Archive for: Our Happiness Blog

Happy Money

It turns out money can buy you happiness, if you spend it right.

Elizabeth Dunn, a psychology professor, and Michael Norton, a marketing professor, wrote a book called Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending.  They make some thought provoking points about how you can use your money to make you happier.  Fortunately, it doesn’t completely negate my post about happiness and money (see post: Happiness and Winning the Lottery), since they take the focus off of buying material things to improve your life.

So now that you know the secrets to buying happiness, you can go win the lottery with a light heart.  Good luck!

September 30, 2013

Happiness and Flow

Have you ever found yourself doing something that absolutely consumed you and hours passed without realizing it?  Maybe you were hunched over your drawing all afternoon and never even noticed your back was cramping up.  Maybe you were reading an amazing book and suddenly realized you were starving long past dinner time.  You were in a state of flow.  Coined by Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian psychology professor, flow is achieved when you experience a balance of high challenge level and high skill level.  It’s the sweet spot between anxiety and boredom.  A 5-star restaurant chef won’t be in a state of flow when following the taco instructions on the back of the taco spice bottle – he’ll be bored.  A cooking novice won’t be in a state of flow if suddenly placed in charge of the Ritz holiday banquet dinner – he’ll be anxious.  Lyubomirsky (The How of Happiness author) recommends flow as one of the twelve things one can cultivate to become happier.  So the next time you find yourself bored or anxious, find a way to get a better balance of skill level and challenge.  And get ready to flow!

Happiness and Attention

“My experience is what I agree to attend to.”  – William James

I have a friend who reads the news every morning and typically by the time I meet her for lunch she is pretty depressed and anxious.  She’ll tell me about the most recent unemployment rate, the number of homeless animals that had to be euthanized at shelters this year, and a terribly sad and scary story of a local abduction.  I always leave thinking I should call her later to see how she’s doing.

I have another friend who also stays well informed.  But our lunches don’t leave me down and worried about her.  I asked her how she manages to keep up with the news and not get depressed.  The answer was simple – she chooses to focus more on the positive stuff.  She pays more attention to the news about the extremely successful pet adoption this past weekend, the story of the women who were freed after decades in captivity, and the fact that the unemployment rate tends to be improving.

Your experience – your life – is what you agree to attend to.  Whether it’s something outside of you (the news, who comes to your party and who doesn’t, if your dinner was burned or not) or something inside of you (your prediction that your blind date will be awful, your thought that maybe you WILL get that great job, staying focused on your elbow pain or feeling grateful that your migraine finally broke) – what we pay attention to hugely informs our mood.

Don’t get me wrong – we can’t just notice shiny happy facts about life, and can’t have only optimistic thoughts.  Paying some attention to the stuff that makes us feel “bad” in some way is really important – it can inspire incredible action.  I bet a lot of those new pet owners read about the euthanasia rate.  The point is, focusing mostly on depressing facts, worry thoughts, and negative possibilities is going leave you depressed, worried, and negative!  Try this: for 24 hours, within reason, focus on more positive stuff (internal and external) than you usually do.  Notice how it affects your mood, your behaviors, and how others respond to you.

And tell me if you don’t feel happier at the end of the day.

September 16, 2013

Happiness and Physical Health

By now everyone knows that the happier you are, the healthier you tend to be.  Less stress means a healthier heart, fewer digestive problems, sounder sleep… the list goes on.  But is this true for all happiness?  Does the happiness you feel when you win $100 on a scratch off ticket give you the same physical health benefits as when you volunteer at the soup kitchen?  A recent study suggests that happiness stemming from altruistic behaviors affects us on a cellular level.  So the next time you feel a little under the weather, consider reaching out to someone in need.  It could give your mood AND body a boost!

September 9, 2013

The Happiness Secret

I’m about to tell you the secret to being happy. 

Remember the first day of kindergarten, or when you moved in 10^th grade?  Can you remember that biting loneliness, the acute sense of isolation in a sea of kids?  It was a tough first day no matter what grade you were in.  Remember how your life changed instantly, dramatically, when you made your first friend?

Fifty years of happiness research done across cultures shows that the number one contributor to people’s happiness is how closely connected they feel to other people.  How many good friends you have, how close you are to your family and neighbors, the strength of your work relationships – these forms of connectedness contribute to your happiness more than anything else in life.   Happiness and social connectedness have a stronger relationship than smoking and cancer – in fact, they’re so closely related they can almost be equated.  So next time you’re in the middle of something “important” and your friend asks you to hang out, choose your friend.  The cleaning can wait.

September 2, 2013

Happiness and Curiosity

You’re at a party.  You look around and don’t know anyone besides the host.  You heave an inner sigh – no one looks particularly interesting.  Plus they probably all know each other already. You start to wonder what excuse you could come up with that would make it okay for you to leave in the next five minutes.  You head to the food table to kill some time.

You’re at a party.  You look around and don’t know anyone besides the host.  You start to imagine what each person does for a living.  Are you surrounded by librarians, doctors, video game designers?  You wonder what the tattooed woman and the guy in the sweater vest are discussing so animatedly.  You head over to them to find out.

Curiosity can make or break a party from your first step in the door.  You can see how being curious leads you to new knowledge, new people, and new experiences.  The best thing is, curiosity is something you can cultivate – like so many of these other things that add to happiness!  If you’re truly curious and not just trying to sound curious, the questions will come effortlessly.   Just decide to be curious.

August 26, 2013

What is Happiness?

Happiness is about finding your passion and doing it every day—no matter what others think or what is popular or what obstacles you face. And this is long-term happiness I’m talking about, not short-term stuff you get with drinking, checking Facebook or ice cream. Happiness is hard and it takes focus. Happiness comes from within, not from without. Real happiness is self-sustaining and can grow even when you’re perfectly still or when you’re at the height of an activity—be it playing an instrument or dancing.

My view of happiness is perfectly embodied in Jordan Matters’ Dancers Among Us: A Celebration of Joy in the Everyday. This book is almost all photography of professional dancers in nontraditional dancing settings wearing street clothes. The first question you ask is, how did they make that leap without any special effects? And then the second question is, why can’t normal people look this happy in real life? I used to dance as a kid and I wondered if I was ever that happy. Their joy becomes our joy! After flipping through the pages of leaps, splits, and high kicks in coffee shops, horse pastures and in snowstorms, you get a sense that being happy can happen anywhere, in the middle of any mundane situation. It’s really about being present—not thinking about the past or dreaming of the future.

As these pages illustrate, these dancers exhibit such joy because they are staying in the moment since their bodies are their instruments. If they didn’t have full command of their hands, legs, feet, torso and head—they’d be a hot mess on the pavement. Their focus brings about their happiness, which begs the question—when you’re focused, are you happy? Another question is, do you have be a master at something to achieve happiness?

I would say, yes, but happiness is also more than being focused or working hard—it’s also about being at peace with yourself and being grateful for what you have. I find when I’m grateful, I can change my whole mindset and stop my complaints and cynicism. So I put together my bliss list and I’d love for you to put yours together too!

1. Singing
2. Comedy
3. Watching my favorite TV shows: Mad Men, Game of Thrones, True Blood and reading all of the post-show blogs on Monday morning
4. Going to the hair salon
5. Running
6. Clean sheets
7. Coffee
8. Clean house
9. Poetry
10. Hiking
11. Networking
12. Wine tasting
13. Clothes shopping at my favorite consignment store
14. Finishing a very long book
15. Napping
16. Dark chocolate
17. Museums
18. Hugs from my kids and husband
19. Writing a blog post for myself!
20. Saying “hi” to a deer while running
21. My nightly tea made and delivered by my husband

Happiness is also about saying you’re worthy of having pleasure and that pleasure makes you a better person. No one else can make you happy except you. Take charge of your own happiness today!

Alice Osborn, M.A. is the author of three books of poetry, After the Steaming Stops (Main Street Rag, 2012), Unfinished Projects (Main Street Rag, 2010) and Right Lane Ends (Catawba, 2006) and is the editor of the anthology, Tattoos (Main Street Rag, 2012). She’s working on her next poetry book, Heroes without Capes. Her past educational and work experience is unusually varied and now it feeds her strengths as an editor for hire who takes good writers and turns them into great authors. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she has taught workshops to hundreds of aspiring authors of nearly all ages from 9 to 90, both in person and online. Her pieces have appeared in the News and Observer, The Broad River Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Soundings Review and in numerous journals and anthologies. She serves on the Board of Trustees of the North Carolina Writers’ Network and performs her poetry to audiences throughout the region. Alice lives in Raleigh with her husband, two children and three birds. Visit her website at https://www.aliceosborn.com/

August 19, 2013

Happiness and Fit

Sonia Lyubomirsky reassures us in The How of Happiness that there are as many ways to get happy as there are to get unhappy.  But not all ways are equally effective for everyone.  One of your friends might be thrilled with how productive she was at work today, while your other friend is still jazzed about ditching work for the beach.  How do you figure out what might work for you?  The author encourages us to take three things into account:

1. What is the source of your unhappiness?  Do you compare yourself to others, hold onto grudges, feel unaccomplished?
2. What are your strengths?  Are you focused on achieving?  Creating? Connecting with others?
3. What is your lifestyle?  Do you have the time to put into the more labor-intensive behaviors, or do you need to do something on- the-go?  Should your efforts be focused on work, relationships, leisure time?

There is a lengthy assessment in the How of Happiness that helps you determine which behaviors might work best for you based on those three things.  Coming up: specific behaviors we can engage in intentionally to increase our happiness set point.

August 12, 2013

Happiness is Contagious

How often have you watched a great YouTube video that made you happy (penguin being tickled, a boy’s bike ride speech, mother cat hugs kitten) and passed it on to friends?  Or told a great joke you just heard?  Or felt a bit lighter after hanging out with someone who was happy?  Burst into smile at seeing a child laugh, even though you have no clue why?  Happiness is contagious.  The more happy people you have in your life the happier you will feel, and the more happiness you will put out there which you will then get back from others.  It’s a cycle worth getting sucked into!