, hitting more of these blended moments is a key to the well-lived life.” Take sharing a home-cooked meal with friends. “When we exert some effort that takes into account the experience of other people, I think we’re going to be well on our way to a eudaimonic experience,” he says. So, how should you spend that Saturday afternoon? For his part, Michael might pass it sitting on the porch of his Colorado home, enjoying a beer or two while reading a detective novel and glancing up now and then to observe how the shifting light is dancing across the Rockies. “Not everything has to be complicated all the time,” he says. “We can have fun. At the same time we don’t want to neglect that we’re capable of so much more. I think being human is more than trying to string together as many blissful hours as possible and call that a life.” In other words, we can have our red velvet cupcake and eat it, too. Enjoy a few hours of aimless leisure, then why not go out and ring a few doorbells—literally or figuratively—for something you believe in. Shelley Levitt is a contributing editor to SUCCESS magazine. Her articles on health, beauty and well-being have appeared in Women’s Health, Fitness, WebMD and Weight Watchers magazines.
Read More
Close-up image of DNA

Gene therapy

Have you ever experienced a happiness so profound you felt it in your very bones? In fact, happiness goes even deeper than that—all the way to our genes. And, in a startling new discovery, researchers have found that different types of happiness affect the human genome in dramatically different ways, with potentially big implications for our physical health. “We’re finding that not all things that feel good are the same on the cellular level,” says Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., the lead author of the study, which was published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Barbara looked at two different kinds of happiness. Hedonia is “in-the moment” happiness, the kind that comes from consuming things or experiences—a slice of pizza, a movie, a pair of new shoes. Meaningful happiness, what scientists call “eudaimonic wellbeing,” is the buzz we get from having a higher purpose, connecting to a community, being of service to others. It turns out that while eudaimonia gives our biology a boost, hedonic experiences do the opposite, undermining healthy genetic expression. Under the scrutiny of lab examination, hedonic happiness looks a lot like adverse life circumstances such as poverty, social isolation or being diagnosed with a serious illness. “These results really surprised me,” says Barbara, who is the director of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,and author of the books Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Lifeand Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become.“Hedonic happiness actually shows a pattern that’s similar to that which is seen with adversity or stress. We’re not seeing it at the same strength, but hedonia is looking like a little version of stress rather than the opposite of stress.” In the study, volunteers completed an online questionnaire designed to measure their levels of hedonic happiness and eudaimonic well-being. Then the researchers drew blood and analyzed the gene expression of the immune cells in these samples. They found that the volunteers whose happiness was primarily hedonic had high levels of inflammatory markers—which are linked to an increased risk of cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s— and low levels of disease-fighting antibody and antiviral gene expression. Volunteers who scored high on the eudaimonic scale displayed a reverse profile. Their robustly healthy immune systems were well-armed against infection while demonstrating little inflammatory activity. Does this mean we all need to go on a fun fast to protect our genomes? Not at all. “What this work tells us is not which kind of happiness to avoid, but rather which one you wouldn’t want to be without, and that’s the eudaimonic,” says Barbara. In the real world, both kinds of happiness reinforce each other. “Hedonia and eudaimonia go hand in hand,” she says. “What we know from past studies is that when people experience the positive uplift of hedonia they’re better able to go on and find meaning in their lives. And, that, in turn, becomes a durable resource. When times are tough you can touch base with the feeling that you’re a part of something larger than yourself and that kind of steadies the turmoil. Shelley Levitt is a contributing editor to SUCCESS magazine. Her articles on health, beauty and well-being have appeared in Women’s Health, Fitness, WebMD and Weight Watchers magazines.
Read More
School children collage

Positive Education: The School of Wellbeing

Imagine sending your kids off to school and them learning reading, writing, arithmetic and flourishing. That’s the concept of positive education, a trend that’s popular in Australia and England, and gaining traction in the United States. Positive education is about merging flourishing—positive emotion, engagement, positive relationships, meaning and accomplishment—with traditional education. While many schools focus primarily on academic performance, positive education is about developing your child’s sense of well-being and social responsibility. While the idea of helping students build on their strengths and nurturing their resilience and well-being has been at the heart of Montessori and Steiner approaches for some time, Dr. Martin Seligman is leading the effort to bring positive psychology into more schools. Martin believes the need for positive education is growing with the worldwide prevalence of depression among young people. So he works with staff, parents and students to teach his PERMA model—the five elements of well-being—with the ultimate goal of helping students flourish. (P) Positive Emotions—Feeling positive emotions such as joy, gratitude, interest, hope (E) Engagement—Being fully absorbed in activities that use your skills yet challenge you (R) Relationships—Having positive relationships (M) Meaning—Belonging to and serving something you believe is bigger than yourself (A) Accomplishment—Pursuing success, winning achievement and mastery Some examples of positive education in schools include positive behavior initiatives (teaching empathy and compassion), curriculum designed to increase confidence, and strength projects for children. Michelle McQuaid, a teacher of positive education in Australian schools (and Live Happy blogger), believes “success is achieved when a school leadership team collectively supports the idea of making the well-being of students as important as their academic achievements and inviting, connecting and empowering the whole school community around this idea,” including administrators, teachers, parents and students. “My vision is for children to receive an education that teaches them how to flourish intellectually, emotionally, socially and physically. For this to happen, they need to be a part of an education system that is flourishing—where leadership teams feel challenged and supported, where teachers feel engaged and appreciated, and parents feel confident and empowered,” McQuaid says. What Parents Can Do Praise children for effort rather than intelligence. When you tell a child “You are so smart,” they don’t understand what they have done and how to repeat it, so they fear making mistakes or view failures as being dumb. When you praise effort, children understand they can influence the result, and learn to view failures as learning opportunities. Provide a consistent family routine. Take an interest in what your children are learning. Encourage special interests. Turn off the TV and encourage children to have free playtime where they use their imagination and creativity. Give kids achievable jobs at home to develop a sense of responsibility and self-mastery. Celebrate who your children are, not just what they achieve. Help your children discover their strengths, including character strengths like kindness. Show your children how to master challenges and overcome frustrations with an optimistic and not pessimistic approach. Teach and show your kids how to go on the hunt for gratitude. Share things that are going well. Keep lobbying your children and educators to create a learning environment that allows your child to flourish. What Schools Can Do Assess what you are doing well already. Adopt the PERMA model. Embed positive education into your school strategy so it becomes your school culture. Evaluate your results to assess your effectiveness. Connect with other educators and schools to share your positive education journey and benefit from their knowledge, resources and experiences Sandra Bienkowski, owner of The Media Concierge, LLC, is a national writer of wellness and personal development content and a social media expert.
Read More
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – Flow – 01 by evalottchen, on Flickr

What is Flow?

Flow is a positive psychology concept that focuses on focus. In other words, the state of mind you are in when you have total concentration on a specific task and nothing else around you seems to matter. Total immersion. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a positive psychologist primarily known as the architect of “flow,” describes flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.”Csikszentmihalyi began researching flow after he became fascinated by artists who would get so lost in their work, they would forgo food, water and even sleep.In order to get into the state of flow, a balance of the challenge at hand and the strengths of the challenger must be met. The motivation is for no other reason than just the pure enjoyment of that certain task. For more information watch Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi's TED talk on Flow.
Read More
Image of the word thrive

What Does It Mean to Thrive?

Based on Barbara Frederickson’s Broaden and Build theory, positive emotions can help us thrive within our lives. Broadening our awareness with positive emotions help us learn and grow, which then leads to developing skills and becoming more resourceful. This positivity compounds over time and eventually leads to an increase in well-being. While feelings of fear and anxiety help narrow our focus and sharpen our “fight-or-flight” response, positive emotions (ex. happiness, joy, contentment) help us expand our life instead of just trying to survive. People who are thriving tend to live longer and lead healthier lives.
Read More