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More countries are measuring happiness – but are they measuring the right things? By Sam Wren-Lewis on behalf of Greater Good Science Center. Imagine two different societies. In the first, people tend to be stressed, tense, irritable, distracted, and self-absorbed. In the second, people tend to be at ease, untroubled, quick to laugh, expansive, and self-assured. The difference between these two imagined scenarios is vast. You’re not only more likely to be happier in the second scenario – you’re also more likely to be safer, be healthier, and have better relationships. The difference between a happy and an unhappy society is not trivial. We know that happiness matters beyond our desire to feel good. So, how can we create a happy society? The Buddhist nation of Bhutan was the first society to determine policy based on the happiness of its citizens, with the king of Bhutan famously claiming in 1972 that gross national happiness (GNH) was a more important measure of progress than gross national product (GNP). What makes a happy society? shutterstock/Illin Denis Many other countries have since followed suit – looking to move “beyond GDP” as a measure of national progress. For instance, the UK developed a national well-being program in 2010 and has since measured the nation’s well-being across ten domains, not too dissimilar to Bhutan’s approach. More recently, New Zealand introduced its first “well-being budget,” with a focus on improving the well-being of the country’s most vulnerable people. Such initiatives tend to broadly agree over the conditions required for a happy society. According to the World Happiness Report, there are six key ingredients for national happiness: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust, and generosity. RELATED: World Happiness Report Scandinavian countries – which typically top the global happiness rankings (Finland is currently first) – tend to do well on all these measures. In contrast, war-torn nations such as South Sudan, Central African Republic, and Afghanistan tend to do badly. So does happiness rely on these six key ingredients? The what, not the how I don’t think so. This approach is, ultimately, too simple – even potentially harmful. The problem is that it focuses on what happiness is, not how to achieve it. Clearly, things such as a good life expectancy, social support, and trust are good for us. But how we come to that conclusion may matter more than the conclusion itself. For instance, how do we know that we are measuring what is most important? The world happiness rankings largely rely on measures of life satisfaction. But it is far from obvious that such measures can account for important differences in emotional well-being. “According to the World Happiness Report, there are six key ingredients for national happiness: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust, and generosity.” Alternatively, perhaps we could ask people what they think matters. The development of the UK’s national well-being program took this approach, undertaking qualitative research to develop their ten domains of happiness. But this approach is also problematic. How do we know which of the ten domains are most important? The most important ingredients for one community may not be the same for another. Asking people is a good idea. But we can’t just do it once and then assume the job is done. Don’t get me wrong – I believe these kinds of initiatives are an improvement on more narrow ways of measuring national progress, such as an exclusive focus on income and GDP. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore their faults. There are parallels here with the pursuit of happiness on an individual level. We typically go about our lives with a list of things in our head that we think will make us happy – if only we get that promotion, have a loving relationship, and so on. Achieving these things can certainly improve our lives – and may even make us happier. RELATED: Why happiness is a choice But we are fooling ourselves if we think they will make us happy in a lasting sense. Life is too complicated for that. We are vulnerable, insecure creatures and will inevitably experience disappointment, loss, and suffering. By exclusively focusing on the things we think will make us happy, we blind ourselves to the other things in life that matter. Happiness 101 Psychologists are beginning to focus their attention not just on the ingredients of individual happiness, but also on the capacities people need to be happy within inevitably insecure and fragile circumstances. For instance, the so-called “second wave” of positive psychology is as interested in the benefits of negative emotions as positive ones. The mindfulness revolution, meanwhile, urges people to go beyond their notions of good and bad and instead learn how to accept things as they are. These approaches are less concerned with what conditions make people happy and more interested in how people can pursue happiness within conditions of insecurity and uncertainty. Family is one key to happiness shutterstock/Twinsterphoto The more we focus on our list of desired things, the more we fail to see what really matters. When we are certain of the things that make us happy, and urgently try to achieve them, we fail to appreciate the value of the things we already have and the multiple unknown opportunities we have yet to discover. When things inevitably go wrong in our lives, we blame others or ourselves instead of learning from what happened. Psychologists are beginning to understand the limits of this. Happy individuals tend to have humility as well as certainty; curiosity as well as urgency; and compassion as well as blame. We can apply these same lessons on a national scale. Creating a happier society requires not just promoting what matters, but also promoting the capacities for discovering what matters. “The more we focus on our list of desired things, the more we fail to see what really matters.” We know this on an institutional level. In education, we know that it is important to promote curiosity and a love of learning as well as good exam results. In academia, we know that, although we can discover important scientific truths, almost all of our current scientific theories might be surpassed by other theories and we should remain open-minded. We know that the appeal and relevance of religious institutions depends on balancing dogmatic teachings with mystery and curiosity — order and faith on the one hand, openness and flexibility on the other. Creating a happy society does not just depend on creating the right conditions. It also depends on creating the right institutions and processes for discovering those conditions. The irony is that members of the happy society described at the beginning of this article — who tend to be at ease, untroubled, quick to laugh, expansive, and self-assured — are probably less focused on what makes them happy and more focused on exploring what really matters — with humility, curiosity, and compassion. To actually create a happy society, we need measures and institutions that do much the same. ● This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. happiness.com is grateful to republish it with the kind permission of the Greater Good Science Center. greatergood.berkeley.edu

Mindfulness can help us maintain our well-being in the face of difficult situations. By Mitch Abblett on behalf of Greater Good Science Center. “You’re making Daddy late for work!” I said, standing over my then-three-year-old daughter with the winter coat I was insisting she wear. “No! I’m not wearing it!” Celia screamed. My anger surged. Thoughts of “I’m sick of this” and “She’s doing this on purpose” swept through my mind. I was scheduled to conduct a 9 a.m. parent training therapy session, and her resistance would make me late. Ironically, it was on 'mindful parenting'. Mindlessly, I pressed my agenda. Understandably, she pushed back. “NO!!” she yelled, dropping rag-doll-style to the kitchen floor. I lost it. Bending down nose to nose with her, I yelled: “Celia! Put on your f***ing coat!” She froze. I jammed the coat onto her, led her to the car, buckled her in, and drove to daycare. My daughter, usually chatty, was notably silent. Me? My cheeks burned red with the shame and self-doubt of a man completely convinced he was a 'horrible father.' And then, from the serene calm of the backseat, my daughter spoke up. “But daddy?” she asked. “What, Celia?” I expected the usual request for a snack, or for me to flip on her favourite Mickey Mouse songs. “But, daddy, I don’t want to wear my f***ing coat.” If you’re a parent, you may recognize yourself in this story. But let it soak in that I’m not only a dad, but also a child and family psychologist and a mindfulness author. Let yourself feel a bit better for all of your own angry, self-doubting, anxious, avoidant, or compulsive reactions to difficult circumstances. It happens to all of us. Getting angry or irritable in day-to-day life is normal shutterstock/George Rudy Even if you’re not a parent, you still have your own moments of surging thoughts and emotions leading to highly reactive and 'unskillful' behavior. Whether you’ve ruminated over a fight with a loved one or avoided work by taking a not-so-sick day, you’ve fallen prey to a negative habit of mind that is keeping you stuck and miserable. “Let yourself feel a bit better for all of your own angry, self-doubting, anxious, avoidant, or compulsive reactions to difficult circumstances. It happens to all of us.” In my new book, The Five Hurdles to Happiness, I describe five problematic and reactive habits of mind (or hurdles) that were originally identified in ancient contemplative and meditative traditions, and I explain how they affect our happiness, peace, compassion, clarity of mind, and effective action. Though these habits evolved for important reasons — to keep us safe from danger, for example — many of us find them less than useful in our modern world, where they can wreak havoc on our well-being. The five hurdles to happiness So, what are these five hurdles to happiness? Here's a brief description of each, with examples of how they can become obstacles in our lives. 1. Desire Craving for pleasurable experiences of people, places, or things. Desire for pleasure is completely normal. It’s compulsive craving that leads to excessive costs to our effectiveness and, in extremes, to the impairments and perils of addiction. For example, 8 per cent of U.S. adults have experienced an alcohol use disorder at some point in their lifetime. 2. Aversion Anger, frustration, and hostility when we perceive life circumstances 'shouldn’t' be as they are. We all get irritable and frustrated with daily life from time to time — it’s natural to want to 'push away' from aversive situations (and people). The problem is how toxic anger can be to our relationships, and even our physical health. 3. Mental fatigue The clouded, dull, sluggish state of mind that saps our concentration and ability to see others, the world, and ourselves clearly. We all 'zone out' on occasion, but when our minds regularly tune out the world around us because it’s unsatisfactory in some way, then we pay an unnecessary cost. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 26.5 per cent of individuals in the U.S. over the age of 16 report feeling unrested during the day, with 25 per cent reporting difficulty concentrating. 4. Restlessness Anticipating the threat of negative outcomes in the future, and a lack of abiding in the present. Our powerful human brain evolved to help us quickly and efficiently anticipate threats in our environment. When anxiety becomes extreme, though, it can seriously block us in everyday life. In a 12-month period, approximately 25 per cent of U.S. adults would meet diagnostic criteria for an anxiety disorder, and in 2004 anxiety disorders cost the European Union more than €41 billion. 5. Doubt Uncertainty about our situation and ourselves that blocks our ability to see the way forward with flexibility and our willingness to engage with challenges and demands in our daily lives. People with chronically high levels of self-doubt are much less confident and, for example, report lower self-esteem when presented with a memory task. Practice SNAPPing awake when hurdles arise While we can’t change experiences or objects that trigger us, we can shift how we relate to them — meaning, the thoughts, images, and uncomfortable bodily sensations that accompany them. How? Through learning about and practicing mindfulness. Mindfulness is a state of nonjudgmental paying of attention to one’s experience of the present moment and is key to detangling ourselves from habitual ways of responding. Cultivating mindfulness, we can learn to lean into habitual patterns when they show up and ultimately sidestep them, allowing for more consistent experiences of happiness and well-being. RELATED: 7 mindfulness tips for staying engaged As researcher Judson Brewer has demonstrated, mindfulness practices offer the possibility of severing habitual cycles at their source in the brain. For example, studies suggest that mindfulness can help us stop smoking, manage anxiety, and change problematic eating by cutting the link between conditioned cues in our environment and our habitual responses to those cues. We simply need to learn to leap over these hurdles to happiness with consistent practice. Here’s a sample of how you might practice doing so, by 'SNAPPing' awake: 1. Stop what you’re doing for just a moment when you can tell you’re getting triggered by something in your environment. 2. Notice with curiosity what is happening in your body and your mind. Witness and watch the energetic play of bodily sensations and the continuous flow of thoughts and mental images as each is born, lives, and passes on its own. 3. Allow these experiences to be just as they are, without judgment or attempts to control them. This doesn’t mean you’re signing up for discomfort or pain; you’re choosing to recognize what’s happening in the moment without trying to change it. Tackle uncomfortable bodily feelings with deep belly breathing shutterstock/fizkes 4. Penetrate uncomfortable sensations in the body with full, deep belly breaths, and continue to breathe in this way until you notice your experience shifting and your negative patterns of thought and feeling beginning to dissolve and become more flexible. 5. Prompt yourself to move or act with intention in the direction that feels most important and reflects compassionate care for others. Pause to remember to be kind to yourself and to appreciate your efforts in working with your habitual patterns. When bringing mindfulness to our habits, we build the skill of deeply listening to what these patterns are telling us about how we play defense against pain every day, and how we might learn to be with our body and mind with spacious presence and clear awareness. That way, we can look at our lives with less distortion and leap forward with more purpose and direction. I certainly have tried to practice bringing mindfulness to my own habit loops, and Celia, now nine years old, is the prime beneficiary. It’s easier for me to slow down before I slide into my old, unhealthy, reactive 'Abblett anger.' And I’ve got the absence of F-bombs in recent years to prove it! ● Main image: shutterstock/Olga Danylenko This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. happiness.com is honoured to republish it with the kind permission of the Greater Good Science Center. greatergood.berkeley.edu

Researchers are exploring how our everyday thoughts and feelings contribute to our well-being. By Kira M. Newman on behalf of Greater Good Science Center. Last month, researchers from over 60 countries gathered at the International Positive Psychology Association’s 6th World Congress in Melbourne, Australia, to share cutting-edge insights on the science of well-being. Their findings added depth and complexity to our understanding of the major keys to a flourishing life. In Melbourne, we heard about when kindness makes us happier — but also when it doesn’t. We learned how the elderly can be meaningfully engaged in helping others. We discovered many concrete ways to boost our sense of meaning in life, and how cultural differences influence the pursuit of happiness. Researchers also addressed modern obstacles to happiness — from the way we’re hooked on technology to a widespread sense of disconnection and loneliness. RELATED: 11 things to do if you're feeling lonely However, there were several insights presented at the World Congress that stood out to me as new or surprising. Here are some of the emerging pathways to well-being that positive psychology is just beginning to explore, and the exciting potential they might hold. 1. Positive solitude Researchers have repeatedly found that social connection is one of the keys to happiness. And for many of us, feeling separated from other people translates into a sense of loneliness and disconnection. But does solitude have to be a negative experience? Can time alone feed our well-being? Researchers Martin Lynch, Sergey Ishanov, and Dmitry Leontiev at Russia’s National Research University Higher School of Economics have investigated the phenomenon of positive or “productive solitude,” in contrast with the more unpleasant experience of being alone. Productive solitude doesn’t occur because we feel disconnected from others; it’s something that we deliberately seek out. Rather than being lonely or ruminating on negative experiences, we use the solitary time for contemplation, reflection, or creativity. People who experience positive solitude tend to feel more positive emotions — in particular, the low-energy ones like relaxation and calm. According to research by Leontiev, when these people do find themselves alone, they have a greater sense of pleasure and meaning — and less of a sense of void. Alone time: positive solitude shutterstock/phovoir What kind of people enjoy their alone time? Positive solitude seems to come more naturally to those who are more introverted or higher in emotional and psychological maturity. What if you don’t have those traits? We might see more benefit in solitude if we deliberately schedule alone time for doing something we enjoy, for example, or spend our solitary time in the peaceful and welcoming setting of nature. Future research may uncover other ways for all of us to cultivate new attitudes toward solitude so we can appreciate it more — and be happier for it. 2. Feeling active One of the traditional surveys that researchers use to measure positive emotions includes a peculiar statement: “I feel active.” For researcher Sarah Pressman, that didn’t quite seem like a positive emotion — not the way other feelings like “grateful” or “happy” are — so she decided to investigate it further. Past research would suggest that people who experience more positive emotions are healthier in various ways — for example, they have stronger immune systems, exercise more, have a lower risk of heart disease, and even live longer. But what role does feeling “active” play in our health and well-being? A significant one, it turns out. According to analyses by Pressman and her colleagues, feeling active accounted for a sizable portion of the link between positive emotions and different measures of health. (For men, feeling active was the positive emotion that predicted how long they would live.) But feeling active didn’t exactly correspond to how much physical activity people engaged in. “Rather than being lonely or ruminating on negative experiences, positive solitude uses time for contemplation, reflection, or creativity.” In other words, it doesn’t just matter how physically active we are, but how active — how energetic, vigorous, and vital— we feel. That’s a psychological state that researchers should pay more attention to, Pressman believes. The little we know comes from the workplace, where studies have described the phenomenon of “relational energy”: how some people excite and energize us while others leave us drained and exhausted. But what makes us feel active and how else is that beneficial? It remains to be determined who these energetic people are, and whether we can all get happier by boosting the pep in our step. 3. Future-mindedness As we pursue happiness, we often ponder the future — and the kinds of things that will make us feel good tomorrow or next year. Even though our predictions aren’t always accurate, the simple act of contemplating the future might be a key to well-being. According to social psychologist Roy Baumeister, happy and optimistic people tend to think about the future more often than their less-upbeat counterparts. Thinking about the future seems to come in two flavors: First, we dream big and imagine fantasy outcomes; then, we “get real” and come up with pragmatic plans. Future first: daydreaming ahead shutterstock/Ollyy Thinking about the future is useful personally and in our relationships. For example, research suggests that people whose minds tend to wander toward the future develop more concrete goals. And if you’re having a conflict with a romantic partner, looking at it from a future perspective — imagining how you would think about it one year from now — could lead to less blame, more forgiveness, and greater well-being in your relationship. When the process of imagining positive futures (and how to bring them about) goes awry, we may be at risk of mental health issues. Researchers have suggested that faulty future-mindedness — envisioning a darker future for yourself — contributes to depression, anxiety, and other disorders. For this reason, perhaps, many popular therapies — such as future-oriented therapy, hope therapy, solution-focused therapy, and cognitive-behavioral therapy — help clients improve the way they think about the future. If you want to improve your future-mindedness without therapy, another option is to journal about new doors that have opened or might open in your life. RELATED: Gratitude journals – travels to our interior According to Martin Seligman, a pioneer of the field of positive psychology, people and societies themselves may be becoming more future-minded today. We are thinking not just about what we can achieve in the future ourselves, but what we can all achieve together. For the attendees of the World Congress, at least, that means spreading the knowledge and practice of well-being to more and more people, in the hopes of creating a better world for everyone. ● Main image: shutterstock/asife This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. happiness.com is honoured to republish it with the kind permission of the Greater Good Science Center. greatergood.berkeley.edu

With age comes wisdom and experience, but also the possibility of cognitive impairment such as memory loss and poor judgement. But, as Ed Gould writes, there are five key ways to fight off these problems and boost your brain matter. Although the brain isn't a muscle, exercise can stimulate its growth and regeneration in a similar way to a physical workout, providing greater muscularity. Research in the field of neuroplasticity has shown that many aspects of the brain can be altered, even into adulthood. Indeed, by building new brain tissue, it's possible to overcome cognitive impairment. Recent studies have shown that physical exercise can improve brain functions. In one research paper published by Elsevier Inc., it was discovered that a key player in intracellular proteolysis – Cathepsin B – was found to be secreted in the body in greater quantities in runners than in people who had taken no exercise. Put simply, this means that the memory function of the human brain is improved by simply taking exercise. Psychologists including Dr Matthew Edlund, who has published books such as Designed to Last, have pointed out that similar restorative effects on the brain which have been derived from physical activity have been found in other species, too. So, should we work our brains like a muscle if we want to feel higher happiness in some cognitive training programme? Well, yes. But that's not the full story. For anyone wishing to overcome cognitive impairment, then other things, such as social activities, are just as important. Five ways to fight cognitive impairment In all, there are five different categories to consider if you want to be happier in yourself and to avoid the sort of cognitive impairment problems such as memory loss and poor judgement that are all too prevalent in older age. Let's examine what we can all do to keep our brains in good condition so that we feel better about ourselves right now and in the future. 1. Cognitive training and new learning In fact, as far as your brain function is concerned, it matters little what you learn, so long as you keep engaging in learning itself. According to the Alzheimer's Association, a body which knows a thing or two about cognitive impairment, there are plenty of tasks we can give our brains which will guard against the condition in the future. According to the Association, formal education is known to reduce the risk of cognitive decline and dementia. Crucially, this is the case, no matter when it's taken in life. If you think that attending classes is for children or for people who need to upskill during the early part of their career, then you're right. However, that learning is also for middle-aged people and recently retired folk is equally as valid. Regarding happiness and fighting off cognitive impairment, there can be few better tactics than learning about something you're already interested in a formal way. Picture perfect: learning a new skill can help reduce cognitive impairment Cognitive training might take the form of learning a foreign language ahead of an overseas holiday, or studying a little art history to make that next trip to the gallery a more informed experience. However, if a classroom environment is not for you, then why not consider other methods of engaging your brain with new skills. Meditation, bridge classes or logic puzzles will train your brain to work in new ways, especially games which need you to think strategically. Such activities have been widely researched in study programmes – many of them indicating clear beneficial outcomes for the brain. 2. Social activities Selfless though it might seem, joining a local community volunteer group might be the best thing you ever do for yourself. Like cognitive training, being social creates better brain functions because it forces the brain to work in specific ways. If you're locked away from the world to an extent, then not being sociable can become a habit. It may lead to the brain's neural pathways shifting over time to the extent that you never feel like engaging in social activities again. To prevent this, take affirmative steps to ensure you're not cut off from your neighbours, family and friends. “Regarding happiness and fighting off cognitive impairment, there can be few better tactics than learning about something new you're interested in.” Taking a role in your local community does not merely derive benefits for those around you; it will help your brain to remain active in a meaningful way, which will help to prevent neural problems in future. Of course, just being around people is often enough to induce the brain's chemicals that make us feel better about ourselves, so-called happiness hormones. Chatting, interacting, learning and teaching are all things that will help to keep your brain active, too. Throwing yourself into a new group is an excellent way of proceeding but – let's be honest – this isn't for everyone. Some of us are shy, and this great leap can seem too much, to begin with, anyway. If you want to take care of your brain, then take smaller steps to start with. Why not pick up the phone to a friend you haven't spoken to in a while and just ask them how they are? It's a great way to get the ball rolling, and strong social connections are a main ingredient for a good life. Get chatty: reduce cognitive impairment through being social 3. Nutritional intake Like any part of our bodies, brains are made of the matter we consume. Without the right ingredients, it's hard for the body to make the right proteins and enzymes for regeneration. In other words, the brain needs you to eat healthily for it to continue functioning correctly as you age and avoid cognitive impairment. On the face of it, eating healthily for a part of the body to remain healthy is obvious, right? However, you should bear in mind that a healthy brain is also likelier to mean a happier life, so it's not just about your physical well-being, but your mental well-being, too. RELATED: Good mood food According to a study by Martha Clare Morris, et al, of the Department of Internal Medicine at the Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago, a hybrid of a Mediterranean and a so-called stop hypertension diet will slow down cognitive decline. Morris' work dealt with 923 participants who were aged from 58 to 98 years and engaged in what is often referred to as a DASH diet. Essentially, such a diet is low in trans fats, rich in potassium and calcium, and requires a smaller salt intake. By limiting dairy and meat in favour of vegetables, whole grains and fruit, you can eat your way to a healthier brain. “The brain needs you to eat healthily for it to continue functioning correctly as you age and avoid cognitive impairment.” Long considered to be good for the brain, the consumption of fish is also useful. According to a 2014 paper in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, baked or broiled fish eaten on a weekly basis will mean you have more grey matter – on average – compared with people who don't have this level of consumption. Bear in mind that fried fish did not make up any part of the research, however. Also, the fatty acids, like omega-3, found in fish seem to work better when consumed as food rather than as a dietary supplement, as reported in Time magazine. Perhaps this suggests fish have some unknown improving effect on brains? Dish the fish: it's a great brain-boosting food 4. Physical activity People who are physically active tend to have better brain health. As mentioned already, recent scientific studies have shown the connection between running and brain regeneration, but that's far from the full story. Of course, activities like swimming, dancing or even brisk walking will all release endorphins into the body. Not only is it good for the brain to become a little breathless due to exercise, it makes you feel happier due to the release of these endorphins. Some scientists have suggested that the body functions this way because the build-up of carbon dioxide in the body caused by exercise is balanced by the kick of natural opioids. In other words, your body rewards you with a natural high if you exercise. Few people who take regular exercise would argue that they don't feel better as a result of working out, not just while they do it, but for a significant time afterwards. “Activities like swimming, dancing or even brisk walking will all release endorphins into the body.” It's important to note that exercise is not just about maintaining good cognitive abilities. It can help the brain recover where it might have been going into decline. According to research by Elise Wogensen, et al., of the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, exercise in a large number of cases can promote cognitive recovery after an injury that the brain has sustained. Although there are some factors which are still to be established as to how this works, Wogensen's work indicates strongly that physical activity and restoring brain functions are linked, and that the rehabilitation of 'lost' brain functions is possible. Work out wonder: exercise releases endorphins, your 'happy' hormones 5. Management of heart health risk factors According to the Alzheimer's Association, the factors that are already known to impact on heart health and which combat heart disease are also fully linked to delaying or even preventing the onset of dementia. One of these is taking frequent exercise. Other measures include stopping smoking and reducing stress. Heart health can also be maintained better by keeping on top of obesity levels and of reducing blood cholesterol, both important to future brain health, too. Lastly, it should be said that anyone who has diabetes should manage this in a way that is conducive to good heart health. If so, then the brain is likely to be kept in good condition as well. ● Main image: colourbox.com happiness.com | The fine art of being: learn, practise, share Are you a happiness.com member yet? Sign up for free now to enjoy these benefits: ■ our happiness magazine with practical life tips and inspiration ■ share knowledge and help support others in our happiness forum ■ learn and self-develop with free online classes in our happiness Academy CBT | Friendship | Family activities | Positive thinking | Forgiveness Written by Ed Gould Ed Gould is a UK-based journalist and freelance writer. He's a practitioner of Reiki.

Governmental psychologist Dóra Guðmundsdóttir explains what makes a society flourish. By Jill Suttie on behalf of Greater Good Science Center. The World Happiness Report comes out every year, providing some data about how well-being varies from country to country and how it shifts within a country from one year to the next. But what makes some countries happier than others? Dóra Guðmundsdóttir is one of many researchers around the world studying happiness and well-being at the population level. By analyzing large data sets, she's helped to uncover the “epidemiology of well-being” — how different groups within a country are faring in response to changing social and economic forces, such as inequality, recessions, and education policies. By understanding these effects, she helps a country’s politicians and policymakers make better decisions to support the well-being of their citizens. To date, she's worked with the government in her home country of Iceland, where she is the director of determinants of health and wellbeing at the Directorate of Health. I recently interviewed Guðmundsdóttir about her research and what we can do to build more flourishing societies. Jill Suttie: What made you interested in studying social or environmental factors influencing happiness? Dóra Guðmundsdóttir: When I started studying the causes of happiness, I became very interested in the “causes of the causes” of happiness — meaning, the environmental factors that keep people from feeling connected, safe, and autonomous, all of which contribute to happiness. Even though many individual choices affect happiness, how easy or difficult it is to make those choices often depends on social or environmental factors, like government welfare programs or gender equality, for example. JS: According to the World Happiness Report, happiness has been decreasing around the world (as a whole) and there is more “happiness inequality” within countries. Why do you think that’s the case? DG: There might be many reasons for a decline in happiness. One of them might be higher expectations. In many countries, people are faring better each year — living longer, healthier lives. So, maybe people have a stronger sense that they have the right to feel good. It may also be that many people are more open about their mental health so they are more willing to say when they're unhappy. Or it might be that younger generations have less tolerance for adversity and pain (both physical and mental) than previous generations. RELATED: Happiness across different cultures In terms of inequality, there has always been more happiness inequality within countries than between countries. We also see that there is more happiness inequality within municipalities than between municipalities in the same country. It would be helpful to look at those who score high in happiness and those who score low, and then monitor changes in both, to see how policies impact these groups differently. But our current measure of happiness gives us only a very limited view of the situation. We need broader measures of mental well-being to better understand differences. Icelanders are well-known for their happy nature © shutterstock.com JS: This year, Iceland was ranked as the fourth-happiest country in the world. What is it about Iceland that makes the people there so happy? DG: According to studies around the world, it seems that the most important contributor to happiness is one’s social relationships. In a small country like Iceland, it's quite easy to be in good contact with your family and friends. The majority of the population lives within an hour’s drive from the Reykjavik capital area. Another important factor related to happiness is health, and the health status in Iceland is quite good compared to other countries. We have the lowest infant mortality rate in the world and one of the highest life expectancies; the majority of citizens have access to good-quality health care. RELATED: Happiness – what is it exactly? Iceland is also a very peaceful nation — for example, we have never had an army. There's a high level of trust in the society, too. Children can go places freely and play outside without supervision. Icelanders also have quite a bit of control over their lives. They have access to quality education, whatever the educational background of their parents. And Iceland is the country with the narrowest gender gap in the world, where it's now illegal to pay women less than men for the same job. “According to studies around the world, it seems that the most important contributor to happiness is one’s social relationships. In a small country like Iceland, it's quite easy to be in good contact with your family and friends.” All of this makes it easy and acceptable to try out different things, so people do not feel that they are stuck in a particular path they have not chosen. Their level of safety and autonomy probably has a big impact on their happiness. JS: How much — and in what ways — is happiness affected by economic forces, according to your research? DG: Income only predicts one per cent of the happiness in Iceland when other factors are taken into account. That means making a higher income is not going to lead to more happiness, necessarily — it’s a fairly low predictor [of happiness] compared to social relations. RELATED: Money can't buy happiness (except when you spend it like this) At the same time, the biggest predictor for unhappiness is having financial difficulty. Those who find it difficult to make ends meet have the lowest happiness score of all groups, lower than those without a job and those with the lowest income. This means that those with the lowest income are not necessarily the same group as those with financial difficulties. There are people with high incomes who have financial difficulties, and that is worse for your happiness than having a lower income with no financial difficulties. JS: You’ve been looking at research around how economic disasters affect well-being in a country. What are your most surprising findings? DG: When we studied the effects of the banking system collapse in Iceland, we found that happiness among adolescents went up after the collapse, even though the happiness levels of adults went down. That’s because after the collapse, adults were working fewer hours, which meant parents had more time to spend with their adolescents. As it became easier for the adolescents to get emotional support from their parents, their happiness increased, even though working less may have resulted in a lower GDP [Gross Domestic Product] for the country. The natural beauty of Iceland brings joy to many JS: Do you think that having greater levels of happiness in the population acts as a kind of buffer against strong economic downturns? DG: Yes. When a person faces a challenge, it's likely that the level of well-being before the challenge would play a role in the impact of the challenge. A person who has low well-being and has few resources to handle adversity might be more vulnerable than a person high in well-being with more resources. In our study, we saw that adolescents who had strong relationships with their parents were not harmed by the economic crisis, while those who had weak relations with their parents had a decrease in their happiness. So, good relations with parents are not only good for your happiness but can also act as a buffer (protecting factor) for your well-being in times of crisis. JS: How have governments responded to your research and used it to create policy? DG: In 2007, public health authorities in Iceland decided to include public mental well-being measures in a national survey on Health and Wellbeing. That decision had an impact on both health policies and policies for the whole society. Well-being measures were then used as an indicator in the development of the Health 2020 policy for Iceland, as well as in the broader governmental policy for the economy and community, named Iceland 2020 and led by the prime minister. “Income only predicts one per cent of the happiness in Iceland when other factors are taken into account. That means making a higher income is not going to lead to more happiness, necessarily.” Public health indicators, including indicators of happiness and well-being, are published every year for seven health districts, providing profiles for each district. These profiles reflect the strengths and challenges in each district, which enables health authorities, municipalities, and other stakeholders to prioritize, plan, act, and evaluate according to the best available knowledge. For example, this information has been used to distribute financial resources for mental health services around the country. Additionally, municipalities (who score below the country average in happiness) have used the results to develop an action plan to increase happiness among their citizens. Close proximity to family helps Icelanders happier JS: What still needs to be done to increase resilience in your country, in your opinion? DG: In order to increase resilience, it's important to teach skills in schools — like, coping, self-efficacy, social and emotional learning, and mindfulness. Fortunately, we got funding from EU Horizon 2020 for developing a training program on mental resilience in schools in five European regions. The project is called UPRIGHT, and its general objective is to promote mental well-being and prevent mental disorders by enhancing resilience capacities in youths. It was designed by psychologists, pedagogists, methodologists, and technology experts from around Europe, and will focus on increasing resilience in adolescents (12-14 years of age), their families, and schools; validating the effectiveness of the program; and providing scientific evidence on specific resilience factors that contribute to promote positive mental well-being. JS: What do you think other countries can learn from your research? DG: Countries need measures beyond GDP to help them with policy planning. It’s very important to measure happiness and well-being on a national and local level and offer the results to the public, because what you measure gets attention! When you present well-being results to the public, it opens people’s eyes about differences in well-being and creates a desire to understand why the situation is like this and what can be done to improve it. It’s only when citizens ask for change that politicians listen and act. ● Main image: shutterstock/Aleksei Potov Written by Greater Good Science Center This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. happiness.com is honoured to republish it with the kind permission of the Greater Good Science Center. greatergood.berkeley.edu

In the final part of her series, Sienna Saint-Cyr looks at yoga for mood swings. Learn how to calm the shift in your mood through this set of yoga poses. As I ventured into the final part of this yoga series looking at yoga for mood swings, I began to see something pop up again and again: our moods are vital to us living a happy life. Psych Central, the Journal of Depression and Anxiety, Psychologist World and many more sources agree that happy people live healthier lives and make better decisions. Through that, happy folks bring more positive experiences into their lives. The sources also agree that our mood directly affects our happiness. Indeed, it takes mere seconds for even the most fortunate people I know to go from beaming with joy to being sour-faced and irritated. It's in this moment that we need to build resilience. Rapid changes in mood are due to the vast amount of stimuli that can affect us. We might get cut off in traffic, receive a bad review at work, hear a song, or even get a whiff of a random smell that can trigger a mood shift. Even when I'm happy overall in life, I can lose the feeling for days at a time if I don’t address my current mood of anger, sadness, fear or anxiety. When my current mood takes centre stage, all my focus shifts there. If the mood is a slight shift, I don’t tend to notice, and both the emotion and my overall happiness can coexist within me. But the moment my emotion moves to a place of being the focus, then it tends to hide my happiness from me. Mood swings and yoga Since yoga was doing so well for me in other areas, I began looking at Adriene’s videos on mood. I’d already used hers for compassion yoga and gratitude yoga, so this was a natural place to search. To my surprise, she had several options to choose from. I decided to try yoga for mood swings. This one called to me most because in the description Adrienne mentioned life’s little annoyances and how they can shift our mood fast. She also mentioned the stress hormones such as Cortisol and how yoga can help with these. According to the American Psychology Association, this hormone is natural to the body and helps regulate certain systems, but when there's too much of it flowing, it can cause adverse effects. So, when there's too much Cortisol in the system, it’s time to give it the boot! .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; } Y Yoga for mood swings from Adriene The practice: yoga for mood swings In her yoga for mood swings video, Adriene begins with a suggestion to let go and not worry about ‘doing it right’ for this practice. Her focus is more on the body’s needs, so she suggests allowing whatever is going on to exist. To do this, she keeps the practitioner in Sukhāsana (Easy pose) for longer than I found in other videos. In this cross-legged sitting position there's a heavy focus on breath and listening to the body rather than movement. As she brings the hands into play, Adriene gives the option to have soft hands or active hands. This was helpful because when we’re angry, we may want more pressure and use of our muscles. Personally, I found that I was able to release anger more efficiently when I maintained active muscles. On the contrary, when I'm sad or depressed, keeping my muscles soft assisted in releasing those emotions more effectively. The heavy focus on listening to our body in this video made a significant difference in the way I worked through my current mood. Another aspect of this practice that I felt helped me was the release portion. Rather than suggest the practitioners release slowly, she suggested doing what felt right at that moment. It might be jerky and fast, slow and steady, or whatever we need to release our emotion. When I was angry, the quicker and firmer movements helped. When I was sad, the slower releases from poses was most effective. “In her yoga for mood swings video, Adriene begins with a suggestion to let go and not worry about 'doing it right' for this practice. Her focus is more on the body's needs.” We then moved into Downward Dog, then into Walk the Dog. The walking kept my legs active. I was again surprised to notice that even when I did the practice during a sad moment, by the time we’d reached this spot in the video, the walking and active legs part was helping. Even though prior, the softer muscles worked best. I took this as a sign that the releasing was working and I made a conscious note of it. Had I started with Walk the Dog, it would have added to my sad mood rather than help it. Yoga for mood swings: downward dog pose After Walk the Dog we went back to a seated position and stayed there through the rest of the video, placing much focus on stretching. This was to bring us back into our 'flow', as Adriene calls it. The flow we have when the little things don’t happen to shift our mood. Adriene maintains positive affirmations throughout the yoga for mood swings video, things like, “I am supported”, which I found incredibly helpful in combination with the poses. She ended with the Reclining Goddess pose, also known as Supta Baddha Konasana. The moment I was in this pose, I felt relief from the emotions that had affected my mood so much. I don’t know why it worked, but it just did. Perhaps because spreading my legs open in such a manner forces my heart upward at the same time as it puts me in a vulnerable position at my base. As a victim of sexual abuse, opening my legs can be a struggle, even when I’m alone. The more I trust myself and the situation, the easier it becomes to open them. RELATED: Healing trauma with yoga But no matter how safe I feel, that position still makes me feel very vulnerable. But when I’m able to feel vulnerable rather than shut it down, it means that I’m working through whatever is causing me emotional pain. Yoga for mood swings: Reclining Goddess pose Shifting mood and thought I wholeheartedly believe that proper yoga for mood swings can change our attitude. If I was doing the wrong kind, like a bunch of super soft poses while I was full of rage, I don’t think that would be helpful. But with Adriene's method of listening to our body’s needs, we can embrace what our instincts tell us and work through the emotions that are sucking the happiness from us. We will always be affected by our surroundings. We live in a chaotic world the majority of the time. Having the tools to stop, breathe, listen to our body, then move in a manner that releases, could change how we go about our day. Imagine if I was in line at the grocery store and someone cut in front of me knowing I was there first. No matter what I chose to do at that moment, I’d still have emotions around what happened. I might get angry and say something. I might decide to suck it up and not start an argument. But either way, I’m going to feel slighted. If I don’t deal with the emotion at that moment, it would add to the list other things that happened that day until I became overwhelmed and full of rage. “Having the tools to stop, breathe, listen to our body, then move in a manner that releases, could change how we go about our day.” But what if I recognized my anger and what the person did, tuning into my body right there in the line? I could focus on my tense muscles. Listen to my body and what it needed. Then I could stretch or move onto my toes to activate my calf muscles. Many things could be done to release the feeling right there. And this means I don’t need to carry what happened beyond the store. By shifting my thoughts on how to respond to others, I can also change my mood. If we all began behaving in this manner, the chaos that so many of us know would eventually cease to exist. Yoga for happiness: series conclusions If you haven’t checked them out yet, please read part one: Compassion Yoga and part two: Gratitude Yoga as well as this one on yoga for mood swings. This series is designed to give us tools that will assist with the pursuit and ability to maintain happiness and introduce mindfulness, also for those who have difficulties with meditation. From my experiences, Adriene’s yoga series worked for achieving a greater level of happiness. But I had to commit to it completely. This experience taught me that balancing the mind, body and soul becomes easier when incorporating the practices of yoga and mindfulness. I now pay attention to my thoughts, my body and the tension in it, and my gut, which will conflict with my thoughts more often than I care to admit. These parts of me make up the whole me and keeping them in balance is vital to me being present, complete, and happy. Namaste! ● Images: colourbox.com happiness.com | The fine art of being: learn, practise, share Are you a happiness.com member yet? Sign up for free now to: ■ enjoy our happiness magazine with practical life tips ■ share and support in our happiness forum ■ self-develop with free online classes in our Academy Mindfulness | Stress management | Burnout Written by Sienna Saint-Cyr Sienna Saint-Cyr is an author, advocate, and the founder of SinCyr Publishing. She speaks at conventions, workshops, and for private gatherings on the importance of having a healthy body image, understanding enthusiastic consent, using sexuality to promote healing, navigating diverse or non-traditional relationships, having Complex PTSD, and more. Sienna loves sharing her journey of healing and finding happiness with her readers. Along with writing erotica and romance, Sienna speaks at conventions, workshops, and for private gatherings on such sex-positive topics as a healthy body image, using sexuality to promote healing, and navigating diverse or non-traditional relationships. She writes for several websites. Find out more.

The discovery of a so-called 'happiness gene' might suggest that happiness is genetic, but as Ed Gould finds out, much more is at play than just our DNA when shaping life satisfaction. Is happiness genetic and could there be a happiness gene? These are long-debated questions, and to answer them, we first need to consider what we define happiness as. According to a 1998 publication by Martin Seligman, one of the chief exponents of positive psychology, positive emotions are what constitute happiness. That would seem to be a reasonable definition of a term which is widely used in psychology and elsewhere but which means differing things to different people. Yes, you can think of happiness as the release of certain endorphins in the body that give us as certain neurological 'hit' – so-called 'happiness hormones', but surely there's more to it than that? What about contentment and the satisfaction that comes from well-being? Don't these count as happiness, too? So, before we start to get into the nitty-gritty of asking 'is happiness genetic?', let's just take Seligman's definition of what happiness is. Even if you think a wider – or, indeed, a narrower – definition will be a truer reflection of happiness, it doesn't mean that the more potent question cannot be asked: is happiness genetic? The factors that make up happiness Think about it for a moment. If creating positive emotions is what happiness is all about, then surely happiness is the outcome of behavioural pursuits? We've already discussed the scientific ways in which people have been shown to be able to increase happiness levels. There are lots of them, after all, anything from building high-quality social relationships to daily exercise has been proven by science to lead to greater well-being. Is happiness genetic? DNA holds some answers. © shutterstock/ktsdesign That said, no one is claiming that it's behaviour alone that leads to greater happiness. Nor would many people in the scientific community claim that any of the behavioural techniques they espouse have a 100 per cent success rate. If you exercise more and practise gratitude in your daily life, then you're likely to feel happier. But you also might not. The environmental factors that surround happiness can only be mitigated for by the things you do. Some people will feel happier than others as a result of their activities. Others might only gain limited results. So, what's going on? Throughout the history of psychology, there has been a long-standing debate about environment factors and innate ones; the so-called 'nature versus nurture' debate. It's still a discussion that is very much alive today, especially when asking if happiness is inherited or not. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; } In the genes: do you have happiness in your genetic make-up? These days, most psychologists would agree that in any given situation, both nature and nurture are at play. This appears to be the case with the pursuit of happiness, too. To put it simply, Seligman is right. Positivity – no matter what you do to create it in your life – will make you feel happier. Whether it's the luck of holding down a steady job and not facing significant financial worries, or the chance of enjoying good bodily health, you can make the most of these external factors. Indeed, as we have seen, you can build on them through your own endeavours, too. That's self-nurturing, if you will. Related: Measuring happiness – how and why What's not in your control, of course, is your DNA, your genome and your genetic disposition to happiness. Just as you cannot control the natural pigmentation in your skin, hair and eyes, so you cannot control any aspect of your genes. The questions scientists have posed – is there a happiness gene and 'is happiness genetic?' –have received some important attention. The happiness gene It's a bit of a misnomer, but scientists have already identified the so-called happiness gene. The gene in question is the rather un-catchily titled 5-HTTLPR (so, perhaps its nickname as the 'happiness gene' makes it a little more memorable, at least!). Various studies into the gene have concluded that it does play a big part in how conditions like depression functions within the brain. Not everyone has the same 5-HTTLPR make-up, so, some of the studies – at University College London and elsewhere – have focussed on twins to look at the specifics of this gene compared in people of similar genetic make-ups. This so-called happiness gene has been found to directly impact on serotonin production, the neurotransmitter that has long been known to impact on feelings of both happiness and depression. That said, the work is more focussed on dealing with stress and depression rather than on happiness itself. Is happiness genetic by as much as half? In 2005, Lyubomirsky, Sheldon and Schkade argued that three factors went into determining happiness. Perhaps that's not too controversial because they defined them as circumstances (the environment), intentional activity (the things you do) and a set point (genetics). Happy families? Genetics does play a role © shutterstock/Monkey Business Images What made the lead psychologist in the study, Sonja Lyubomirsky, stand out is that she split these determining factors in proportions of 10 per cent, 40 per cent and 50 per cent, respectively. In other words, she claimed genetics were just as important as everything else put together when it came to happiness. She expanded the idea in her book, The How of Happiness. According to Lyubomirsky, the field data for her assertion came from a 1996 study conducted on twins by Lykken and Tellegen from the University of Minnesota. Whether or not you agree with Lyubomirsky's findings, her ideas have received some academic criticism, most notably due to the fairly small sample used in Lykken and Tellegen's original work. Is happiness genetic if the environment still counts? In a much larger study conducted at the University of Amsterdam, where nearly 300,000 people were involved around the globe, it was found that small variances in DNA methylation were related to happiness. According to the team of researchers, this meant that it's not merely the genetic disposition of the people in the study that was at play. Nor, they discovered, was it just the environment. Rather, they argued that their larger data set showed that it was the interaction between the genetic and the environmental that was responsible for the degree of happiness people felt. Happiness in the jeans, too! What you do affects well-being OK, so this may not be a million miles away from Lyubomirsky's findings. However, the Dutch study demonstrated that it was the complex nature of how the interaction between genes and the environment work that was the key to better understanding of how happiness functions. At least, it showed that people could do more to combat unhappiness by altering their environment and getting on with activities of well-being – even if their genetic predisposition made it harder for them. RELATED: Finding happiness: 11 science-backed ways to increase your well-being So, happiness is genetic – to some degree What Lyubomirsky as well as Meike Bartels and Philipp Koellinger, the leaders of the Dutch research, have shown us is that further work is needed to fully understand the relationship between the environment and the gene. This brings us back to the old 'nature versus nurture' debate. However, we should not give up on thinking that there will never be an answer to the riddle, 'Is happiness genetic?' Bartels and Koellinger used big data analysis techniques from a huge sample – something that was simply not possible a decade or so ago. By analysing larger samples and using the latest artificial intelligence techniques, many scientists believe our understanding of the role of genetics in happiness will improve. According to Daniel Benjamin, a professor of the Center for Economic and Social Research at the University of Southern California, “Genetics is only one factor that influences psychological traits... [such as bipolar disorder and depression]. The environment is at least as important and... [we now know that] it interacts with the genetics.” As such, this fascinating area of scientific research looks set to improve our understanding – not just of happiness but of psychological disorders, too – for years to come. Is happiness genetic? Yes. Is happiness genetic and subject to other determining factors? Yes, that's true as well! ● happiness.com | The fine art of being: learn, practise, share Are you a happiness.com member yet? Sign up for free now to: ■ enjoy our happiness magazine with practical life tips ■ share and support others in our happiness forum ■ develop with free online classes in our happiness Academy Depression | Stress management | Music Written by Ed Gould Ed Gould is a UK-based journalist and practitioner of Reiki.

Rae Bathgate takes a look at a new study focusing around the words associated with happiness. Just what exactly do people relate the word 'happiness' with? The results can teach us how to be more joyful. What does happiness mean to you? Every person is their own world, so every answer is different: you may conjure up a memory, I may think of one person, while some even relate it to a smile or a laugh. But how often does happiness make you think of others? One study asked 521 female participants the following question: what three words come to mind when you think of happiness? While not the most original question, a new study titled “What does happiness prompt in your mind? Culture, word choice, and experienced happiness", conducted between Korea and the United States, shows that it may be worth to sit down and ask ourselves this question more often. The method used in this study was free-association, shown to be an accurate indicator of one’s own self, and in it, evidence surfaced that one type of answer mattered more than others when it comes to happiness. Unsurprisingly, it’s not money, success, fame, glamour, nor is it, sadly, raindrops on roses or warm woollen mittens. Rather, the most revealing words are social words, interpersonal words – in short, those related to other people. Group gains: can friendships boost your happiness? While knowing how often you associate these words with happiness seems to be a telling indicator of how happy you might be, the good news is that you can choose who these other people are (meaning that you can build your own social circle). This phenomenon seems to exist in a positive feedback loop, where fuelling social behaviour – especially helping others – may be the key to a higher life satisfaction. Words associated with happiness The study, conducted by the Yonsei University in Korea and the University of California, Santa Barbara (by researchers Ji-Eun Shin and Eunkook M. Suh, and Kimin Oem and Heejung S. Kim respectively) asked 521 female participants from both countries the following question: “What three words come to mind when you think of happiness?” The test was conducted as a free association task, meaning that subjects were to produce some words (in this case, three) that came to mind related to a prompted cue (in this case, the word “happiness”). Researchers focused on answers they categorised as “social:” These social words, as viewed by the researchers, were ones that simply referred to things like interpersonal relationships. Some examples of the words used were: for abstract values (e.g., “love") specific person (e.g., “friend" or “family") relationships (e.g., “dating”) The ties that bind Out of 1,563 words in total, Koreans wrote down social words more often (42 per cent of the time) as opposed to Americans, who associated social words with happiness only 32 per cent of the time. The most common word among Korean participants was also a social word (“family”) compared to the American words “smile” and “laugh.” Even when looking specifically at Americans’ preferred social words, they tended to be more on chosen social ties, with the words “friends” and “friendship.” This difference between our ideas of happiness is not new and had even been predicted by the researchers. What’s more, the study further mirrored findings that connected loneliness to a lack of family ties in collectivist societies, like in Korea, whereas in America loneliness was more often associated with a lack of friends and confidants. “This phenomenon seems to exist in a positive feedback loop, where fuelling social behaviour – especially helping others – may be the key to a higher life satisfaction.” Rather, the central question to be tested was whether participants who used more social words associated with happiness were, in fact, happier. It turns out the answer is yes. “In both cultures, those who mentioned more social words enjoyed significantly higher life satisfaction,” reported the researchers. This suggests that “defining happiness in social terms is beneficial to happiness in both cultures,” conclude researchers, adding that, “the current finding affirms in a novel way that social experience is indeed a core block of happiness.” RELATED: Money can't buy happiness – except when you spend it like this So, how can we move towards greater social connection (whatever that may mean to you) and consequently, towards a happier life? The answer may be simple. Participants who had a higher incidence of social words and a higher reported level of happiness also reported engaging in activities to help others more often, and previous studies have shown that altruistic activities seem to make us happy. Net gains: group activity, such as fishing, is important While researchers acknowledge that the results of this study are mostly correlative, not causative, they suggest that participating in such activities will start a positive feedback loop, thereby making you happier, teaching you to associate happiness with social connectivity, leading you to seek out and provide social support, causing you to be happier, and so on. Haven't we studied this before? Happiness, its causes, and its components have long been a source of research interest. In academia, there has been extensive documentation and widespread agreement "that positive social experience is one of the most significant predictors of happiness,” as written by Shin, Suh, Oem and Kim. Some researchers even go as far as to suggest that social experience was the only condition for happiness, other than the absence of psychopathology (Diener and Seligman, 2002). “Participants who had a higher incidence of social words and a higher reported level of happiness also reported engaging in activities to help others more often.” Previously used methods have been yes/no questionnaires, or longer, free-form essays; while both accurate to an extent, these methods often proved either too restrictive or not enough so. While seemingly simple, free-association, on the other hand, has yielded powerful results in the world of psychology, proving itself an accurate predictor of personality aspects and demographic characteristics. This, according to researchers, is because, “Words that are called up when we think about happiness are a sort of cognitive 'package,' created based on our upbringing, culture and personal experiences.” Shin, Suh, Oem and Kim’s work also asked participants to report on their level of happiness and social involvement. Global happiness was measured using the most widely used method, the Cantril’s Self-Anchoring Scale, while the rest of the study focused on establishing "the person’s level of interest, desire, and competence for developing a relationship with others,” with concepts like: emotional support belonging loneliness optimism efficacy interpersonal closeness How others make you happier Researchers Shin, Suh, Oem and Kim specify that their study is to be taken as a complement to previous work, noting that the primary objective is to draw a parallel between "beliefs about happiness and how they relate to actual experiences of happiness,” by delving into two countries’ deeply-held beliefs about the subject. So, does linking happiness to social relationships give you a more positive outlook on life? Not necessarily. The study showed that in both ascribed (e.g. “family”) and self-chosen (e.g. “friends”) relationships, there was no difference in optimism by those who used more social words. Better together: social connectivity is one key to happiness However, these subjects reported feeling significantly less lonely, as researchers Shin, Suh, Oem and Kim note: “They believed that their selves overlapped more with others, desired more social belongingness, and presumably as a consequence, were less lonely.” Indeed, this stronger social connection (or, as the researchers put it, the content of happiness) seems to indicate a higher level of happiness: in other words, if your definition of happiness is to spend quality time with others, the chances are that you will be happier. RELATED: Happiness in different cultures This held true for both American and Korean participants, indicating that “holding a socially rich theory of happiness is beneficial to the mental health of both Americans and Koreans,” explain the researchers, who conclude that, “Fulfilment of social need seems to be a universally necessary condition of happiness.” What does it all mean? Social interaction is a tricky thing: for each person, some days and nights lend themselves to picnics, bonfires, dancing and socialising, and days that are fabricated more for some alone time with a book. With their study, Shin, Suh, Oem and Kim aren’t suggesting that the real key to happiness is only through social interaction. Rather, their research supports the idea that those who associate happiness with the notion of strong, reliable social relationships seem to be the happiest. So, how does one change one’s beliefs about what happiness means? Well, apart from continuing to read up on the subject of the key to happiness, you can jump-start a positive feedback loop by engaging in activities that foster strong relationships, preferably ones where you (yes, you!) can help someone else. Cultivating social ties, especially those where you can give back as well are proven to make you happier –or at least, less lonely – which in turn may change your whole perspective on what happiness means. ● Main image: colourbox.com happiness.com | The fine art of being: learn, practise, share Are you a happiness.com member yet? Sign up for free now to enjoy: ■ our happiness magazine with practical life tips ■ share and support in our happiness forum ■ self-develop with free online classes in our Academy Positive psychology | Life purpose | Motivation Written by Rae Bathgate Rae Bathgate is an American journalist based in Barcelona, where she enjoys sunlight, yoga, and bookbinding.