5 Science-Backed Ways to Feel Happier, Starting Today
Happiness outcomes that far outweigh the effort required.
EXPERT OPINION BY JEFF HADEN @JEFF_HADEN
Everyone wants to feel happier. (Especially entrepreneurs; one study shows 45 percent of entrepreneurs report feeling stressed and anxious.)
Yet a Cleveland Clinic study found that a sizable percentage of people say they have “no idea” how to improve their emotional well-being and overall level of happiness.Let’s eliminate that gap.
But first, let’s talk about the nature of happiness.
Research shows that approximately 50 percent of your level of happiness — what psychologists call your happiness set-point — is determined by hereditary personality traits. (Think nature, not nurture.) That means approximately half of your subjective well-being — a term psychologists like better than “happiness” — is within your control.
Bottom line? How you’re made affects your happiness. So does your current circumstances. Unfortunately, you can’t do anything about your genes. And it’s often hard to control what happens to you, even though you can control how you respond.
But you can always control what you do on a regular basis.
And as a result, change how happy you feel — and change your level of subjective well-being.
How?
How
1. Focus on staying positive, not being ‘happy’
A 2020 study published in The Journal of Positive Psychology determined most people fall into one of two basic categories:
- People who focus on being happy. Happiness is their goal. They think about happiness, even in moments when they feel happy. When they aren’t happy, they think they’re failing. As a result, when faced with negative emotions they tend to struggle — and rate themselves as relatively unhappy.
- People who focus on staying positive. Positivity is their goal. They look for ways to feel and stay positive. They structure their day around maximizing positives, and minimizing or avoiding negatives. As a result, when faced with negative emotions, they tend to see those emotions as part of life.
Why does focusing on staying positive rather than being happy make a difference? Research shows experiencing negative and positive emotions (what psychologists call “emodiversity”) is an essential component of overall health and subjective well-being.
In short, if you want to be happier, sometimes you need to feel a little sad — and when you do feel sad, focus less on the feeling and more on working the problem. What can you do to make things better? Or at least work to ensure that whatever happened doesn’t happen again?
As the Stoics would say: you can’t always control what happens to you, but you can always control how you respond.
2. Buy a little time
In a 2017 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers surveyed thousands of people who occasionally paid other people to perform tasks they didn’t enjoy or didn’t want to do. Like housecleaning. Yard work. Errands. Things people need to do, but don’t always want to do.
The result? People who were willing to spend a little money to buy a little time were happier and felt greater overall life satisfaction than people who did not.
And here’s the thing: while relatively wealthy people who spent money to buy a little time were happier than relatively wealthy people who did not, people at the bottom end of the economic spectrum who spent money to buy a little time were happier than those at the bottom end of the economic spectrum who did not.
In short, having money didn’t make people happier. What they did with the money they had is what mattered.
The researchers then added a twist to the study, giving participants money and a choice: buy things or buy time. Turns out buying time left people feeling happier, less stressed, and more satisfied than buying things.
The key to buying time is to consciously decide how you will use the time your money freed up. Buying time will make you happier only it feels intentional and purposeful: not because you don’t have the time, but because you want to use your time differently. Instead of cleaning your house, you might decide to spend that time with family or friends. Or working on a project you’ve been putting off. Or working out.
Doing something you want to do with the time you bought.
That’s when money can buy you a little happiness… no matter how much money you make.
3. Get regular “nature” time
A 2019 study published in Nature found that spending two hours per week outdoors can significantly improve overall well-being.
According to the researchers, “Compared to no nature contact last week, the likelihood of reporting good health or high well-being became significantly greater. It did not matter how 120 minutes was achieved (one long versus several shorter outings per week).”
Why? Possibly because being outdoors is a proxy for activity. But then again, other research shows psychological benefits can be gained from sitting passively in natural (as opposed to urban) settings.
There’s also the matter of correlation and causation. Maybe happier people simply tend to spend more time outdoors. Then again, one study found that women recently diagnosed with breast cancer who spend two hours a week in nature experienced “restored cognitive resources depleted by the stress of their diagnoses and early treatment,” and experienced lower levels of stress.
Bottom line? Spending a couple hours a week outside helps improve your overall sense of well-being and happiness.
And it’s fun.
4. Think about your past (and future) selves
Comparisons can be happiness killers. Psychologists call the result relative deprivation: deciding that things other people have are things we also should have, even if we don’t need them. Or, before we noticed, had never even thought we wanted them.
For many people, relative deprivation significantly impacts their level of happiness. A study published in IZA World of Labor determined that relative deprivation helps explain why average happiness has not increased despite a dramatic rise in average income around the world.
The key to avoiding relative deprivation isn’t to avoid seeing things you might want; that’s impossible. (Hi, Aprilia RSVR Factory 1100.) The key to avoiding relative deprivation isn’t to avoid meeting people whose success you might envy; that’s also impossible.
The key is to know what you want. Your goals. Your dreams. Your ambitions. To know what provides you with the greatest sense of fulfillment and happiness.
And then work to achieve, possess, or become those things.
Because where happiness habits are concerned, only two comparisons matter. The first is who you are today and who you were in the past. Making that comparison will remind you just how far you’ve come.
The second is who you are today and who you hope to someday become. Making that comparison will keep you focused on doing the things that make you feel more fulfilled, grateful, and happy.
5. Spend a little more effort on your friends
It’s easy to focus on building a professional network of partners, customers, employees, connections, etc., because there will (hopefully) be a payoff.
But there’s a bigger payoff to making real (not just professional or social media) friends. Increasing your number of friends correlates to higher subjective well-being. Research shows doubling your number of (real) friends is like increasing your income by 50 percent in terms of how happy you feel.
Friendships will make you happier. Being nice to people you don’t know will make you happier. Even doing partial favors for people can make you happy.
Science says so.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
Go inside one interesting founder-led company each day to find out how its strategy works, and what risk factors it faces. Sign up for 1 Smart Business Story from Inc. on Beehiiv.
Refreshed leadership advice from CEO Stephanie Mehta
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий