Secrets to Happiness

Psychology tends to focus on why we’re miserable, but the growing field of positive psychology reveals what really matters — and it may not be what you think.

Much of psychology seems to focus on why we’re miserable: ever since Freud anxiety, depression, and pathologies stemming from childhood have dominated psychological research.

Over the past two decades, however, psychologists have begun to ask different questions:

• How is it possible to live the best life?
• What makes us happiest?

In what’s now called the field of positive psychology, researchers use scientific methods to identify the elements of a fulfilling life.

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They reveal that happiness is easier than you might think. In “The How of Happiness” (Penguin, 2007), Sonya Lyubomirsky, a positive psychology researcher and professor of psychology at the University of California-Riverside, argues that 40 percent of our happiness depends on our attitudes and activities. Another large chunk, she says, is determined by what researchers call our natural “set point,” based on genetics. Although the science is not particularly exact, some research suggests a 33-percent influence of genetics on life satisfaction, while other studies go as high as 50 percent.

Circumstances you may assume are all-important may not be. In other words, you probably have happiness within reach even if your home is not as fancy as your sister’s or you don’t have a corner office.

Here’s some of what positive psychology has discovered about the keys to lasting happiness.

Give yourself a financial cushion. You may have heard that “money doesn’t buy happiness” or that after a certain income, the benefits of money plunge. The latest science suggests that higher earners are indeed happier — but most likely because they have more control over their lives.  This means you can weather a job loss or walk away from unreasonable demands. Equating money with success, on the other hand, was linked to less happiness.

Sleep and eat well

These two elements of daily life have a major impact on overall mood.

Chronic poor nutrition and lack of sleep can lead to anxiety and depression, not to mention mental fatigue, low energy, and, ultimately, illness. Are you often hungry, and as a result grumpy, without realizing it? Feelings of hunger can lead to mood changes that add up over time, never mind cascade to more negative consequences.

Taking care of these basics can pay off in daily mood boosts as well as significantly reduced illness over time, which has a huge happiness impact. One estimate puts the value of moving from very poor health to excellent health at more than $460,000 a year — meaning you’d need that much extra money to be as satisfied with your life if you didn’t have the health boost.

Exercise and get outdoors

Exercise has been found to be more effective than antidepressants in some studies, as well as longer lasting. It will also make you feel better about your body and improve your self-image. At the same time, you’ll be taking care of your health in long-lasting ways, meaning you might avoid misery-inducing illness down the road. Better yet, exercise outdoors: peaceful settings in nature boost mood and feelings of peacefulness, according to a British study of 20,000 participants.

Practice gratitude

In two well-known studies, participants who wrote down several things they were thankful for once a week, and those who wrote thank-you letters to people they felt grateful toward both experienced lasting boosts in happiness and well-being, and even reported fewer health complaints.

A crucial element of practicing gratitude: avoid comparing yourself to others. While you may know instinctively that comparisons can make you miserable, science confirms it.

“You can’t be envious and happy at the same time,” Lyubomirsky points out in “The How of Happiness.” “People who pay too much attention to social comparisons find themselves chronically vulnerable, threatened, and insecure.”

If you must, compare yourself to those who have less, rather than more.

Cultivate or preserve a religious identity. Surveys suggest that people with no religious identity have the lowest sense of well-being. Attending services and church suppers may provide regular doses of positive messages and community. The activities, rather than your beliefs, may be key, says cognitive scientist Laurie Santos, PhD, who teaches a wildly popular course on happiness psychology at Yale.

Help others and cultivate social connections

Being kind to others — for example, by buying a gift — has been shown to produce greater happiness than buying something for oneself. In “Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being” (Free Press: 2011), Martin Seligman, one of the founders of positive psychology, writes: “Doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we have tested.”

Recent research backs up the idea that volunteering boosts mood. When you regularly give time to others, the benefits to yourself may be far greater than you think.

In addition, cultivate social relationships. When researchers calculated a dollar value for increased social interaction with friends and family, they found it’s worth the equivalent of an extra $130,000 a year in your pocket.

Pursue meaningful work

Many people think they’d be happiest with their feet up and the TV remote in hand, never having to do anything at all. The truth is that boredom and dissatisfaction at work are some of the greatest causes of unhappiness.

In “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” (Harper Perennial, 2008), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi reports a study he did that found people were happiest when deeply absorbed in challenging, absorbing work — whether that was calculating numbers in a spreadsheet, playing an instrument, or throwing pottery on a wheel.

The lesson: many of us need meaningful work and goals to feel truly content and satisfied with our lives. Make sure yours are in line with your personal values and beliefs. (You can take questionnaires designed to elicit goals specifically tailored to you at Seligman’s Positive Psychology Center website.)

The most surprising truths of positive psychology: giving to others, having good relationships, and being able to pursue meaningful work are most likely to bring you happiness. Focus on those parts of your life and this new science suggests you can increase your happiness well beyond perhaps even your wildest expectations.

When a reporter asked Laurie Santos the secret, she responded “It’s smelling your coffee in the morning. Loving your kids. Having sex and daisies and springtime. It’s all the good things in life. That’s what it is.”

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