How to Be Happy: Were You Born That Way? If Not, You Can Change

Source: By SARAH TRELEAVEN

Posted: 06/19/08 11:49AM

Filed Under: Health

How to be happy. That's really what it all comes down to, isn't it? Even if life has been chugging along at a fairly joyous pace, most of us would admit a little more happy couldn't hurt. Often all that requires is a gentle reminder of how good we already have it or a simple tweaking of our glass-half-empty perspectives in order to turn the tide. This column will do that just that. Each week, Sarah Treleaven will seek out someone who has gained wisdom and insight into how to live a happier, more fulfilling existence and she will get their best advice.

Last week: writer Alain de Botton explores physical surroundings and their inducements of both happiness and misery. And we wonder, does your house make you happy?

This week: Sonja Lyubomirsky, research psychologist and University of California professor of psychology, has spent years studying the science behind happiness, and her research can be found in a new book, The How of Happiness: The Scientific Approach to Getting What You Want. Here, she discusses how to be happier, the role of genetics and life circumstances in levels of happiness, and why spending money really does increase happiness.

Q: How does happiness work?

A: About 50 percent of individual differences in happiness are determined by our genes, so there’s some truth to the fact that some people are just born happier than others. And then about 10 percent is due to life circumstances. The numbers are not set in stone; it’s just an average. A lot of people are really astonished that our life circumstances only have a pretty minimal influence on our happiness.

Q: Why is that?

A: One of the reasons is a phenomenon called "hedonic adaptation," which is the phenomenon that people tend to adapt or get used to almost anything positive in their lives. If your happiness depends on changes in your life circumstances – “when I get married, I’ll be happier” – it’s not going to work because people are going to adapt to those changes. There was a study done in Germany showing that people get a [happiness] boost when they get married, but it lasts an average of two years. And then they go back to their baseline.

Q: In your book, you have an easy-to-follow daily plan for increasing happiness. How does it work?

A: So if 50 percent is genetic, and 10 percent depends on your circumstances, then that leaves 40 percent under your control. So that’s really an optimistic conclusion that there is a part of happiness that you have the power to do something about. A lot of my book is delineating a lot of the different strategies or activities that you can engage in and practice to make yourself happier. These things are kind of obvious; when you read the list, you’re not going to be bowled over. They’re things like expressing gratitude, doing acts of kindness, nourishing relationships, pursuing important goals, practicing spirituality (if that’s your thing), and physical exercise.

It’s easy to figure out what to do, but fit is very important. I have a chapter on that in the book because not all of the strategies are going to work for all people. I have a diagnostic that I developed that helps people determine which strategy they’re going to benefit from most and which they would enjoy more. They’re easy to figure out but it’s hard to do them. It’s like losing weight. Everyone knows what to do – you eat less and exercise more. What’s hard is to actually do it and to do it every day for the rest of your life. If your set point for happiness is lower than you’d like, you need to commit to these strategies and put a lot of effort into them.

Q: Do people frequently misjudge what will make them happy?

A: Yes. A lot of people think it’s changes in their life circumstances – “I’ll be happy when X happens…” – and they don’t realize that they adapt to these things and then other parts of their life take over. People are asked how happy they would be if they won this award or the lottery, they don’t realize that a lot of other things happen in life that direct your attention elsewhere. You still have to go to work and make dinner for your kids and you get stuck in traffic. When “X” happens, it’s not going to dominate your life; it’s just one of many things in your life.

Q: You mentioned a genetically determined set point for happiness. Should we look at our parents and how happy they are? Is that our fate?

A: It’s a lot more complicated than that. Happiness is heritable just like schizophrenia or diabetes or obesity or height. But they have different levels of heritability. For happiness it’s 50 percent, and for height it’s more like 80 or 90 percent. But it’s not so simple that if your parents were happy, you’ll be happy. The studies show that the kind of heritability that happiness has is characterized by emergenic traits, which means that it’s not directly passed from our parents. It’s in your genes but it has to do with a combination of genes. The good news is that if your parents are not that happy naturally, it doesn’t mean that you’re doomed to be unhappy.

Q: What are the key things that people should focus on if they want to live a happier life?

A: It really depends on the person, as I mentioned before. It’s different for different people. There’s not really research that shows that one is more important than the other, but just from knowing the literature, my intuition is that there’s three factors. 1. Positive thinking: That includes being optimistic about the future, expressing gratitude for the present and the past, and everything to do with having a more positive perspective of yourself, other people and the world around you. 2. A sense of control over your life: There are many ways to gain control; if you have the kind of job that doesn’t offer you control over your life, then you can try to have control over other areas of your life. 3. Relationships: This is really critical. The studies all show that the happiest people have good, fulfilling relationships. You can’t find a happy person who doesn’t have good relationships. It’s sort of a necessary condition.

Q: What’s the correlation between culture and happiness?

A: There are a lot of researchers who hand out surveys all over the world, and they look at the levels of happiness that people report. And there are certainly lots of differences. In some Scandinavian countries, people report being happier than in other countries. Some of those differences could just be due to social desirability or norms, and people might use the scales differently in other cultures so they’re hard to interpret. I’m more interested in how the pursuit of happiness might play out in other cultures. My hypothesis is that the pursuit of happiness is universal, and most people in the world want to be happy and they do report that. There are clear differences in how people define happiness across cultures. I did a study comparing Russians and Americans, and I found that Russians define happiness in a more abstract way, as something less attainable like spiritual fulfillment or a world of peace. Americans talked about having fun and a good career and having money.

Q: Should an informed pursuit of happiness be more of a priority?

A: You could argue that there’s already an obsession with happiness, especially in Western cultures.

Q: Sure, but people aren’t necessarily educated about what will make them happy.

A: What’s unique about my book is that it’s based on the research, and I think it is important that people use a strategy that has been proven to work. You want to find out what really does make people happy and has been shown to make people happy.

Q: A lot of people seem to misunderstand their own happiness. Instead of cultivating relationships, we pour a lot of time and energy into consumption.

A: There’s a lot of discussion and study about whether money makes people happier, and the thing is that it does make people happier – just not for very long. You adapt and then you have to spend money on something else. So if you have a lot of money, it can actually be a successful strategy to be happier. You just have to keep renovating your house. Of course, it’s terrible for the planet because you’re consuming and buying stuff.

Q: Would the world be a better place if we were all happier?

A: I think so. I have another area of research where I look at the benefits of happiness, and people who are happier are more productive at work, are more creative, have stronger immune function, are more charitable, make better leaders, and have more friends. Good things accrue to you when you’re a happier person – and not just to you, but to your family and community.

How to Be Happy Archives:

John Wood, a successful executive at Microsoft quit his job and founded Room to Read to improve the lives of children in the developing world.

Pamela Moulton, a former printing executive who now spends her days tending grapevines in northern California, explains what she did to feel OK after losing her husband in an accident.

Dr. John Izzo explains our three main sources of misery and how to stop them.

Gretchen Rubin spent a year testing every happiness-enforcing principle she could find; get her top tips for a fulfilling life.

Triathlete, Brian Doan on beating cancer and gaining perspective.

Author Daniel Nettle posits that perhaps humans don't want to be happy

Brian Klemmer describes how to live by the code of the Samurai, which includes an emphasis on personal values and civic service.