The Happiness Habits Experiment

Recent developments in psychology and neuroscience have shown that you can raise your individual happiness set-point, learn to become more optimistic, increase your self-efficacy, as well as overcome anxieties and personal stumbling blocks. Whilst there is no quick fix to achieving all of the above, there are a number of exercises - all of them simple, sensible and scientifically supported - that will help you on your way.

In the Happiness Habits Experiment we have chosen six easy-to-perform daily exercises that we believe will fundamentally alter the way you experience your life. The exercises are devised to help you adopt new ways of thinking about things and new ways of doing things. Applying yourself to these exercises will help you do just that, cumulatively building your positive power and reshaping your viewpoint.

In the same way that the habit of consistent physical exercise makes your body stronger and more able, the exercises we have chosen for the experiment will help your incredibly flexible brain work for you in every aspect of your life. We ask only that you perform the daily exercises for at least three weeks - to prove to yourself that you can effect change in your life. We believe you will find them helpful, as we and many others have done. Here is a brief run-down of the exercises we have chosen and the research that supports them.


Smile - yes, really!
Just as happiness leads to success rather than vice versa, smiling can be used to create pleasure and not just express it. The physical act of smiling stimulates the pleasure centres in your brain, increases the level of health-enhancing hormones like endorphins and reduces the level of stress hormones – so get more pleasure out of life by smiling more often. The act of smiling also slightly cools the face and brain, which is associated with positive mood, whilst frowning warms them and activates changes that can make you feel sad and grumpy. Smile when you’re happy, but smile especially, perhaps, when you’re feeling down.

If you need any more persuading, smiling has been shown to make the face more attractive to other people and influence their choice of you as either a friend, colleague or potential partner.

Another more surprising finding from research concludes that fake smiling works, and it even works on ourselves. In a landmark study*, students were told that they would be helping to test different ways for paraplegic people to hold pens. Some were asked to hold a pen between their teeth - an action that produced an involuntary smile. Others were asked to hold it with their lips, which induces a frown. Immediately afterwards, the students were shown a cartoon and asked to rate how funny they thought it. The teeth holders (that is, the smilers) were unequivacally more amused.

If you'd like to join the experiment then just sign up here - Happiness Habits Experiment. 

In tomorrow’s blog I’ll look at the second exercise in our Happiness Habits Experiment.

post by Annabel


* Strack,F. et al., (1988) Inhibiting and Facilitating Conditions of the Human Smile. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (54) p. 768-777

Happy Pills - take two or three without water whenever you feel unhappy

 

If you ever go to Barcelona then you really must try very, very hard to visit The Happy Pills Shop. It's just wonderful - have a look at their website here . That sound, by the way, is the sound of pills popping! If you click on the English sentence on the home page it'll talk to you in English. I like the Spanish best. And don't leave the site until you've looked at the cure for love sickness by clicking on the printer.

Tested by Annabel

How to be happy - tips from recent research

It appears that people suffering with mild to moderate depression focus too much on the bad and the sad*, and that socially anxious people tend to remember negative rather than positive experiences*. When trained to shift their attention, both groups experienced a major improvement.

In the case of the research on depression, sad faces seemed particularly attractive to people with mild to moderate depression, whereas non-depressed people found neutral or happy faces more attractive. The question is whether the increased attention paid by depressed people to unhappy or sad themes is simply a byproduct of depression or might it be a cause?

Researchers looked at the question of whether biased attention towards sadness plays a maintaining role in depression and, more specifically, they looked at the question of  whether modifying the attention for sadness, by training participants to shift their attention toward neutral stimuli, could reduce depressive symptoms.

The study provided evidence for the first time that training attention away from unhappy or sad stimuli to neutral stimuli reduces depressive symptoms. In addition, these effects lasted beyond the duration of training. Perhaps most notably, these results provide additional evidence that, rather than being by-products or symptoms of depression, attentional biases towards sad themes play a causal role in the maintenance of depressive symptoms.

These findings worked with people with mild to moderate cases of depression, and those are also the people for whom anti-depressants often don’t work. Since we are all prone to episodes of mild depression, it may well be worth remembering to keep a tab on the amount of attention you pay to sad or unhappy events - and try to stop yourself.

In the study that looked at people who suffer from social anxiety, results showed that socially anxious individuals more easily forget socially positive words and experiences than do non-anxious individuals. It’s not that socially anxious individuals have fewer positive experiences than non-anxious individuals, it’s just that they appear not to recall them as readily.

Martin Seligman’s research is worth noting here. He found that the habit of writing down Three Good Things that went well each day increased happiness and decreased depressive symptoms for six months after the single week of testing.

So if you can get into the habit of writing Three Good Things that went well, and reasons - preferably to do with you - why they went well, even if you only manage it twice a week, you’ll have clocked up over Three Hundred Good Things that have happened to you in a year.

The first and last Steps of The Real Secret "Choose to be Happy" and "Smell the Roses" give you Habits that promote focusing on the positive and have been shown to raise happiness levels. Get your copy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk in paperback or Kindle



* Tony T. Wells and Christopher G. Beevers (2010) Biased Attention and Dysphoria : Manipulating selective attention reduces subsequent depressive symptoms Cognition and Emotion, Vol. 24 (4)
* Chi-wen Liang et al., (2011) Absence of a positive bias in social anxiety: The application of a directed forgetting paradigm" Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, Vol. 42 (2)

Post by Annabel

Why Are Some People Happy?

Have you ever wondered why people who are already contented and confident seem to get all the best breaks, have the most satisfying relationships, seem to enjoy more fun and exciting lives? It seems so unfair when they’re not necessarily better at their jobs, nicer people or more deserving than you. Yet they get what they want out of life, achieve their goals and feel at ease with themselves in a way that often manages to escape you.

We often make the mistake of thinking that people are happy because they've achieved their goals, have more money or a loving partner, but the likelihood is that they’re not happy and fulfilled because they have all those things. Long term research has shown that it’s entirely the other way round: happy people have better relationships, more successful careers, earn more money, maintain closer links with friends and family and savour life more. So the best way to join the ranks of the successful and satisfied is simply to get happy.

Some people are born with a higher happiness "set point" than others, but we can all improve on the hand we were born with and the cards life has dealt us so far. Some of us have to deal with more knock backs and difficulties than others, but these are not an obstacle to leading a happy life – indeed, they can actually help us achieve it. So if you are feeling a little defeated at the moment, take heart; we’re here to help.

You can start the process by simply choosing to be happier. Once you've made that decision, you need to get into the habit of acting out and believing in your own improved happiness.

One simple way is just to smile more - yes, really!

Just as happiness leads to success rather than vice versa, smiling can be used to create pleasure and not just express it. The physical act of smiling stimulates the pleasure centres in your brain, increases the level of health-enhancing hormones like endorphins and reduces the level of stress hormones – so get more pleasure out of life by smiling more often. The act of smiling also slightly cools the face and brain, which is associated with positive mood, while frowning warms them and activates changes that can make you feel sad and grumpy. Smile when you’re happy, but smile especially, perhaps, when you’re feeling down.

For more Habits of Happiness, which really will make you feel more positive and satisfied, read the first chapter of The Real Secret where we'll show you how!