Category: Happiness

Many people have taken up novelty activities during the pandemic.

Doing meaningful activities is the key to boosting happiness while social distancing and lockdown rules are in effect, a new study finds.

In contrast, keeping busy just for the sake of it does not boost happiness.

Indeed, mindless busywork tends to leave people feeling unsatisfied and unsettled.

It is better to continue with activities that were enjoyable before the pandemic — only in a a different form.

For example, dinner parties can be done virtually as can group exercise classes.

Dr Lauren Saling, study co-author, said:

“Busyness might be distracting but it won’t necessarily be fulfilling.

Rather, think about what activities you miss most and try and find a way of doing them.”

Researchers asked almost 100 people about their level of well-being before and during lockdown.

The results revealed that when people took up novelty lockdown activities, like baking and painting, just to keep busy, this was linked to more extreme emotions.

On the other hand, meaningful activities made people feel calmer.

Dr Saling said:

“Extreme emotions are not necessarily a good thing.

Emotions are a mechanism to make you change your behaviour.

But when you’re doing what you love, it makes sense that you feel more balanced — simply keeping busy isn’t satisfying.”

Simply being busy is not enough to stave off sadness.

Dr Saling said:

“The study showed positive and negative affect worked together, not as opposites.

Respondents who simply stayed busy during lockdown reported an increase in both positive and negative emotions.

This heightened emotionality will tend to shift you away from activity in general and towards meaningful activity.”

The study also revealed that people under 40 experienced the largest changes to their positive emotions after lockdown.

This might be because younger people have more difficulty finding suitable substitute activities.

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE (Cohen et al., 2020).

The long-term goals linked to life satisfaction and happiness.

Setting realistic and modest goals makes people happier in the long-term, research finds.

People feel most satisfied with their lives if they have control over achieving their goals.

Fascinatingly, the importance of the goal does not matter so much.

In other words, modest goals that can be achieved make people happier than grand goals which are difficult to feel in control of.

It also matters to happiness what types of goals people set for themselves.

For example, people are happier when they set themselves goals related to social relationships or health, the researchers found.

Younger people, though, prefer goals related to work and status.

However, these tend not to be satisfying in the long-term.

The study used data from 973 people in Switzerland, many of whom were followed for around 4 years.

They were asked about their life goals across many areas, including social relationships, image, wealth, family and health.

Realistic goals are the key to happiness, the study’s authors write:

“…the attainability of intrinsic goals was positively linked to later well-being.

Goal attainability might be conducive for subjective well-being given that it reflects a person’s feeling of control
and perceived sphere of influence.

[…]

…people are more satisfied if they feel they have this internal locus of control, and that a greater feeling of goal attainability might yield more opportunities
for goal achievement.”

Age had some influence over what types of goals people pursued.

Younger people were naturally more interested in work, status and personal growth.

Both status and work goals were only linked to satisfaction in the short-term, but not in the long-term.

Perhaps it is no surprise that older people, with greater experience of life, focus more on social relationships and their health.

The study was published in the European Journal of Personality (Bühler et al., 2019).

How to formulate your New Year’s resolutions (if you want them to stick).

Step 1

The first step in keeping a New Year’s resolution is to rephrase it, new research finds.

Do not use New Year’s resolutions that contain the words “I will quit…,” or “I will avoid…”

Instead, use “I will start to….”

When people phrase resolutions positively, in terms of what they will do, instead of what they are trying to avoid, they are more likely to carry through.

Study co-author, Professor Per Carlbring, explains:

“In many cases, rephrasing your resolution could definitely work.

For example, if your goal is to stop eating sweets in order to lose weight, you will most likely be more successful if you say ‘I will eat fruit several times a day’ instead.

You then replace sweets with something healthier, which probably means you will lose weight and also keep your resolution.

You cannot erase a behavior, but you can replace it with something else.

Although, this might be harder to apply to the resolution ‘I will quit smoking,’ which is something you might do 20 times a day.”

The conclusions come from a study of 1,066 people who made resolutions at the end of 2017.

The researchers tested the effects of providing different levels of support to people in their attempts to change their behaviour.

Surprisingly, providing people support had little effect, explained Professor Carlbring:

“It was found that the support given to the participants did not make much of a difference when it came down to how well participants kept their resolutions throughout the year.

What surprised us were the results on how to phrase your resolution.”

Step 2

The second step is to think carefully about a resolution that will satisfy the three most basic psychological needs.

People find it much easier to stick to resolutions that tap directly into basic human needs.

These three basic psychological needs are for:

• autonomy: activities that you find personally valuable.
• competence: feeling effective and enjoying a sense of accomplishment.
• and relatedness: feeling connected to others.

Professor Richard Ryan, whose theory of motivation is highly influential, suggests adopting a resolution that involves giving to others.

He says:

“If you want to make a New Year’s resolution that really makes you happy, think about the ways in which you can contribute to the world.

All three of these basic needs are fulfilled.

The research shows it’s not just good for the world but also really good for you.”

We can help ourselves, says Professor Ryan, by helping others:

“Think of how you can help.

There’s a lot of distress out there: If we can set goals that aim to help others, those kinds of goals will, in turn, also add to our own well-being.”

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE (Oscarsson et al., 2020).