Category: Positive psychology

Lesson: Happiness can help protect your mind and body Before the growth of positive psychology, most psychological research focused on people’s bad experiences. It was well known that negative emotional experiences could damage relationships, health and longevity. Not only that, but many studies suggested negative experiences, in general, had more influence on people than positive… Continue reading How to be happy – 3. Choose happiness for your health

Lesson: How to measure happiness So now we’re clear what we mean by ‘happiness‘. But how do researchers measure it? Since it’s subjective wellbeing we’re interested in, it makes sense that most research uses self-report questionnaires – that is, researchers find out how happy people are by asking them. There are various self-report questionnaires designed… Continue reading How to be happy – 2. Measure your happiness level

Lesson: Happiness is pretty big-picture Most of the research on happiness refers to subjective wellbeing* (SWB), sometimes called hedonic wellbeing. Here’s what researchers generally agree about SWB: It’s somewhat stable. Over time people tend to stay within a range of happiness, allowing of course for the inevitable ups and downs of life. It’s fairly consistent… Continue reading How to be happy – 1. Get clear about happiness