Your Friday Happiness Audit!
Happiness is very subjective and hard to define. What makes one person happy does not make everyone happy. But you probably know what makes you happy.
Unfortunately we’re not always good at recognising when we’re happy and living in that moment. We do seem to be quite good though, at remembering the less than fabby things and trotting them out in our heads, often. Which can give them a bigger place than they deserve in our memories.
Research on Depression
The *latest research on managing severe depression is quite clear. Dwelling on what is wrong makes you worse and reinforces the tendency towards more depression. Talking about what ails you makes it worse. Therapy which focusses on your problems, on what is wrong with your life, is unhelpful.
Happiness Tip
So here’s my tip for this week end. You know how to make yourself feel sad – think sad things. You know how to make yourself feel better, think happy things! It’s as complicatedly simple as that. Like everything you need to practise and retrain your brain from it’s habitual path of dwelling on what went wrong. As you finish up the week ask yourself:
How many good things have happened to me this week?
How many times have I smiled?
What makes me feel good?
Have a great time!
Want more? Take a look at Nostalgia Makes You Happy
*Check out ‘Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for Depression‘ by Segal, Williams & Teasedale
Photo Credit: Cynthia Turek
Be Happy All The Time? No Thanks!
Regular readers of this blog will know that I do not promote the school of perpetual happiness – that way madness lies! Well, for me anyway…
When I was about 17, a friend sent me a postcard of the type very popular then, which read:
‘Into every life a little rain must fall’. It was accompanied by a kitschy drawing.
I can remember thinking,” Oh I hope not!” But, umpteen years on from that seventeen year old girl, I am very grateful for my periods of rain. They have taught me the meaning of happiness, contentment, and living in the moment.
Happiness means many different things to each of us, and the older I get, the more happiness I seem to find unbidden in the strangest of places (another benefit of ageing!). Like love, you can’t use it all up.
People often say to me that my posts are always so positive, always upbeat, and am I like that? Obviously I’m not all the time. Things get to me the same as everyone else and I have had my fair share of problems. But I know dwelling on what doesn’t work is a very good way to make yourself miserable. So when I am down, I dip into my happiness bank and pull out a happy memory to make me smile, and my mood soon alters.
I often ask my ‘inspirational women‘ when are you happiest? Today I’m asking you! Please tell me, When are you happiest?
Tap Into Happiness
If you find yourself feeling a little low here’s an exercise you might want to try to make you feel HAPPIER.
Find a photo of yourself from a time when you were really happy.
Take a few moments to just sit and stare at it; immerse yourself in those happy memories. Try and allow all the sights, sounds, and scents from the occasion to flood in. Really take yourself back to the moment.
As you do this there are actually some physiological changes taking place which will be making you feel a little better.
Dwell in the moment a little longer, then pop the photo somewhere like your desk drawer or inside your diary. (I find the effect fades if I’m too profligate and look too often, but a peek now and again works wonders!)
The more observant among you may have noticed that the photo bears a resemblance to me. It was taken on my 50th birthday when I was surrounded by family and friends and having an amazing time. My brother took it and captioned it ‘pure joy’. He was right. Looking at it always makes me smile, and now I always wear a (toy) tiara on birthdays!
When was your last ‘pure joy’ moment!
Dream and Be Happy!
It’s true that happiness is in the now, but thinking about positive events you’ve experienced in the past (and anticipating those you might have in the future) can actually increase your happiness levels in the present moment.
I was reminded of this following a conversation with a friend planning for a forthcoming wedding. He was concerned that all the anticipatory talk would lead to a sense of anti climax when it actually happened. On the contrary, I replied, often all the anticipatory talk adds to the overall enjoyment of the event.
“Savoring past pleasurable experiences boosts your positive emotions in the present, and positive emotions are the key to happiness,” says Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness (Penguin, 2008).
The Happiness Bank
However, this doesn’t work if thinking of good times fills you with melancholia because those times are in the past. The key is to tap into the pleasure and good feelings the event provided, not bemoan the fact that the experience is now behind you. I treasure happy moments as they are happening and also metaphorically deposit them in my ‘happiness bank’. If you can use all your senses the experience can be even more vivid; conjure up the smells, sounds, sights etc..
And the act of anticipating happy events — even one as seemingly banal as watching a comedy show — can be equally as uplifting. Recent research has even shown that you don’t need to actually laugh to reap the effects. People who were planning to watch their favourite comedies had a significant increase in mood-enhancing hormones even before the programme started.
So, if you don’t have time today to spend a little time in pleasurable day dreaming, record an episode of your favourite funny show and look forward to watching in the evening!
What’s the best memory in your happiness bank?
Make Yourself Happy – help someone!
If you’re feeling a bit despondent about the economy or your own personal circumstances, don’t despair. Research has shown time and time again that doing something for someone else, helping someone, can make us feel better about ourselves – make us happier.
The Little Things in Life
It doesn’t need to be a big thing: hold a door open, smile at a stranger, give up your seat, ring someone you know is lonely, make a point of telling someone you like their work, make a small donation to charity.
That last one is called prosocial spending by the way. Previous research has found that money doesn’t necessarily make you happy. Some researchers at the University of British Columbia decided to test this a little further and look at how people actually spent their money; they had an hypothesis that it was how the money was used that was significant.
People not Stuff
They discovered that those who spent at least a third of their money on others felt much happier than those who spent it all on material possesions for themselves. (Although it seems entirely possible that those people helped others, regardless of their income and just continued to do it when they had funds! The money need not be relevant to their happiness levels at all.)
However, the study fits in neatly with a growing body of research that finds that helping others is the best way to help yourself, that people who give more and are more socially connected are happier. Give it a go!
Get Rich Quick!
In times of economic downturn we can psychologically feel poor, even if our actual material condition has not changed. (Obviously if your job is at threat, or you are not in receipt of a regular income then your concern is real.) But for many of us the economic gloom is causing a less tangible feeling of somehow being under threat. We need to take back control of our thoughts and realise that even if we don’t have a lot of money, we are rich in so many other things.
Whatever your circumstances, whether you are rich in money or not, there will be areas of your life where you are truly rich, where you have wealth in abundance. Get in touch with your ‘HAPPINESS BANK’.
The Happiness Bank
Your happiness bank will be unique to you but research has shown that remembering happy events can cause our serotin levels to rise and raise our feelings of well being. The problem is, that with the news full of gloomy events and predictions, we have to make much more of a conscious effort to stop our thoughts following a negative path, leaving us feeling low and disatisfied.
So have a quick look at the deposits in your bank, your memories. Scientists have shown that people begin to smile and their serotonin levels rise at even the thought of watching a funny film. So it is with memories. See if you can bring to mind a particularly warm and happy memory for you. Maybe a great evening with friends, a special relationship you had, a time in your life when you were really happy. It probably won’t have much to do with the amount of money in your pocket.
Really take yourself into the memory, the sounds, sights, and smells of it. Close your eyes if it helps. I hope it’s making you smile. Dip into that bank regularly; unlike your actual bank account you can’t use it all up!
Create Some Deposits
Although you can’t use it up, you can add to it. You can even create your own little book of positivity as many of my coaching clients have done, when you jot down all the nice things that happen to you during the course of your week. Like a smile from a child, a cup of coffee with a good friend, a great book someone loaned you… it’s up to you. To make deposits you need to be aware of the world around you but instead of focusing on the negative aspects look for the good.
An Example
A few months back I was travelling home from London to Bath, stuck on a slip road trying to join the 
motorway. I was getting fed up, tired and hungry and beginning to feel a bit sorry for myself as all around me drivers were getting impatient and aggressive. My eyes alighted on a derelict spot by the side of the road, and I noticed a beautiful display of wild poppies. Their cheery splash of red made me smile spontaneously and lifted my mood. They were a vision of absolute beauty: they made it into my little book of positivity. Every time I pass that spot (usually at a crawl) even when they are out of season, I remember the poppies and smile.
Try it for a day. Don’t let the gloom mongerers control your mood, you control it! And as ever, let me know how you get on.
