...positive-psychology movement, which has put a premium on research showing you can raise your level of happiness. For Seligman and like-minded researchers, that involves working on the three components of happiness--getting more pleasure out of life (which can be done by savoring sensory experiences...), becoming more engaged in what you do and finding ways of making your life feel more meaningful.
so you can become happier by living in the moment, so to say. if you're hanging out with your family, then enjoy hanging out with your family. don't worry about what work you should be doing or whatever.
you can also become happier by getting more pleasure out of life. it should be noted that this article points out that pleasure is a different thing from happiness...pleasure is a temporary emotion, like what we feel when we find a dollar on the street or when we meet someone famous. this will not raise our overall happiness. anyway, you get more pleasure out of life by really enjoying those good moments...a few researchers, including sonja something from UCR, have suggested the "gratitude journal," where a person writes daily or weekly about the good things in their life. these can either be things they're thankful for or things that went well in the day.
the third way to become happier is to find ways to make life more meaningful...volunteering in a soup kitchen, donating to darfur, figuring out a way you can make the world better, whatever. getting involved in something bigger than yourself can help you feel like a better person.
Seligman's biggest recommendation for lasting happiness is to figure out (courtesy of his website, reflectivehappiness.com your strengths and find new ways to deploy them.
"Giving makes you feel good about yourself," says Peterson. "When you're volunteering, you're distracting yourself from your own existence, and that's beneficial. More fuzzily, giving puts meaning into your life. You have a sense of purpose because you matter to someone else." Virtually all the happiness exercises being tested by positive psychologists, he says, make people feel more connected to others.
(prof Christopher Peterson at the University of Michigan)
University of Illinois psychologist Edward Diener found the following things about happiness:
1. additional income does little to raise your sense of satisfaction with life
2. being smarter or having more education doesn't make you happier, either
3. sipping from the fountain of youth won't make you happier. in fact, older people are consistently more satisfied with life than younger people.
4. married people are generally happier than singles, but that may be because they were happier to begin with
5. sunny days don't make people happier, either. californians aren't necessarily happier than oaklahomans just because of that fact.
6. having religious faith seems to make people happier, but it's difficult to say if that's due to God or the community aspect.
7. spending time with friends and family overwhelmingly makes a person happier.
"A 2002 study conducted at the University of Illinois by Diener and Seligman found that the most salient characteristics shared by the 10% of students with the highest levels of happiness and the fewest signs of depression were their strong ties to friends and family and commitment to spending time with them."
seligman finds that there are three dimensions to happiness: pleasure, engagement (connection to family, friends, work, hobbies), and meaning (using your personal strengths to better something bigger than you).
in 1996 University of Minnesota researcher David Lykken published a paper looking at the role of genes in determining one's sense of satisfaction in life. he found that genes determine about 50% of our satisfaction with life. this is to say that we are sort of "born with a happiness level." other research has confirmed that this is largely true: we do have a happiness level. no matter what happens to us, we will return to that level. unless we take an active role in making ourselves happier, with things like a gratitude journal and positive psychology.
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