Happiness Strategies | How to be Happy

If you haven’t yet taken a tour on the Worldwide Telescope don’t wait another minute to hop aboard for this astonishing experience.

It’s like a best-of clip show from the world’s greatest telescopes, with the images merged into a seamless spatial panascope (I know there’s no such word, but you get what I mean).

It brings to life our humble place in this spectacular universe and ignites our sense of wonder. You can’t be jaded too long watching this.

If you can, Download this TEDTalk in high-def (recommended!) >>

Otherwise, watch the low-def version below:

There’ll be a free download later this year.

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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Image: PixelPet

1. Pay attention

You can’t retrieve information that doesn’t go into your memory in the first place - it’s like searching for a  file your never saved. If you want to remember something, make a point of noticing it - consciously.

Example

Want to remember where you parked the car in the 52-story movie car-park? Make a deliberate point of noticing the location (Red 45, or whatever) and even telling yourself ‘I’ve parked at Red 45′.

Cletus memory tip:

Take a photo of the ‘Red 45′ pylon with your camera phone. And don’t let Lurlene leave the phone in the car.

2. Hang it on a hook

Mnemonic systems are great for organizing your memories for easier retrieval. The idea is to link new information you want to remember to existing stuff you already know well.

Example

Say you want to remember 5 items to pick up at the shops: a magazine, toothpaste, chocolate, an iPod case and coffee beans. If it’s a path you know well, you could choose landmarks along the way: the entrance to the lane, the tunnel, the oval, traffic lights and the Chinese restaurant. Now you just link the new items you want to remember to the already well known landmarks. Be creative and OTT to help your memory.

Visualize:

• A huge pile of magazines blocking the lane entrance
• A choir of buskers brushing their teeth for money in the tunnel
• Chocolate bars jogging around the oval (give them sweat bands or leg warmers for a nice retro touch)
• Music blaring out of the traffic lights (if it’s anything from an Australian Idol contestant you could have people moaning and covering their ears for added realism)
• Coffee beans spilling out of the windows and doors of the Chinese restaurant.

Try it - it really works!

Cletus memory tip:

So does a list. Shell out for some post-its and save them brain cells for alcohol to do its work.

3. Play it again, Sam

Repetition strengthens the neural pathways and this helps ’set’ a memory. Mental rehearsal is a great way to establish those pathways.

Example

Want to remember someone’s name when you’re introduced? Repeat the name aloud immediately (’Charmed, I’m sure, Mr Hypotenuse’), then repeat it mentally after a few seconds, then after a few minutes and then perhaps after a half-hour.

Cletus memory tip:

Or you could just akks the dude what his dang name was again.

More Quick Tricks

Image: clsawyer

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.

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Happiness and childhood: do we need happier classrooms?

Image: stevekrh19