Archive for: Our Happiness Blog

A few weeks ago I wrote about savoring the bad to help you appreciate the good.  My example was small potatoes (appreciating the fun Uno cards because you’re comparing them to the regular Uno cards; appreciating your current partner because they compare favorably to a bad ex).  It turns out that this comparison/appreciation thing works well on a more serious level.  A research team polled almost 15,000 people to explore whether a severe negative event in their life (such as divorce or death of a loved one) affected how happy they were now.  People who had experienced severe adversity and worked through it (as opposed to people who hadn’t experienced it or hadn’t worked through it) showed a greater ability to savor the present.  This might seem like a small silver lining when you’re going through the difficult event, but it’s nice to know that it doesn’t have to be a just a blight on your life and can actually contribute to your happiness in the long run.

Lately I’ve been reading about great holiday traditions that incorporate many of the things that research shows contribute to our happiness.  They blew my chocolate advent calendar out of the water.  Here are two of my favorites:

Thanksgiving – The Gratitude Tree.  This one is perfect for a home with little kids.  Cut out the shape of a tree and put it up on your wall or patio door.  Cut out lots of leaves and have every family member write down something they’re grateful for each night.  Stick the leaves on the tree.  New, fun countdown to Thanksgiving next year!

An Acts of Kindness Countdown Calendar to your end-of-the-year holiday:  It doesn’t matter if you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or something else.  Write down acts of kindness on slips of paper and open one each morning with the plan of doing it that day.  That night, talk with your family about how your act of kindness went.  

Do you have any similar holiday traditions?  Feel free to share in the comments!

Happiness and Positive Listing

“I bombed the interview.  Got stood up for lunch.  Stained my new shirt.  My dog needs a bunch of expensive tests, I was late for a meeting, got in a fight with my sister, forgot to DVR my show, burned my dinner, AND I have a hangnail!”

This is what I call negative listing – a way of thinking that we can get sucked into when we’re in a funk and searching high and low for evidence that things are not going our way and life is against us!  Whether or not it’s obvious to us, our mind sees this as a challenge, a game, and this is one reason it can be hard to stop.

So replace it instead.  Notice you’re doing it, take a deep breath to switch gears, and start positive listing.  Think of all the things that are going well in your life.  Things that you love about yourself.  Things you’re grateful for.  Try to make this list at least a little longer than your negative list.  It’s not a cure-all for a bad mood, and when something serious has happened it needs to be respected, tended to, and not dismissed with this strategy.  But when you’re throwing a pity party that’s spiraling into a darker place, it’s an effective way to flip on the lights and tell everyone they don’t have to go home but they can’t stay here.

November 18, 2013

Have you ever wolfed down a candy bar and then felt like it was gone too quickly and you didn’t even really get a chance to taste it?  Or perhaps you’ve felt that way about a moment in life.  We’ve all wished at some point that we had been more in the moment, enjoying it, rather than recording it or focusing on something else at the same time.  I once spent an entire fireworks display behind my camera and afterwards felt like I hadn’t been there at all.  We’re talking about savoring – taking the time and making the effort to fully appreciate something in the now.  Lyubomirsky (The How of Happiness) counts this as one of the strategies we can use to become happier.  She points out that you can savor in three time periods: past, present, and future.  People who savor the past (reminisce happily) tend to be good at buffering stress.  People who savor the present (mindfully appreciating what is happening right now) are less likely to experience guilt, shame, and depression.  And people who savor the future (fantasize positively) tend to be optimistic.  Again, this is something you can cultivate so if you’re not practiced at savoring, you can start now.  Positively fantasize about eating that Snickers Almond, then fully enjoy eating it, then reminisce about how tasty it was, and now you have a solid 15 minutes of candy bar joy rather than the usual two!  Makes the $1 price tag worth it.

When we were little, my older sister and I would occasionally play Uno with only the awesome cards.  Imagine!  Every turn a Reverse, Wild, or Draw 4!  Sooooo fun!!!

Except it wasn’t.  Not even the first time.  It turns out that all the special cards aren’t special or fun without the regular cards.  There was no anticipatory excitement about getting a “good” card because you already knew you would.  Every card was good… except it wasn’t.  It still had the same cool function, but because there was no potential for getting anything but a good card, that “goodness” just disappeared.

“Good” and “bad” are relative terms.   Something is only good or bad compared to something else.  One person’s version of a good day might be someone else’s bad day.  If you’re used to chronic pain, a day where you only had a little might be one for the memory books.  To someone else who lives pain-free, having that same amount of pain one day might cause them a lot of anxiety, frustration, and irritability.

In order to appreciate the great stuff, you have to be willing to experience and even appreciate the difficult stuff (your rotten ex makes you more appreciative of your current partner.  You can finally breathe now that allergy season is over – who knew breathing was so awesome?!).  Next time something happens that you wish hadn’t, instead of focusing on the impossible (trying to wish away reality), focus on appreciating that “bad thing.”  Its occurrence will make your good times that much sweeter.

November 4, 2013

Last week we talked about the negativity bias – our hard-wired tendency to notice negative stuff more than positive stuff.  Now let’s talk about getting around that bias, and getting happier!

Every time you use your brain you are messing with its wiring.  When you learn a new word or try a new dance step, it changes things just a bit up there.  When you keep on practicing that thing that neural pathway gets more use.  The longer that pathway gets used, and the more neurons that fire, and the more intensely they fire, the more we get wired in that direction, and that thing – that way of thinking, or doing, or feeling – is easier next time.  It’s how habits are made.

If we want to change our wiring to be more positive, we have to notice and stay with positive experiences longer, to give them a chance to become a part of our neural structure.  So look for those experiences.  Seek them out.  Remember you have a natural tendency to notice negative things, so put some extra effort into noticing those tiny purple wildflowers, or the smile on that kid running by, or the pleasant texture on the overdone rice.  Stay with it for a few moments longer than you normally would.  Then look for the next tiny piece of joy to add to your increasingly happy brain structure.

October 28, 2013

A client asked me the other day why she focuses on the negative stuff more than the positive stuff.  I’ve heard this question a number of times over the years.  We notice that our spouse didn’t empty the dishwasher as promised but don’t really notice that they did a whole bunch of other helpful tasks.  The constructive criticism in our annual review somehow seems much LOUDER than the praise.  Since we’re all so eager to be happy, why on earth do we overly-notice and harp on the very things that make us unhappy?

The short answer is – we’re wired that way.  It’s called the negativity bias.  Since the caveman days we’ve been honing our ability to see danger in the environment so that we can fight it or flee it and keep on being alive.  Our brains are now really good at scanning for threats.  The problem is, we’ve gotten so good at it that we now not only notice the bear that might attack us, but also the guy who might be annoyed at us, the people in the audience who don’t seem to be liking our speech, or that coworker who might be putting the moves on our partner.  Threats!  Not to our lives, but to our ego, our reputation, or our relationship.  And what do you do with a threat?   You isolate it and take care of it.  Isolating it means focusing on it (and losing sight of the big picture.  Sound familiar?).  Taking care of it might mean learning to people please, or joining Toast Masters, or planning some strategic PDA at the next office party.

So are we doomed?  Is there no getting around millions of years of neural wiring towards negativity?  Of course not!  In fact, you’re probably already doing a lot of things to combat it, since you are happy, positive, and maybe even optimistic sometimes.  Stay tuned for next week’s post!

October 21, 2013

Math class!  It was the worst!  (Or English, or History, or Science…)  Remember how you had to force yourself to do the homework (if you did it at all)?  Struggling at the kitchen table, thinking you’ll never use this anyway so why do you have to do it?!  You might have clear memories of doing all your other work first, even cleaning your room, to avoid it.  Maybe you did your English homework right away because you loved reading and analyzing great literature.  So what was the difference between sitting down with Shakespeare versus calculus?  You did your English because it came naturally to you and you enjoyed it.  You did your Math because you had to.

The takeaway?  There are different reasons we do things, and some are more motivating than others.  So it is with happiness activities, according to The How of Happiness’s Lyubomirsky.  We are more likely to continue doing something if it feels natural to us (Natural), or if we find it interesting and challenging (Enjoy), or if we value and identify with doing it even when it’s not enjoyable (Value).  We’re less likely to continue with something if we’re doing it because otherwise we’d feel ashamed, guilty, or anxious (Guilty), or if someone or some circumstance forces us to (Situation).

Consider some habits you tried to get going but stopped almost before you began (remember that no-carb, sugarfree diet you tried?).  Now think of habits you’ve started and continued (e.g. bike riding with your friend once a week).  Which descriptor best fits your reason for doing the activity (Natural, Enjoy, Value, Guilt, Situation)?  If you’re intrinsically and positively motivated, you’re more likely to continue with that behavior than if you’re motivated through internal or external coercion.  Of course, we can’t always do things just because they come naturally to us, because we enjoy them, or because they have value to us.  But the more you can find those activities, or create those motivations, the more likely you are to continue with that habit.  And imagine how much happier you’d be if you started more of what you began!

Happiness and Stress

I recently listened to a great TED Talk by Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist.  She admitted that she’s spent the last decade warning people about the dangerous effects stress has on physical health.  But she no longer considers stress the enemy since she learned there is a fine line between the body’s response to stress and its response to joy and courage.  The difference is in how the blood vessels react.  When you’re feeling stressed, your heart rate goes up and your blood vessels constrict.  When you’re feeling joy or courage, your heart rate goes up but your blood vessels stay relaxed.  Considering blood vessels carry oxygen and nutrients around the body and remove carbon dioxide and waste products away from the cells, this is a very important difference.  The point: how you interpret your body’s response can mean the difference between a heart attack or a long healthy life.  Need more evidence?  Dr. McGonigal talked about a study where everyone was exposed to the same stressor, but half the participants had been taught to view their stress response as helpful (their pounding heart and quickened breathing is a healthy, adaptive thing their body is doing to help them rise to the occasion – in general, fight or flee).  Their blood vessels stayed unconstricted as opposed to the participants who didn’t receive this training.  So next time you notice your body’s physical response to stress or anxiety, remember you are just a thought away from having nice, open blood vessels.  Doesn’t that kind of influence over your health make you happy?