I thought you may find this article interesting:

Can happiness be found online?

Story Highlights:

• The ‘Virtual Happiness Project’ in the Netherlands looked at the relationship between Web 2.0 and happiness
• The findings suggest that blogs and social networks give people a strong sense of  belonging, which can be part of happiness
• It warns, however, that there’s a risk of being too internet-involved, which can detrimentally affect offline relationships

The report is yet to be published, but survey and experimental results point to findings:

that a lot of Facebook users already sense: social interaction is a driver for happiness, and the Web 2.0 is a valid way to experience it.

Read the article here.

(via @akselsoft)

Image by Kevin Zollman

A new study has found that thinking
fast can improve your mood.

Princeton and Harvard researchers conducted six experiments requiring participants to briskly whisk through activities such as brainstorming, reading ideas on screen or watching a fast-forwarded film clip.

Thinking fast brought participants creativity, elation and, to a lesser extent, a sense of energy and power.

Scientific American observes:

It is unclear why thought speed affects mood, but [the study’s lead author, Emily] Pronin and her colleagues theorize that our own expectations may be part of the equation. In earlier research, they found that people generally believe fast thinking is a sign of a good mood. This lay belief may lead us to instinctively infer that if we are thinking quickly we must be happy. In addition, they suggest, thinking quickly may unleash the brain’s novelty-loving dopamine system, which is involved in sensations of pleasure and reward.

So up your thinking speed – and you’ll join the ranks of the quick and the glad.

Image by jurvetson

About this talk

From the TED site:

Dan Gilbert presents research and data from his exploration of happiness — sharing some surprising tests and experiments that you can also try on yourself. Watch through to the end for a sparkling Q&A with some familiar TED faces.

The take-away

Gilbert gives heaps of interesting examples to show how bad we are at comparing costs and estimating value, and the problem of shifting comparisons. As a result, we make poor decisions about what will make us happy.

In essence:

• we underestimate the odds of our future pains, and
• we overestimate the value of our present pleasures.

My 2 cents

To put it another way: immediate gratification ain’t so gratifying – our brains simply trick us into thinking it will be.

Knowing that, we may find greater happiness if we adopt those old-fashioned virtues of patience, persistence and discipline.

But not when it comes to chocolate.

About this talk

From the TED site:

Can happiness be bought? To find out, author Benjamin Wallace sampled the world’s most expensive products, including a bottle of 1947 Chateau Cheval Blanc, 8 ounces of Kobe beef and the fabled (notorious) Kopi Luwak coffee. His critique may surprise you.

The upshot

Wallace’s ‘grueling quest’ is amusing, but if you just want the upshot, it’s this:

He ends by describing a study from researches at Stanford and CalTech. They gave participants the same wine labeled with different price tags.

Unsurprisingly, many participants said they preferred the more expensive wine.

But surprisingly, MRI brain imaging performed on the participants showed that their brains registered more pleasure for the wine with the (fake) higher price tag.

My take: The happiness, it seems, is real. We only think we need money to buy it.

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.

Technorati Tags: happiness,personality,genes

Image: PixelPet

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:

Image: Kandoka

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?

Image: stevekrh19

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?

Image: xianstudio

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?

Technorati Tags: happiness,personality,extraversion,neuroticism,agreeableness,conscientiousness,openness,Big Five

Image konr4d

Well, yes and no – it depends on the book.

It may surprise you that research shows people panache is more polished in readers of Pride and Prejudice or Harry Potter than readers of How to Win Friends and Influence People.

According to a 2005 University of Toronto  study, reading fiction is linked to social skills like empathy and awareness. But non-fiction? Not so much.

The study was correlational, not causal, so we can’t say for sure that our reading matter makes us more or less socially adept.

I can see how reading fiction could boost people skills. After all, reading a novel gets you right into a character’s head – you experience ‘first hand’ another person’s feelings and cogitations, tuning you in to the depth of their internal life. It makes sense that your social insight would be cultivated. 

On the other hand, it could go in the other direction, with socially skilled people simply choosing to read more fiction. That would still be interesting. Perhaps reading fiction is a way to hone the skill, or perhaps it’s pleasurable to flex a strong empathy muscle.

Regardless of direction, there’s a link between reading stories and getting on with others. So it can’t hurt every now and then to put down your Q Is for Quantum Particle Physics and pick up A is for Alibi.

Technorati Tags: happiness,relationships,research,reading,fiction

Image: iofoto

Well fret no more, chocoholic chums – a recent SparkPeople article has set about busting these and other chocolate-coated myths.

Now before you install chocolate at the base of your personal food pyramid, take note: the quantities you can savor before the guilt-free swing-tag falls off are not large. The article quotes 1.4 ounces or about 40 grams – somewhere between a fun size and regular size chocolate bar.

Here’s a paraphrased summary of the article:

Myth: Chocolate puts you in caffeine overdrive.
Busted! A 4-ounce chocolate bar and 8-ounce chocolate-milk drink each contain 6 mg of caffeine,  versus 65-135mg in a regular coffee.

Myth: Chocolate kicks up your cholesterol.
Busted! The saturated fat in milk chocolate doesn’t raise cholesterol the same way other fats do. Eating a 1.4 ounce chocolate bar can raise HDL (good) cholesterol levels.

Myth: Chocolate is nutritionally bankrupt.
Busted! Chocolate yields magnesium, copper, iron and zinc and has the same amount of antioxidants as a 5-ounce glass of red wine. A daily dose of the dark stuff can help lower blood pressure and improve insulin resistance (but don’t abandon medication!).

Myth: Chocolate rots your teeth.
Busted! Milk chocolate’s mouth-clearing fat content shortens sugar-tooth contact time and its protein, calcium and phosphate may actually protect tooth enamel.

Myth: Chocolate gives you migraines.
Busted!  Research findings say nope.

Myth: Chocolate causes zits.
Busted! Twenty years worth of studies say nuh-uh.

Myth: Chocolate makes you a fatty boombah.
Busted! The average chocolate bar contains 220 calories, not so high that you can’t enjoy it now and then.

With Cupid just behind us and the Easter Bunny hippity-hoppitying his way over, it’s good to know we can indulge ourselves, moderately, in the pleasures of chocolate.

Be wise and be happy.

Technorati Tags: Happiness life strategy,happiness,research,chocolate,myth busting

Image: Scyza

A new study, reported last month in the media and about to appear in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, looked at the way our bodies produce antibodies in response to infection.

(Flu vaccines were used as a proxy for pathogens because the body’s response is similar for the purposes of the study.)

Not everybody has fun flu fighting

In the first experiment, Two groups of women were given flu vaccines. The high self-discrepant group – women who were displeased with themselves and their progress toward goals – produced fewer antibodies in response to the vaccine than a second group of women who were satisfied with their lives and goal progress. The levels stayed low for more than a month post-vaccination.

In a second experiment high self-discrepant women were asked to write – one group wrote about goal-related concerns, a second wrote about daily activities. The first group reported fewer flu symptoms and showed higher antibody levels.

Happiness life strategy

To have a strong immune system it helps to be on track with our life goals, or at least to be at peace with our progress.

But if we can’t, there’s still hope for fighting the flu.

By getting our disappointments out of our head and onto the page, we can be more rational in examining our expectations, more clearheaded in questioning our approaches and more constructive in coming up with alternative ideas.

If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, maybe we should eat it while writing.

Image: ppreacher

Although positive psychology and well-being research have flourished, there’s no  agreed-upon theory of happiness. But a model has been suggested, quite recently in fact, and it’s based on 3 factors (1).

1. Circumstances and demographics
- like health, finances and marital status

2. Personality and genes 
- the ‘innate’ aspects of a person

3. Intentional factors 
- deliberate actions like pursuing a goal

These 3 factors vary in how much, and for how long, they can change a person’s level of happiness. The first 2 will probably sound familiar by now:

1. Circumstances and demographics

Overall circumstances at a given time make a pretty small contribution to happiness – as we saw in Happiness Strategy 8: Make happiness an inside job and Happiness Strategy 10: Don’t keep up with the Joneses.

And changing these circumstances leads at best to a short-term boost, because people quickly adjust to new conditions, as we saw in Happiness Strategy 9: Get off the hedonic treadmill.

According to the model, circumstances and demographics contribute about 10% of the variance in happiness, in statistical terms.

2. Personality and genes 

Unlike the small effect of conditions, genes and personality make a big difference to happiness levels, as we saw in Happiness Strategy 11: Focus on what you can do to be happier and Happiness Strategy 12: Make peace with your personality. It may be that people have a happiness set-point around which they fluctuate with circumstances.

According to the model personality and genes contribute about 50% of the variance in happiness.

Our conscious behavior can explain some of the happiness-personality link, as we saw in Strategy 13: Act like you’re an extravert – even if you aren’t.

Which leads nicely to the third part of the model.

3. Intentional factors 

We’re left with about 40% for the last factor in the happiness model – the actions or behaviors people engage in deliberately. They might be:

• Cognitive – like counting your blessings
• Behavioral – like exercising regularly
• Volitional – like striving for a goal.

Although intentional factors aren’t automatic, they can become a habit over time (1).

Happiness strategy: Concentrate on intentional factors

Looking at the factors in this model of happiness, it’s clear where our happiness-raising efforts will have the most benefit. Circumstances contribute little, changed circumstances bring short-term gains at best, and genes offer limited opportunity for tweaking. Rather, it’s the intentional component of the model that makes a large contribution to happiness as well as offering a way to sustainable happiness change.

• What kinds of intentional actions can we use to raise our happiness levels?
• Is there research evidence that they work?
• And if they work, will we stay happier for life, or will we have to keep doing them?

Upcoming strategies will cover these and many other questions about intentional factors as a way to raise your own happiness. Stay tuned!

Research sources:

(1) Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K. M., & Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 111-131.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

Technorati Tags: happiness strategies,happiness model,happiness,personality,circumstances,intentional factors

The result is fun, and a cute reminder of those findings about happiness – some of which may be familiar to Happiness Strategies readers via 101 Happiness Strategies and Book Reviews.

Here’s a sample from the article:

Fire your therapist if he so much as mentions your childhood.
Contra Freud and pro common sense, much of Authentic Happiness author Martin Seligman’s research suggests that rehashing events that enraged you long ago tends to produce depression rather than sweet closure and relief.

If someone tells you he’s still pining for his ex, ask the ex out.
Stumbling on Happiness author Dan Gilbert is currently conducting a study designed to show that the best way to predict how much you’ll enjoy a blind date is to ask the last person to go out with your date how much fun he had.

If you can’t decide what TV to buy, walk across the hall and ask your neighbor if he likes his.
In multiple studies, subjects felt they’d be better able to predict their reaction to an experience by imagining it, rather than hearing somebody else’s testimony. Even regarding such seemingly straightforward activities as deciding whether to eat pretzels or potato chips, they were wrong. Turns out, people are happier following advice.

If you go on a shopping spree, throw away the receipts.
In one study cited by both Schwartz and Gilbert, photography students were allowed to keep only one picture taken during their course. Some students were later allowed to swap their choice for a different photo, yet those who couldn’t change were much happier. How did they deal with inflexibility? By rationalizing how much they enjoyed their new decoration.

Take the local, and don’t wait for the express.
Inaction, on the other hand, gnaws away at the mind relentlessly, like so many rats chewing on an empty Mountain Dew bottle someone dropped onto the tracks as you idly waited for the 4. You should have just jumped on the 6.

Join a church, a yoga studio, an Alcoholics Anonymous group, or an underground fight club.
People who have more friends and belong to community-building groups are happier. To paraphrase the Norm MacDonald–era “Weekend Update,” perhaps that’s the kind of finding that could have been published in the scientific journal Duh, but there it is.

Order from the same takeout menu every time.
Researchers found that subjects asked to choose their meals weeks in advance mistakenly predicted that variety would make them happier, while those who simply decided what to eat on the spot were completely satisfied with the same thing each week. (Although eating macaroni and cheese endlessly, like repeating any pleasant experience over and over, reduces its appeal—so switch it up with cheeseburgers.)

Excerpted from http://nymag.com/news/features/17574/

Technorati Tags: happiness,new york,happiness research,happiness strategies for new yorkers

In a society obsessed by material gain, should schools be teaching our children the true meaning of happiness?

Her answer draws on the advice of two education experts who believe it’s time to get very serious about happiness at school.

Alas, say Smith and Jones, unhappiness at school is a problem

Educationalist Alistair Smith and Sir John Jones, headteacher for 17 years, believe in preventative educational medicine.

Smith quotes research that:

• Children with a positive mind learn faster
• The best indicator of adult happiness is childhood happiness
• Children learn from the optimism or pessimism of adults around them
• Irritated children tend to be more neurotic and unhappy as adults.

He says happy teachers and students boost children’s results and prospects and lower their risk of problems like violence, truancy and drug taking.

Jones is concerned about the pressure of constant testing. He says ‘Youngsters today are the most tested in the history of testing. I don’t think testing brings happiness’.

So what’s the solution for happier kids at school?

No dark sarcasm in the classroom

Smith and Jones run a conference called Winning the H Factor – The Secrets of Happy Schools. Their strategies include:

• Assembly – have only positive messages
• Weekly awards – for the person who cheered everyone up
• Weekly staff lunch – served by pupils
• Freedom of expression – allowing people to voice their grievances
• Positive language – eg challenges versus problems, learning versus behavior and setback versus crisis
• Focus on independent learning rather than test results – although of course tests can’t be altogether avoided.

Here’s how Jones sums it up:

‘What we are saying is let’s look at the culture, let’s talk about happiness. If pupils are happy they are less likely to come in and abuse or assault the teacher, they are less likely to drink too much on a Friday night or consider taking drugs under pressure from peers. If you build a community in which individuals are happy then they are more likely to be functional.’

Happiness strategies revisited

This ties in with the idea that being happy is good for you and everyone around you, as we explored in some of the early 101 Happiness Strategies, including

• Happiness Strategy 3. Choose happiness for your health
• Happiness Strategy 4. Be happy now
• Happiness Strategy 5. Spread it around

and summarized (good for a quick review) in

• Happiness Strategy 6. Make happiness a goal.

If you’ve got kids, this is a timely lesson – it’s never too early to start being happy.

We saw in Strategy 12 that introverted people tend to be less happy than their extraverted counterparts.

But before you anti-social butterflies throw up your wings in despair and head for the nearest net, let me share some nuggets of evidence that the extraversion-happiness link is less clear-cut than it looks.

1. Even the strong correlations between extraversion and happiness (up to .61 for the statistically minded; 1) allow for rather a lot of happy introverts. Most of us can think of someone who’s not naturally outgoing, but who’s happy. If extraversion isn’t inevitably related to happiness, something else must be at work, at least for the happy introverts.

2. Happy introverts act a lot like like happy extraverts – at work, leisure and even when engaged in solitary activities (1). So although  happy introverts and happy extraverts score differently on personality traits, they behave in similar ways.

3. Simply acting extraverted leads to feeling happier. This applies whether you’re deliberately making an effort to be social, optimistic and active (some of the qualities of extraversion) or you do it naturally in the situation (2).

The fact that there are unhappy extraverts and happy introverts means it can’t be extraversion per se that makes people happy. Rather, the findings above suggest that both extraverts and introverts are happy when they do extraverted things. Perhaps acting social, optimistic and active comes naturally to extraverts – but the good news for the rest of us is that even when introverts act that way, their happiness increases too.

Happiness strategy: Act like you’re an extravert – even if you aren’t

Wherever you sit on the introversion-extraversion dimension, you can be happier. You needn’t go from party pooper to party popper overnight, but you can take small actions that feel good to you. For instance:

• Start one conversation each day
  It can be with a person at the store, the library, the gym, the coffee machine – anywhere you see people. Keep it simple and light – no medical stories or rants about today’s youth. Starting up conversations is a great way to build your social muscle – and soon you’ll find it’s less of an effort and more of a habit.
• Initiate social dates
  Not everyone is the life of the party but we do all benefit from having a network of people in our lives – even a small one. Be prepared to initiate some social activities yourself. Start with something simple like inviting a friend out for coffee or suggesting a movie to see with a small group you already know.
• Plan activities for yourself
  You might feel disinclined to plan activities but having a schedule is a good way to become more proactive. Boosting your energy level and opting for a little extra adventure can be goals you pursue at a pace that feels challenging, but good. 

The idea with this strategy is not to push yourself to be something you’re not. Rather, simply aim for the more extraverted end of your own spectrum – and you might just find yourself at the happier end, too.

A note on neuroticism
Neuroticism hasn’t attracted as much research attention as extraversion, so we don’t have parallel findings about people acting emotionally stable (neuroticism’s opposite pole). As happiness research continues to thrive, such research may emerge.

Research sources:

(1) Hills, P., & Argyle, M. (2001). Happiness, introversion-extraversion and happy introverts. Personality and Individual Differences, 30(4), 595-608.

(2) Fleeson, W., Malanos, A. B., & Achille, N. M. (2002). An intraindividual process approach to the relationship between extraversion and positive affect: Is acting extraverted as ‘good’ as being extraverted? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(6), 1409-1422.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

Technorati Tags: happiness,personality,positive psychology,extraversion,happiness research,happiness strategies

Image: (eLi) under the terms of a creative commons license

Now, for the readers among us, there’s more good news. This month The Guardian reported the use of experimental reading groups as a form of therapy. ‘Bibliotherapy’ is being tried across a range of problems – including anxiety and depressive disorders, Alzheimer’s, learning disabilities,  motor-neurone disease and neurological and psychiatric disorders. The idea is to see if reading helps reduce pain and mental distress.

So far, the anecdotal results are heartening – but the scientific jury on bibliotherapy is still out.

Still, even an emeritus professor  like Raymond Tallis of Manchester University is open to the possibilities. He concedes in the article that reading could be therapeutic, especially in easing depression:

“…The pleasure of escape into a parallel world; the sense of control one has as a reader; and the ability to distance one’s self from one’s own circumstances by seeing them from without, suffered by someone else and gathered up into a nicely worked-out plot – somewhere around here is the notion of the Aristotelian purgation and Sartre’s idea of ‘the purifying reflection’.”

Purgation and purifying reflection notwithstanding, reading might offer respite from your daily ills. Whether you join a reading group, discuss books with friends or just lose yourself between the covers, why not add a little bibliotherapy to your repertoire of happiness strategies.

Textual healing

Here are a few books that have lifted my spirits. Feel free to share your own in the comments.

• Great Expectations by Charles DIckens
• Atonement by Ian McEwan
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

With thanks to my friend Kathy for letting me know about this interesting therapy.

Technorati Tags: Happiness,happiness strategies,reading,books,bibliotherapy,reading groups,books groups

Looking for a way to boost your happiness while reducing anxiety and depression?

New research from the UK’s Manchester Metropolitan University suggests artistic pursuits are a good choice.

Their  three year Treasury-funded project found participants ‘felt happier, empowered and more confident’ following creative endeavors such as:

• painting
• dance
• music
• story-telling

So what are you waiting for? Don that leotard, grab a crayon and color yourself happy!

Technorati Tags: happiness research,creativity

In Strategy 11 we saw there’s evidence that genes link to happiness via personality – which has a moderate-to-strong genetic component, emerges early, and stays stable-ish through life.

Psychologists believe personality can, to some extent, be reflected by 5 traits: agreeableness, openness,  conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism. These ‘Big-Five’  are dimensions, not types, so all 5 appear in everyone to some extent. And they don’t sum up a person – they’re simply helpful descriptive tools.

Of special relevance to happiness are neuroticism, a tendency to be anxious, moody and easily upset, and extraversion, an inclination toward sociability, optimism and activity. Quite a lot of research suggests there’s a personality-happiness link: that happiness relates positively to extraversion and negatively to neuroticism. (1; 2; 3).

This link – and the finding that personality doesn’t change much over your life – has led some psychologists in the past to say  happiness is genetically set (4). But these days psychologists see heredity as indirect – you can thwart unwanted aspects of personality by deliberate action (5) – such as avoiding triggering situations or consciously choosing to do things that may not come naturally.

Recent research supports the idea of a more indirect happiness-personality link:

• Personality is only one influence on happiness (4). Other factors play a part – and may even counteract personality effects – in a person’s happiness level.
• The happiness-personality link fades when you include happiness-generating behaviors (6).  (There’ll be much more on these in upcoming strategies). That is, happiness has a lot to do with a person’s actions.
• For instance, extraverts feel happier because they make more effort to manage their moods (7).

Happiness strategy: Make peace with your personality

If you’re inclined toward sociability, optimism and activity, celebrate your extraversion! If you’re naturally resistant to upsets, worry and bad moods, enjoy your freedom from neuroticism! And if you’re both extraverted and emotionally stable (the opposite pole of neuroticism) then congratulations – you have a happy personality (8)!

If, however, you recognize in yourself a more introverted temperament, or a leaning toward the neurotic, then you might like to notice the things you do that don’t serve your happiness, and choose different behaviors that may not come so naturally. For instance:

• Recognize your perspective may be skewed
  If you lean toward the neurotic, you might think in ways that promote worry, moodiness and upset. Don’t beat yourself up about it – but do recognize that the way you see things may not be constructive. Instead of giving worries and bad moods too much attention, consider seeing them as quirks of personality – and you may find they lose some of their bite.
• Find alternatives to ruminating
  Ruminating is an ineffective way of dealing with worry. If you catch yourself doing it, consciously switch to a more proactive strategy, like writing in a journal, talking with a friend, or brainstorming possible actions to take – anything that stops you endlessly re-hashing go-nowhere thoughts.
• Develop a repertoire of bad-mood busters
  Feeling bad can set you on a downward spiral of negative thinking. Instead, stage a mood intervention and do something to make yourself feel better – just like you might do for a friend. Activities that get you out of your head can be a welcome distraction – like books, movies, DVDs, (keep them light and fun), shopping, gardening, playing sport or games, or spending time with friends. 

These suggestions can help you develop a more emotionally stable approach to upsets. There’s also much to be gained from boosting your extraversion level – as we’ll see in the next strategy.

Research sources:

(1) Cheng, H., & Furnham, A. (2003). Personality, self-esteem, and demographic predictions of happiness and depression. Personality and Individual Differences, 34(6), 921-942.

(2) Hayes, N., & Joseph, S. (2003). Big 5 correlates of three measures of subjective well-being. Personality and Individual Differences, 34(4), 723-727.

(3) Headey, B., & Wearing, A. J. (1992). Understanding happiness: A theory of subjective well-being. South Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.

(4) Lykken, D., & Tellegen, A. (1996). Happiness is a stochastic phenomenon. Psychological Science, 7(3), 186-189.

(5) Lyubomirsky, S. (2001). Why are some people happier than others?: The role of cognitive and motivational processes in well-being. American Psychologist, 56(3), 239-249.

(6) Tkach, C., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2006). How do people pursue happiness?: Relating personality, happiness-increasing strategies, and well-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7(2), 183-225.

(7) Lischetzke, T., & Eid, M. (2006). Why extraverts are happier than introverts: The role of mood regulation. Journal of Personality, 74(4), 1127-1162.

(8) Francis, L. J., Brown, L. B., Lester, D., & Philipchalk, R. (1998). Happiness as stable extraversion: A cross-cultural examination of the reliability and validity of the Oxford Happiness Inventory among students in the U.K., U.S.A., Australia, and Canada. Personality and Individual Differences, 24(2), 167-171.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

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Image: dokuro hana under the terms of a creative commons license

Albert Schweitzer – humanitarian, prolific author and Nobel Peace Prize winner – said:

Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

If you find that hard to believe, you might like to take a(nother) look at 101 Happiness Strategies: How to be happy – 4. Be happy now.

In that happiness strategy we saw how, across a range of life areas like relationships, work and health, being happy:

- accompanies success
- precedes success
- and even seems to cause success.

So don’t put off happiness till you achieve your dreams. Be happy today and boost your chances of being successful at the things you desire.

Technorati Tags: Happiness,success,Albert Schweitzer,happiness strategies