|
|
| |
|
|
| |
Choosing To Be Happy
Strategies for Happiness: 7 Steps to Becoming a
Happier Person
By Tom Valeo
WebMD Feature
A
popular greeting card attributes this quote to Henry
David Thoreau: “Happiness is like a butterfly: the
more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but
if you turn your attention to other things, it will
come and sit softly on your shoulder.”
With
all due respect to the author of Walden, that just
isn’t so, according to a growing number of
psychologists. You can choose to be happy, they say.
You can chase down that elusive butterfly and get it
to sit on your shoulder. How? In part, by simply
making the effort to monitor the workings of your
mind.
Research has shown that your talent for happiness
is, to a large degree, determined by your genes.
Psychology professor David T. Lykken, author of
Happiness: Its Nature and Nurture, says that “trying
to be happier is like trying to be taller.” We each
have a “happiness set point,” he argues, and move
away from it only slightly.
And
yet, psychologists who study happiness -- including
Lykken -- believe we can pursue happiness. We can do
this by thwarting negative emotions such as
pessimism, resentment, and anger. And we can foster
positive emotions, such as empathy, serenity, and
especially gratitude.
Happiness Strategy #
1: Don't Worry, Choose Happy
The
first step, however, is to make a conscious choice
to boost your happiness. In his book, The Conquest
of Happiness, published in 1930, the philosopher
Bertrand Russell had this to say: “Happiness is not,
except in very rare cases, something that drops into
the mouth, like a ripe fruit. … Happiness must be,
for most men and women, an achievement rather than a
gift of the gods, and in this achievement, effort,
both inward and outward, must play a great part.”
Today, psychologists who study happiness heartily
agree. The intention to be happy is the first of The
9 Choices of Happy People listed by authors Rick
Foster and Greg Hicks in their book of the same
name.
“Intention is the active desire and commitment to be
happy,” they write. “It’s the decision to
consciously choose attitudes and behaviors that lead
to happiness over unhappiness.”
Tom
G. Stevens, PhD, titled his book with the bold
assertion, You Can Choose to Be Happy. “Choose to
make happiness a top goal,” Stevens tells WebMD.
“Choose to take advantage of opportunities to learn
how to be happy. For example, reprogram your beliefs
and values.
Learn good self-management skills, good
interpersonal skills, and good career-related
skills. Choose to be in environments and around
people that increase your probability of happiness.
The persons who become the happiest and grow the
most are those who also make truth and their own
personal growth primary values.”
In
short, we may be born with a happiness “set point,”
as Lykken calls it, but we are not stuck there.
Happiness also depends on how we manage our emotions
and our relationships with others.
Jon
Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis, teaches
positive psychology. He actually assigns his
students to make themselves happier during the
semester.
“They have to say exactly what technique they will
use,” says Haidt, a professor at the University of
Virginia, in Charlottesville. “They may choose to be
more forgiving or more grateful. They may learn to
identify negative thoughts so they can challenge
them. For example, when someone crosses you, in your
mind you build a case against that person, but
that’s very damaging to relationships. So they may
learn to shut up their inner lawyer and stop
building these cases against people.”
Once
you’ve decided to be happier, you can choose
strategies for achieving happiness. Psychologists
who study happiness tend to agree on ones like
these.
Happiness Strategy
#2: Cultivate Gratitude
In
his book, Authentic Happiness, University of
Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman encourages
readers to perform a daily “gratitude exercise.” It
involves listing a few things that make them
grateful. This shifts people away from bitterness
and despair, he says, and promotes happiness.
Happiness Strategy
#3: Foster Forgiveness
Holding a grudge and nursing grievances can affect
physical as well as mental health, according to a
rapidly growing body of research.
One
way to curtail these kinds of feelings is to foster
forgiveness. This reduces the power of bad events to
create bitterness and resentment, say Michael
McCullough and Robert Emmons, happiness researchers
who edited The Psychology of Happiness.
In
his book, Five Steps to Forgiveness, clinical
psychologist Everett Worthington Jr. offers a 5-step
process he calls REACH.
First, recall the hurt. Then empathize and try to
understand the act from the perpetrator’s point of
view. Be altruistic by recalling a time in your life
when you were forgiven.
Commit to putting your forgiveness into words. You
can do this either in a letter to the person you’re
forgiving or in your journal.
Finally, try to hold on to the forgiveness. Don’t
dwell on your anger, hurt, and desire for vengeance.
The
alternative to forgiveness is mulling over a
transgression. This is a form of chronic stress,
says Worthington.
“Rumination is the mental health bad boy,”
Worthington tells WebMD. “It’s associated with
almost everything bad in the mental health field --
obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, anxiety
-- probably hives, too.”
Happiness Strategy
#4: Counteract Negative Thoughts and Feelings
As
Jon Haidt puts it, improve your mental hygiene. In
The Happiness Hypothesis, Haidt compares the mind to
a man riding an elephant. The elephant represents
the powerful thoughts and feelings -- mostly
unconscious -- that drive your behavior. The man,
although much weaker, can exert control over the
elephant, just as you can exert control over
negative thoughts and feelings.
“The
key is a commitment to doing the things necessary to
retrain the elephant,” Haidt says. “And the evidence
suggests there’s a lot you can do. It just takes
work.”
For
example, you can practice meditation, rhythmic
breathing, yoga, or relaxation techniques to quell
anxiety and promote serenity. You can learn to
recognize and challenge thoughts you have about
being inadequate and helpless.
“If
you learn techniques for identifying negative
thoughts, then it’s easier to challenge them,” Haidt
said. “Sometimes just reading David Burns’ book,
Happiness Strategy
#5: Remember, Money Can’t Buy Happiness
Research shows that once income climbs above the
poverty level, more money brings very little extra
happiness. Yet, “we keep assuming that because
things aren’t bringing us happiness, they’re the
wrong things, rather than recognizing that the
pursuit itself is futile,” writes Daniel Gilbert in
his book, Stumbling on Happiness.
“Regardless of what we achieve in the pursuit of
stuff, it’s never going to bring about an enduring
state of happiness.”
Happiness Strategy
#6: Foster Friendship
There are few better antidotes to unhappiness than
close friendships with people who care about you,
says David G. Myers, author of The Pursuit of
Happiness. One Australian study found that people
over 70 who had the strongest network of friends
lived much longer.
“Sadly, our increasingly individualistic society
suffers from impoverished social connections, which
some psychologists believe is a cause of today’s
epidemic levels of depression,” Myers writes. “The
social ties that bind also provide support in
difficult times.”
Happiness Strategy
#7: Engage in Meaningful Activities
People are seldom happier, says psychologist Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi, than when they’re in the “flow.”
This is a state in which your mind becomes
thoroughly absorbed in a meaningful task that
challenges your abilities. Yet, he has found that
the most common leisure time activity -- watching TV
-- produces some of the lowest levels of happiness.
To
get more out of life, we need to put more into it,
says Csikszentmihalyi. “Active leisure that helps a
person grow does not come easily,” he writes in
Finding Flow. “Each of the flow-producing activities
requires an initial investment of attention before
it begins to be enjoyable.”
So
it turns out that happiness can be a matter of
choice -- not just luck. Some people are lucky
enough to possess genes that foster happiness.
However, certain thought patterns and interpersonal
skills definitely help people become an “epicure of
experience,” says David Lykken, whose name, in
Norwegian, means “the happiness.”
| |
|
Source - WebMD Inc. All rights reserved. |
| |
| |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
You can chase down that elusive butterfly and
get it to sit on your shoulder. How? In part, by
simply making the effort to monitor the workings
of your mind. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
It's
easy to stay up to date on the things that interest
you. Just 
