Category: Happiness

Three simple happiness exercises that take just four minutes.

Simple exercises, including reliving happy moments, can make you happier in just four minutes, research finds.

‘Reliving Happy Moments’ involves choosing a personal photo that captures a happy moment and adding a few words of description to it.

This exercise gave people in the study the greatest boost in happiness.

The results come from research including over 500 people who were (or had) experienced substance abuse.

Another exercise they were given is called ‘Savouring’ and involves noting and appreciating two positive experiences from yesterday.

This was almost as powerful as reliving happy moments.

Next most useful was “Rose, Bud, Thorns” which involves listing a highlight and a challenge from yesterday and a pleasure to be appreciated tomorrow.

Dr Bettina B. Hoeppner, the study’s first author, said:

“Addiction scientists are increasingly moving beyond the traditional focus on reducing or eliminating substance use by advocating treatment protocols that encompass quality of life.

Yet orchestrated positive experiences are rarely incorporated into treatment for those with substance use disorders.”

Dr Hoeppner continued:

“These findings underscore the importance of offsetting the challenges of recovery with positive experiences.

Recovery is hard, and for the effort to be sustainable, positive experiences need to be attainable along the way.”

The study was published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment (Hoeppner et al., 2019).

People with this personality trait are more hopeful and assess their lives more positively.

People who believe in the oneness of everything are happier, research finds.

‘Oneness’ is the idea that everything in the world is interdependent and interconnected.

This includes a sense of connectedness to other people, nature and life in general.

Beliefs like these are incorporated in many religions.

However, whether or not people have a specific faith, they are more satisfied with life when they have a sense of ‘oneness’.

Activities such as yoga, meditation and action sports may help to increase the feeling of oneness or flow.

Dr Laura Marie Edinger-Schon, the study’s author, said:

“The feeling of being at one with a divine principle, life, the world, other people or even activities has been discussed in various religious traditions but also in a wide variety of scientific research from different disciplines.

The results of this study reveal a significant positive effect of oneness beliefs on life satisfaction, even controlling for religious beliefs.”

The conclusions come from two surveys that included almost 75,000 people.

People were asked whether they agreed with statements like:

• “I believe that everything in the world is based on a common principle.”
• “Everything in the world is interdependent and influenced by each other.”

They were also asked how much they felt connected to nature and other people and how happy they were.

The results showed that people who felt a sense of ‘oneness’ were more satisfied with their lives.

Dr Edinger-Schon explained her motivation for the study:

“I recognized that in various philosophical and religious texts, a central idea is the idea of oneness.

In my free time, I enjoy surfing, Capoeira, meditation and yoga, and all of these have been said to lead to experiences that can be described as being at one with life or nature or just experiencing a state of flow through being immersed in the activity.

I was wondering whether the larger belief in oneness is something that is independent of religious beliefs and how it affects satisfaction with life.”

The study was published in the journal Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (Edinger-Schons, 2019).

From the mental health benefits of gardening to the healing power of birdsong — explore the psychology of nature.

People are spending less and less time enjoying the outdoors and nature with every passing year.

The recent shift away from nature has been incredible: some studies estimate people now spend 25 percent less time in nature than they did 20 years ago (Pergams & Zaradic, 2007).

Instead, recreational time is often spent online, playing video games and watching movies.

The psychological literature clearly reveals how beneficial the experience of nature is to our minds.

In nature people feel more alive, creative, in sync and less stressed.

Here are 7 psychology studies from the members-only section of PsyBlog exploring the psychology of nature.

(If you are not already, find out how to become a PsyBlog member here.)

1. The Great Disconnect: How Humans Are Losing Touch With Nature
2. The Reason Being In Nature Feels So Good
3. How Nature Heals The Brain Of Stress
4. The Mental Health Benefits Of Gardening
5. How Nature Can Lower Your Risk Of Dementia
6. Spend This Long In Nature To Feel Fantastic
7. The Beautiful Sound That Reduces Anxiety, Paranoia And Depression

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For the study, 582 people described strategies for improving their well-being.

People who take up hobbies or interests that involve other people are happier one year later, research finds.

In comparison to those using non-social strategies, the socially focused were more satisfied with life.

Ms Julia Rohrer, the study’s first author, said:

“Our research showed that people who came up with ‘well-being’ strategies that involved other people were more satisfied with their lives one year later — even after taking into account that they were marginally happier to begin with.

In contrast, people who came up with strategies that did not explicitly involve others remained, on average, as satisfied as they were.”

For the study, 582 people described strategies for improving their well-being.

Some suggested non-social things like giving up smoking.

Others chose social things like spending more time with their family and friends or helping others.

The life satisfaction of those choosing nonsocial things remained the same one year later, while those who chose social things saw improvements in life satisfaction.

Ms Rohrer said:

“Many people are interested in becoming happier, but there is a lack of evidence regarding the long term effects of pursuing happiness through various types of activities.

After all, there’s no guarantee that trying to become happier doesn’t make you more miserable in the end.

I think our study partly fills that gap in the literature, although more research with a longitudinal perspective is certainly needed.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Rohrer et al., 2018).

The question is a test of how connected you feel to your future self and it can reveal your future happiness.

Take a moment to imagine your personality 10 years from now.

Do you think you will be more or less wise, energetic, willing to learn, caring and knowledgeable?

Or, perhaps you feel you will be much the same?

The question is a test of how connected you feel to your future self and it can reveal your future happiness.

According to a recent study, people who feel they will remain the same in the future are happier.

In contrast, people who feel they will decline and also, surprisingly, improve, were both less satisfied with life ten years later.

The reason is that feeling connected to one’s future self is linked to taking care of one’s health, financial situation and delaying gratification.

On the other hand, those who predict they will change fail to take the same care of themselves.

It may also be that predicting no change in oneself is a sign of contentment with one’s identity.

Mr Joseph Reiff , the study’s first author, said:

“The more people initially predicted that they would remain the same — whether predicting less decline or less improvement across a number of core traits — the more satisfied they typically were with their lives ten years later.”

The study included 4,963 people who were asked to estimate aspects of their future selves.

They answered questions like:

• “How calm and even-tempered do you think you will be 10
  years from now?”

The survey included other questions asking about wisdom, energy, willingness to learn and being caring and knowledgeable.

The results revealed that people who expected themselves to improve or get worse over the 10 years both had lower levels of life satisfaction.

Those who thought they would remain much the same, though, were happiest.

Dr Hal Hershfield, study co-author, said:

“We are now interested in understanding why some people think they will remain the same and why others think they will change.

What life events, for example, cause people to shift the way they think about their future selves?”

The study was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science (Reiff et al., 2019)

The best personality traits for happiness differ for work and play.

The personality trait most strongly linked to happiness right across the lifespan is emotional stability, research finds.

People who are high in emotional stability, which is the opposite of being neurotic, tend to be positive, have high self-control along with the ability to manage psychological stress effectively.

Looking specifically at work and social satisfaction, though, other personality traits were also important along with emotional stability.

For work satisfaction, the best personality trait was conscientiousness, a trait linked to being self-disciplined and aiming for achievement.

For social satisfaction, though, extraversion and agreeableness were most strongly linked to happiness.

Happiness across the lifespan

The conclusions come from a study exploring how the link between personality and happiness might change with age.

Dr Gabriel Olaru, the study’s first author, said:

“Many studies have shown that people with certain personality profiles are more satisfied with their life than others.

Yet, it had not been extensively studied whether this holds true across the lifespan.

For example, extraverted—that is sociable, talkative—people might be particularly happy in young adulthood, when they typically are forming new social relationships.

We thus wanted to examine if some personality traits are more or less relevant to life, social and work satisfaction in specific life phases.”

The study included over 9,000 Dutch adults of all ages who were tracked over more than a decade.

The results showed that the connections between life satisfaction and personality remained much the same over the lifespan.

Dr Manon van Scheppingen, study co-author, said:

“Our findings show that—despite differences in life challenges and social roles—personality traits are relevant for our satisfaction with life, work and social contacts across young, middle and older adulthood.

The personality traits remained equally relevant across the adult lifespan, or became even more interconnected in some cases for work satisfaction.”

Personality and environment interact

People’s personality also interacts with the environment, explained Dr van Scheppingen:

“A good example of how personality interacts with the environment can be found in the work context.

One of our findings was that the link between emotional stability and work satisfaction increases across age.

This might be explained by the fact that emotionally stable people are less scared to quit unsatisfactory jobs and more likely to apply for jobs that are more challenging and perhaps more fulfilling and enjoyable in the long run.”

Despite what many believe, personality is capable of change, said Dr van Scheppingen:

“While we did not examine what caused these changes, [the research] shows that our personalities and our happiness are not set in stone.

Perhaps we may even be able to influence how we change: If we try to become more organized, outgoing, friendly, this might increase life, social or work satisfaction as well.”

→ Related: How To Change Your Personality

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Olaru et al., 2023).