Our favorite take-aways from “The How of Happiness” with Sonja Lyubomirsky
May 3, 2014
“Happiness depends on ourselves.”
– Aristotle
Sonja Luybomirsky closed her presentation Tuesday night with this quote and while the recipe for happiness seems to be ages old; the true science behind it is just emerging in the budding field of positive psychology. Rather than studying what’s gone wrong or what makes people depressed, positive psychologist study what works and makes people happy. Sonja shared her research with a packed house on a warm summer night in Mill Valley with food and drinks flowing and that alone seems like enough to make anyone happy.
THE GOOD NEWS: People are resilient and much better at over-coming adversities than we thought. While people may dip in their levels of happiness after losing a job or going through a divorce, on average, two years later they have usually bounced back to their “happiness set point” and are possibly even happier. Major “negative” turning points in our lives do not have to be seen crisis that derail us, we just need time to adjust to the new normal.
THE BAD NEWS: There’s a “dark side” of happiness. We tend to get stagnant-even when we have every right to be “happy”- there’s a “hedonic adaptation” that occurs when the thrill is gone with our job or marriage, what have you. How do we sustain happiness, that elation we feel when we first fall in love or start a new job? This is where the 40% comes in. Sonya says happiness can be broken down into 50% biology, 10% life circumstances, and 40% intentional activity. This 40% is what we have control of and the part that takes work – the part that Aristotle pointed out is up to us.
One’s life course is ultimately the sum of our choices which is why Sonja challenges us that happiness takes effort but there are things we can do to foster it:
- Keep excitement alive – have something to look forward to.
- Practice random acts of kindness – not just for the sake of others but also selfishly because it makes us feel better.
- Keep variety and novelty a part of daily life.
- Live in the moment.
- Be grateful. (*But not too often as her studies found that people who kept gratitude journals were happier when they did it once a week as opposed to 3 times a week. Why? Because of hedonic adaptation!)
So the data is in. We do have the power to make ourselves happy and there are proven tried and true and tested tools that can get you there. So stop talking about it and just get out there and make it happen. Go on and GET HAPPY!
To get an audio and/or video download of the entire presentation, click HERE!