Happiness Strategies | How to be Happy

A new British study has shed more light on the genes/personality contribution to happiness. Genes may contribute up to 50% of the variance in happiness, and the new research suggests this genetic influence on happiness is essentially conveyed via personality.

Researchers using a representative sample of 973 twin pairs found that the heritable differences in happiness were pretty well explained by the differences in personality, particularly the dimensions of neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness.

What does that mean for people who’d like to be a bit cheerier but may not have inherited the ideal personality? Co-researcher Tim Bates from University of Edinburgh said in an article on the study:

‘If people want to raise their own levels of well-being, our best advice is that they practice the kinds of behaviors that characterize calm, conscientious, extroverts…Try and be active and social, even if with just a few people. Practice the things you find emotionally challenging, maybe even keeping a diary to help you keep a sense of reality, and allow you to reflect on which strategies work, and which do not.’

Uh - does this all sound familiar? That’s because we’ve covered a lot of this ground in 101 Happiness Strategies.

To recap:

How to be happy - 11. Focus on what you can do to be happier

Genes - via personality - contribute at most 50% of happiness variance. That leaves a lot of wriggle room around the genetic stuff for boosting happiness.

How to be happy - 12. Make peace with your personality

Much of the personality influence works via the way people act - which is why Bates suggests we ‘practice the kinds of behaviors that characterize calm, conscientious, extroverts’. What you do affects how you feel.

How to be happy - 13. Act like you’re an extravert - even if you aren’t

Introverts who behave like extraverts are happier than those who don’t. Again, personality might be the premise, but it’s not the whole story. You drive the narrative.

How to be happy - 14. Concentrate on intentional factors

When you take into account that genes/personality might contribute 50% and external conditions another 10% to happiness, you’re left with a solid 40% up for grabs. That’s too much happiness potential to leave on the table while complaining about your personality shortcomings.

Happiness Life Strategy: Know your personality

Knowing your personality traits can help you make choices for happiness. For every personality profile there’s a situation that brings out the best - and the worst - in a person.

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Following last week’s bad news about anti-depressants I wanted to bring you some good news too.

A research study at Duke University found that a 30-minute brisk walk or jog 3 times a week worked as well as antidepressant drugs in beating depression.

OK, so now we know these drugs may be no better than a sugar pill. But wait. There’s more.

Longer lasting

The researchers followed up participants six months after the study ended, and found people in the exercise-only group were much less likely to become depressed again than either the medication-only group or the medication+exercise group.

Proactive recovery

According to the lead researcher, exercise had a big advantage over pills in the study - it gave people an active role in their own recovery:

‘Simply taking a pill is very passive… Patients who exercised may have felt a greater sense of mastery over their condition and gained a greater sense of accomplishment. They may have felt more self-confident and had better self-esteem because they were able to do it themselves, and they may have attributed their improvement to their ability to exercise.’

Walk away (from) the troubles in your life

According to Mayo Clinic, exercise can help depression as well as anxiety sufferers in a numbers of practical ways, including:

• Confidence and a sense of accomplishment
• Distraction and a more positive focus
• Interactions that help prevent isolation
• Providing a healthy coping strategy

They offer some sound tips for starting and sticking with exercise if you’re anxious or depressed.

So if you’re looking for a mood booster, think about adopting that thrice weekly, 30-minute walk/jog into your life. You stand to gain a bunch of benefits and you might just ditch those doldrums too.

iPod recommendation for your walk/jog:

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What makes kids happy? A new iPod? The Wiggles? An industrial-sized pack of M&Ms?

A new study by Mark Holder at the University of British Columbia has checked in to the question of childhood happiness. And the findings might not be what you expect.

At the bottom of the contributing factors are money, the child’s gender and parents’ marital status, each adding less than a measly 1% to sense of happiness in the average child.

Seems the little guys know whether or not they’re rich - it just doesn’t matter that much.

Strong contributors are leisure activities like sport, as well as the child’s temperament.

But the big kahuna of childhood happiness is - drum-roll - sprituality, or an inner belief system, which accounts for 8-17% of sense of happiness in the average child. (Compare this with 4-5% in adults.)

Why spirituality? Could be the sense of hope, could be the ready-made social network of many religions - although in an article on the study the researchers were quick to say religion and spirituality are not the same.

Whatever it is that makes spirituality important to a child’s happiness, it’s worth knowing that how a child sees the world matters much, much more than the things they have.

Related articles

Happiness and childhood: do we need happier classrooms?

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‘Has the Prozac bubble finally burst?’ asks this week’s New Scientist mag.

The article reports findings that antidepressants seem to offer no more than a placebo effect, except in the most severely depressed people.

And those severely depressed people respond less to placebos, not more to the drugs.

Reports of subjects’ happiness have been greatly exaggerated

The study involved UK and US researchers and looked at all clinical trials submitted to the FDA for the licensing of the 4 SSRIs with complete datasets:

• Fluoxetine (Prozac)
• Venlafaxine
• Nefazodone
• Paroxetine (Seroxat or Paxil)

The conclusion?

‘Compared with placebo, the new-generation antidepressants do not produce clinically significant improvements in depression in patients who initially have moderate or even very severe depression.’

SSRI specialist David Healy of Cardiff University said in an earlier New Scientist article that this latest research confirms suspicions that the effectiveness of these drugs has been exaggerated.

‘Most importantly this new study shows that the people who did respond to the drugs would have responded to placebo, anyway.’

The file drawer problem

The change in mood toward these drugs also reflects the file drawer problem - the results not found in studies that don’t get published.

When Erick Turner of Oregon Health and Science University in Portland and his colleagues hunted through the literature they uncovered 23 unpublished studies, of which 22 found negative or questionable effects of antidepressants.

Because such studies don’t find clinically significant results they get relegated to the file drawer and fail to inform the broader picture of effectiveness.

Placebo placabo

There seems little dispute that antidepressants offer a placebo benefit. And to paraphrase The Bard, doesn’t a placebo by any other pharmaceutical name make you feel just as sweet?

David Nutt of Bristol Uni says yes - even a placebo benefit shouldn’t be discounted.

I guess that’s true.
And maybe the pharmaceutical companies could be paid with Monopoly money.

Don’t try this at home

I repeat New Scientist’s warning - if you’re on anti-depressants be sure to consult your doc before taking yourself off them.

Related articles:

• If you weren’t born happy, swap medication for mindset
• Imagine if there were a happiness pill - would you take it?

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No matter what your personality make-up, you can make choices that bring you greater happiness. You just have to understand the pros and cons of your personality traits.

In Happiness Strategy 12: Make peace with your personality we learned the ‘Big-Five’ dimensions of personality are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness and neuroticism and we saw that extraversion and neuroticism are particularly related to happiness.

According to Daniel Nettle of Newcastle University in the UK, regardless of your personality composition there’s an ideal environment for you (New Scientist 9 February 2008).

Nettle notes that for each personality dimension there’s both an upside and downside.

• In his own study extraverts had more sexual partners and enjoyed greater career and economic success (they’re also more likely to be ‘born happy’ as well as act in ways that promote happiness). On the other hand extraverts suffered more injury- and accident-related hospitalization and greater family instability, including divorce.
• Agreeable people attract and keep friends and enjoy plenty of social support. The cost, however, is often their own priorities, which they sacrifice for the sake of others.
• Conscientiousness can help a person gets things done but it can also close their eyes to opportunities that distractible people notice and exploit.
• Openness can serve people well in historical/cultural contexts that value artistic qualities but not in times where more practical qualities are needed.
• Neuroticism (which is related to unhappiness) can be an asset in times of genuine threat.

Nettle’s point is that knowing your personality puts you in touch with its pros and cons. And that helps you make better choices for happiness.

Happiness life strategy

It’s no secret to Happiness Strategies readers that I score high on both introversion and neuroticism. Realizing I had these predispositions gave me two of my most reliable and effective happiness strategies.

1. Recognizing my introverted tendencies led me to re-structure my life to have more alone time. I changed my work situation so I can work from home and I stopped going out so much. I now feel drained much less and enjoy my social time much more. I look forward to being with people!

2. Facing my inner neurotic helped me pay less attention to my worries - I realized they weren’t necessarily ‘real’. It also helped me accept and enjoy my pleasure in order and tidiness - it was simply a quirk, so I could enjoy it instead of trying to deconstruct or change it.

Want to know yourself a little better? You could do an online personality test or read more about the Big Five dimensions. But you probably already have a good sense of your personality, and can gain more insight simply by tuning in.

By becoming more aware of your predispositions you too can work with them for greater happiness. For instance:

• Agreeableness
  If you feel resentful that your preferences often get pushed aside, realize your part in this. You could choose to raise your own priorities a smidge and lower your need to be loved by everyone all the time.
• Conscientiousness
  If you’re not so good at being organized and getting things done, office manager may not be the career for you. Look for opportunities that reward flexibility and don’t require routine - perhaps sales or creative work.
• Openness
  If you feel constrained by your friends you may benefit from looking for new people in your life. Instead of doing the things you find stifling, explore courses, classes or groups with interests that stimulate you. You might find a whole new dimension to yourself!

As Nettle says,

If your personality causes you grief, why not try changing the niche you occupy in this complex system that is modern life?

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