Happiness Strategies | How to be Happy

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

1. Write it down

A written rant is a neat way to let off steam. Not only does writing it down take the sting out of a situation, it can bring you all kinds of insights that elude you when you’re in the throes of throwing things.

2. Breathe

Inhale deeply. Exhale the yuck.

3. Have an out-of-body experience

Instead of losing yourself in a frustrating situation, observe how others respond. Watching others deal with the delayed flight, the rude waiter or the customer throwing a hissy fit and holding up the queue can take you out of your own skin and turn down the tension.

4. Be a boy scout

If you know the things that routinely rattle you, you can be prepared for them.

Hate being hassled by hawkers?
Have a big smile and a firm ‘Absolutely no thank you!’ ready to roll off your tongue.

Loath it when people/trains/planes are late?
Always have a book in your bag.

Irritated by inane chatter?
Carry an iPod loaded with music/podcasts/audiobooks.
(Warning: Not recommended if the inane chatterer is your boss/spouse/parole officer.)

5. Go to your happy place

Mine has chocolate, Pepsi Max and new episodes Arrested Development, Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars. Yours can be anything or anywhere you like, as long as it lowers your blood pressure and stops that vein from throbbing. Try lying on a warm beach, sailing a calm ocean or chilling to death metal.

6. Remember - it’s not always about you

If someone is being a giant clod, there’s a good chance they have iss-ewes that don’t concern you. They don’t mean to make you mad, you’re just collateral damage. This perspective can turn your anger into compassion. Or at least remind you that Tom Cruise wasn’t always this weird.

7. Smile

It’s very hard to be angry with a smile on your face. Just curl those lips and let the good feelings displace the bad. (Did you know the Mona Lisa’s smile was her anger-management strategy when told about Dan Brown by a clairvoyant? You can almost hear her screaming serenity now.)

Image: kiwanja

‘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?

Image: xianstudio

‘How long till the bus gets here?’

‘Should I walk instead?’

‘Maybe it’s just around the corner and then I’ll miss it.’

‘But if it’s not around the corner then how long till it gets here?’

If such Shakespearean dilemmas plaque your daily commute, you’ll be relieved to know there’s now a definitive, mathematically sanctioned solution to the bus-catcher’s bind.

New Scientist reports that Scott Kominers and some fellow Harvard mathematicians have come up with a formula for making the choice between waiting and walking - and you don’t even need a calculator.

Happiness life strategy

If neither option is clearly preferable (it doesn’t work if there’s a long wait between buses and a short walk to your destination or vice versa) then the formula says waiting, however vexatious*, is the preferred option.

Of course you can still choose to walk and get there later, but Kominers suggests you’ll save yourself frustration by making this decision pre-bus stop.

So put an end to vacillating and adopt Kominers’s solution. You’ll have a less stressful wait and a more relaxed ride - and you’ll probably be happier when you get where you’re going.

That is, unless you think you should take the train?

*My tip for making the wait less vexatious is to actually do The Bus Stop - simply copy the moves from the video. If nothing else, you’ll likely have the waiting area to yourself.

Image konr4d