How to be happy? That is a question on a lot of people’s minds lately. It seems Covid-19 is taking its toll and people are having trouble being happy and improving their overall well-being.
Last week we talked about the misconceptions of happiness.
We learned that there are things we think will make us happy, but aren’t actually proven to increase happiness.
Those things are a good job, money, stuff, love, and losing weight.
So now you are left wondering, well if not those, what?
Below we’ll learn how to be happy and take better care of our overall well-being.
What Actually Does Make Us Happy?
Now that you know what won’t make you happy, you might be wondering, well gosh, what will make me happy?
I know after the first few lessons from “The Science of Well Being” I was wondering the same thing. I was ready to learn the tangible things I could do to improve my overall happiness and well-being.
Well, here they are.
Signature Strengths
Everyone has certain positive aspects of their personality that will impact you throughout your life. These strengths are known as signature strengths. You can take the quiz and learn yours.
The more you can learn how to put your strengths to use in your everyday life, the more it will positively impact your happiness levels.
I took the quiz early on during “The Science of Well Being” course to find out what my key strengths were. As it turns out, my main one is honesty, followed by learning.
Neither of these surprised me. I’ve always been honest, sometimes even too honest, throughout the course of my life. What I didn’t understand, though, was how to use that strength in my everyday life.
After some research, I found this article that gives some examples of how to use your strengths in everyday life.
Savoring
Savoring is fully appreciating an experience. Taking the time to savor a good moment can increase the positive feelings that come with doing something you enjoy.
You can do this with current experiences. An example would be when you are eating something you love, actually focusing on all the flavors and textures that the food had to offer.
However, you can also use savoring with memories. Pulling up a positive memory has been shown to increase your happiness.
The recommended way to do this with memories is to think of a memory and play it back in your mind like you are watching video footage. Remember the lighting, the sounds, smells, and tastes.
Gratitude
Gratitude is yet another way to increase your happiness. It is taking time out of your day to appreciate what you have in life.
The recommended method is to take time to write down and think about what you are writing about.
This is something I have been doing for just about a year now and I can say that it does make an impact. It has changed my overall mindset from somewhat negative to more positive.
I am more likely to see the silver linings in situations than I used to be.
I personally started my own little journal where I write down 3 things I’m grateful for each night before I go to bed. Let me tell you, there is not much better than going to bed happy about things in your life.
However, if writing things down isn’t for you, you could always try the Gratitude app. I’ve also used this app. It allows you to record something each day that you are grateful for. You can even put pictures in there and write down positive affirmations about yourself.
I also enjoy using this app. I have it set to remind me at a certain time each day to put down something I’m grateful for. Plus, it includes positive quotes and affirmations every day that might spark joy for you.
Kindness
Something you might not expect to make you happier but does is showing kindness to another person.
This could be a simple random act of kindness, like paying for someone else’s coffee in the morning. Or it could be more intentional, like helping out a co-worker with something.
Regularly showing kindness to others can increase your happiness. So, volunteer or donate somewhere that resonates with you. Get out there and spread some kindness in the world.
Social Connection
The lack of social connection is probably one of the biggest things missing in our happiness over the past year with Covid.
What has been found is that being with other people has a positive impact on our happiness levels.
Continued relationships with close friends and acquaintances has more of an impact than you might think. It is important to make sure that you take the time to keep up on these relationships, even during Covid.
You can text, call, send video snap chats, or even have zoom meetings with friends to keep up with them during Covid.
When it comes to acquaintances, even those little interactions throughout the day can increase your mood. That would include talking to the barista where you get your coffee or chatting someone up on the commute to work.
Typically, with these acquaintance interactions, people think that others don’t want to be bothered. However, when you actually start a conversation with them, they are nicer to you than you think and will also enjoy the interaction.
I myself experienced this over the past few years with a gentleman in our neighborhood. We’d run into each other while I was on my morning walk and he was leaving for work.
Now every time we see each other, we’re both happy for the short interaction of checking in on how we’re doing that day.
Honestly, there were some days shortly after the separation I had with my husband where the morning hello from him was the best part of my day.
Never underestimate how much of an impact your simple friendly hello can be on someone else.
Exercise
Exercise is one thing that will improve your overall well-being that has probably been talked about a little bit too much. However, the reason for that is because it works.
Exercising is known to release endorphins, which trigger positive feelings. There are a whole slew of benefits from exercising. It is shown to improve sleep, reduce stress, and improves your overall body health.
To help with your happiness and well-being, the recommendation is 30 minutes of moderate exercise per day.
As someone who went from never exercising to a regular exerciser, I can say that I have seen all of these benefits. I used to be a person who would walk infrequently and never do weightlifting or heavy cardio.
Then, I found out that I had high cholesterol the first time I had routine bloodwork through my work health program.
This shifted my mindset completely. Both of my grandpa’s had open-heart surgeries to tackle their heart health problems and I didn’t want that in my future.
That combined with a huge shake-up in my workplace that caused me high stress for years, I knew I had to make some lifestyle changes.
My friend introduced me to fittnessblender.com and the rest is history. I finally found workouts I enjoyed doing and I was seeing results.
My mood was better after I completed a workout and that work stress seemed more manageable. After several years of keeping up on my exercises in conjunction with eating slightly healthier, I am at a healthy cholesterol level.
The key is to find some type of exercise that you enjoy doing and it won’t seem so bad.
Sleep
Sleep, or the lack thereof, has a major impact on our happiness and overall well-being.
The recommendation is to get 7 or more hours of sleep per night.
Getting enough sleep is known to improve your mood and increase your cognitive ability.
Again, this is something I have experienced first-hand. Starting back in middle school, I started having sleeping issues where I wouldn’t get enough sleep during the night.
Even back then, I noticed that my mood was lower and my ability to concentrate at school was lower. That has definitely continued on into my adulthood.
Although, I will say, that I was amazed at how much I was still able to do at work after little sleep when I had a newborn at home.
That being said, I still notice that I am able to function best and feel best when I get a full night’s sleep.
Meditation
The last main point on how to be happy that was covered in “The Science of Well-Being” course was meditation.
Meditation has been shown to increase brain tissue and has so many other benefits. It can improve your mood, increase your concentration and reduce anxiety. If you want to learn more about the science behind it, check out this Forbes article.
Meditation is the first thing my therapist recommended on day one of our therapy as a way to help with my anxiety. I’ve been regularly meditating for about a year and a half now, and I definitely can attest to its benefits.
If I meditate before work or take a break during the day, I can feel how my concentration is better and my mood is improved. When I meditate before bed, I find it easier to fall asleep.=
Starting meditation can be overwhelming, so check out my blog post Different Types of Meditation: A Breakdown for Beginners.
Other Tips on How to be Happy
There was so much more covered in “The Science of Well-Being” course that it is hard to give just an overview. With that in mind, I wanted to include a few additional pointers that I found interesting and helpful.
Growth Mindset
Having a growth mindset is another aspect that happier people tend to have. A growth mindset means that you think you can get better at something with some hard work.
Opposite this, some people have fixed mindsets. That means that they think people are just naturally good at something. Therefore, they think that they are either good at something or they aren’t.
A fixed mindset can get people stuck thinking that they aren’t good enough. When something is hard for them, they just think, that they aren’t as good as they thought.
In contrast, a growth mindset will thrive with hard work. They think if they work hard, they will get better and stronger at something.
Resetting Reference Points
Humans tend to compare themselves with others. In “The Science of Well-Being” Professor Santos states that “the worst kinds of reference points are other people.”
She goes on to say that if you can avoid using others as reference points, or reset them somehow, you will be better off.
Here are some of the key points around reference points.
Social Media
One of the things that was noted in “The Science of Well-Being” course was that people would be happier if they didn’t have social media.
The reason for that is all of the endless comparisons that happen there. You tend to scroll through and you see all of these people doing amazing things.
Your brain doesn’t always remember that these highlights tend to be the high points of those people’s lives. People tend not to share the bad things that happen in their lives.
Method 1: Stop Using Social Media
The easiest way to prevent social media comparison would be to stop using it.
Most people will not do that. If you are one of those people, go on to the following tips to find ways to help yourself.
Method 2: Stop Yourself
One way to stop this is to physically say out loud to yourself “Stop!” when you find yourself comparing to other people on social media.
Then you remind yourself that these are all the best points in people’s lives that they are sharing.
Method 3: Gratitude
If you are busy being focused on being grateful for things in your own life, you won’t have time to be comparing your life to everyone else’s.
In the course, Professor Santos calls gratitude the “killer of envy.”
Method 4: Be Conscious of the Comparisons
Being conscious of the comparisons can be very helpful to your happiness.
In one regard it is helpful because you can tell yourself that you are aware of the comparisons.
The other part of this is that you have the ability to control the type of comparisons you are seeing. This means that you control who you follow and therefore what you see.
If you are constantly following a lot of influencers who have a ton of money to spend and do all sorts of crazy stuff, you are more likely to feel bad about your lack of being able to keep up with them.
Part of being conscious of comparisons is realizing that those people are on a different level than you and you don’t need to keep up with them. The other part is that you don’t have to follow those types of people.
If you follow people who are more similar to yourself, the comparison stretch won’t be quite so large, so it will have less of an impact on you.
Stop Investing in Stuff
As you may recall, last week we discussed why buying stuff won’t make us happy. The recommendation instead is to invest in experiences.
The stuff won’t stick around whereas you’ll have the memory from an experience for your lifetime.
They also note that other people are more excited to hear about your experiences than your stuff. It helps them connect more with you.
Plus, experiences are harder to make social comparisons to because they are all so unique.
Try it Out!
Consider taking the course to learn more or start doing one of the actions that would make you happier. There is so much more included in the course that I haven’t been able to cover here.
What was nice about the course is that it takes each of these key things that are known to improve happiness and has you focus on one or two for a week at a time. That is a short enough time period to try each of them out to see which ones work best for you.
As I took the course, I was so relieved and happy to see that most of these things were highly hit on during my first six months of counseling.
I just felt a reassurance knowing that science had proved them out and I was already putting in the work to improve my happiness and well-being.
For me, putting in the work to try a few new things out paid out in the end. My mood improved, my anxiety decreased, and overall, I just feel better.
I challenge you to try just one of these tips to try and make your life happier and improve your well-being!
