A little help from my friends

According to The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want, "The happier a person is, the more likely he or she is to have a large circle of friends or companions, a romantic partner, and ample social support."  There are no big surprises in the author's recommendations for nurturing these relationships:  make time for each other, express appreciation and affection, celebrate each other's successes, share openly.

You really DO reap what you sow

The book The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want describes several experiments showing that subjects became measurably happier, and maintained this happiness for months, if--once per week--they were EXTRA nice.  One day per week the subjects deliberately did five more acts of kindness than they would normally do.  The good deeds could be small or big, public or anonymous.  All that mattered was that the participants kept varying the good deeds so that they didn't become a chore.

What if the people already were habitually nice?  Did they still become measurably happier if they spent one day a week being EXTRA nice?  Yes.  The boost happened regardless of whether the subjects were habitually nice or habitually callous.  I'd bet that, in general, nice guys are happier than jerks, but the evidence suggests that if you want a BIG boost in happiness, take your good deeds to a higher level once a week.

Will I try this technique myself or encourage my family to do it?  Probably not yet.  We're already doing some of the other things recommended in the book such as weekly reflection on the things we're grateful for.  The author of the "How of Happiness" suggests picking just a few of her techniques at a time so that you notice the results and make a lifelong commitment to your new habits.

Knowing where I'm going

I wrote last time about research showing that people are measurably happier if they spend a few minutes writing about how they would like their future to turn out.  Look ahead a few months, a year, maybe 5 years.

I think this would help me in two ways.  Not only would I be happier.  But I might do a better job of figuring out what I want long term.  I tend to focus on just the next month or two, without a clear plan for the long term.  Sometimes I think this hurts me at work.  I've had bosses who greatly appreciate the work I'm doing now but seem frustrated because they don't understand my long term vision for the areas I'm responsible to lead.  It probably hurts me at home, too.  Where do I want our family to go on vacation before the kids go off to college in five years?  What are our other long term goals?  It often seems that my wife does this longer term planning while I just play it by ear.  Spending time once per week picturing the future could help me get more control of the long term.

If everything goes right

The next proven way to be happy that is described in The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want involves picturing the best possible future for yourself in all the main parts of your life.  The technique works best if done in writing.  One researcher, Laura King, a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, had some subjects write about "their best possible selves" for 20 minutes per day for 4 days.  She had the control group write for 20 minutes as well, but they just wrote about other topics.  The people who described their best possible future were happier than the control group not only during the 4 day period but also for several weeks after the experiment was over.

One thing I like about the technique as described in the book:  you're supposed to imagine realistic, plausible best case scenarios.  You don't imagine yourself winning a Nobel Prize or conquering world hunger if these things aren't within reach.  Instead, you think, "Here's something that COULD easily happen that I would really like."  This is key for me because then I don't feel like I'm kidding myself.  The whole thing wouldn't work for me if I didn't really believe these dreams were within reach.

Just like the gratitude journal writing, I like the return on investment for this.  Spend just a few minutes once per week and gain a more optimistic outlook that stays with me the rest of the week?  Count me in!  This is another item that I'd like to incorporate into our weekly family meetings with the kids.  I can't ask them to write in journals every day, but I can ask them just once per week to describe what they are grateful for and then to tell the rest of the family something that they'd like to see happen for them in the next few years.

Thanksgiving Every Week

As I mentioned in my last post, the book The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want describes an experiment involving expressing gratitude in writing.  Some of the subjects in the experiment wrote down, once per week, five things they were grateful for.  They did this for 10 weeks.  The people in the control group wrote also once per week, but on any topic they wanted.  Those who listed what they were grateful for were measurably happier than the control group, and even had some physical health benefits.  This almost seems to me to be too good to be true.  But there is another way to think about it.

Thanksgiving happens just once per year.  Traditionally, people will talk about what they are grateful for.  It is a deeply cherished holiday, suggesting it has a real impact on people.  So is it really that hard to believe that a weekly gratitude journal would have a big impact on a person?  Isn't that like having Thanksgiving every week?

The How of Gratitude

The first "secret of happiness" recommended by this book is so easy that it feels like cheating!  It involves thinking grateful thoughts.  This can mean a constant sense of appreciation and gratitude, but it can also be as ridiculously easy as writing down 5 good things that happened to you once per week for 10 weeks in a row!  That would take, what, 30 seconds per week?  And yet that study found a measurable increase in happiness relative to the control group, more time spent exercising, and fewer physical symptoms such as headaches or coughing.  Other studies found similar results with similar tiny investments of time and effort by the subjects of the study.

Why does a small amount of practice thinking grateful thoughts provide a measurable boost to the average person's happiness?  According to the author, the number one reason grateful thoughts make such a difference is that they help you appreciate the good things that happen to you for a much longer time.  The author refers to something psychologists call "hedonistic adaptation".  This is a fancy way to say that most of us quickly get used to the changes in our lives, whether these changes are good or bad.  We feel happier or sadder for a while, but then return to our usual typical level of happiness.

Grateful people, on the other hand, continue to express how glad they are about their marriage, their promotion at work, their favorite television shows, their health, and their best friends.  They get more of a happiness boost from these things, and they sustain that boost much longer.

So how does one become more grateful?  The author's studies, and similar studies by other researchers, actually found that people who wrote in a gratitude journal just once per week gained more of a boost than people who wrote daily.  She speculates that subjects who wrote more often probably became more bored with their gratitude journals.

What do I want to do with this information?  We want to start weekly family meetings again sometime soon.  If we make each person in the family describe 5 things that they are grateful for, the studies suggest this alone will help us all become more grateful in general and happier.  But I do consider this a minimum.  I also want to continue other practices that I've been doing based on other books that are likely to further reinforce a sense of gratitude in my family and friends.  For instance The 10 Greatest Gifts I Give My Children: Parenting from the Heart recommends steering ordinary conversations, whenever they arrive, away from the negative and toward the positive.  When the kids are complaining about things, address these issues as needed but don't dwell on them.  Redirect them to the good things that happened during the day, the people they like, the stuff that's going well.  This works for kids, friends, people at work, and strangers.  It's a great way to spread a sense of gratitude to everyone you interact with.

The Happiness Pie

I just started reading The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want.  Sometimes my kids think that your happiness is mainly due to circumstances and luck, versus accepting the idea that their own habitual attitudes and thought patterns could play a role.  Does happiness just "happen" to them, or can they boost it by developing habits such as counting their blessings, imagining themselves reaching their goals, meditating, or practicing random acts of kindness?  In keeping with other books I've been reading, I don't want to just nag them into doing these things.  I want them to read solid, persuasive research that motivates them to cultivate these habits.

The first part of the book discusses the Happiness Pie.  The image on the cover shows the pie.  According to the author, studies have shown that, if you consider large groups of people, about 50% of the variation in their levels of happiness can be explained by heredity, 10% by temporary changes in their circumstances, and 40% by habits that anyone can easily develop.   (These are averages, of course.  If you have terminal cancer, this might become 80% of your individual pie).

These estimates are based on numerous studies of happiness by psychologists in the last couple of decades.  Studies of identical twins raised in different homes and families, in particular, have helped researchers estimate the distinct contribution of genetics to a person's typical level of happiness.

The easiest opportunities to boost your happiness lie in the 40% of the happiness pie generated by easily acquired habits.  This 40% is the tempting slice of the pie you see in the image on the cover.  You might be born with genes that predispose you to be relatively happy or relatively unhappy.  That's 50% of the pie.  You have no control over this.  Your current circumstances account for, on average, 10% of the pie.  You have some control of this part of your happiness.  But then you've got another 40% you can easily influence through your mental and behavioral habits.  This is the easy opportunity to boost your happiness that the author encourages readers to pursue.

How confident am I that the authors have these percentages right?  How solid is the research?  How precise can they really be?  I don't know, but does it really matter?  The numbers may not be exactly 50% genetic, 10% circumstance, and 40% mental habits, but my gut says that these percentages are plausible.  I see people who seem naturally happy or sad.  This fits with the 50% genetic idea.  It feels to me as if most people eventually return to about the same level of happiness even when their circumstances change (illness, jobs, family, etc.).  This fits with the idea that circumstances only account for 10%.  And then I've seen people permanently shift their happiness when they've changed their habitual attitudes and thoughts.  This fits with the 40% estimate.

The author spends most of the rest of the book discussing the habits anyone can learn which unleash the 40% of your potential happiness.  She describes 12 habits in all, and provides supporting research and practical recommendations for each of them.  I'll be writing about these habits in my next few blogs.