Category: Happiness

These are the four psychological pillars of well-being.

Awareness, connection, insight and purpose are the four pillars of psychological well-being, a study concludes.

In the face of rising mental health problems, these pillars can help everyone improve their emotional well-being.

The researchers focus on areas that can be improved with training or other effortful practice:

• Awareness: being attentive to ones’ environment and one’s own body.
• Connections: experiencing kindness and compassion.
• Insight: increasing curiosity and self-knowledge
• Purpose: understanding one’s motivations and values.

Dr Cortland Dahl, the study’s first author, said:

“There are qualities of a healthy mind that many people don’t know are even trainable.

We don’t think of them as skills.

Many of us have thought we are hardwired to be like this or that, but the reality is these qualities are much more trainable and malleable than we think.

It’s a very empowering view of the human mind — we can learn to be in the driver’s seat of our own mind.”

Increasing awareness, for example, helps increase positive emotions and reduce stress.

Awareness also helps to reduce mentally damaging habits like distraction.

A common way to improve awareness is through meditation.

Meditation, though, describes a huge range of different practices, Dr Dahl said:

“Different types of meditation do different things for your brain, just as different sports trigger different changes in your body.

You can train your mind in different pillars that go beyond mindfulness or even gratitude practices.”

Cultivating insight, meanwhile, explained Professor Richard Davidson, study co-author, is…

“…about getting curious about your own preconceived thoughts and opinions.

Your brain is not set.

You can question your own assumptions and biases, and this has tremendous potential to heal the division and ‘othering’ that we see in today’s society.”

Even if our circumstances are difficult to change, our minds can be trained, said Dr Dahl:

“This work is parallel with what we’re learning about human biology.

We’re just at the beginning of understanding that our biology is also malleable.

We are not born a certain fixed way.

Our brains and nervous systems and biology can be shaped.

That’s such a hopeful view to have — there are many ways we can influence our minds, brains and bodies for the better.”

A few resources to get you started

• Find out what kinds of things people say give their lives meaning. Here’s an exercise for increasing meaningfulness and a study finding that feeling you belong increases the sense of meaning.
• Mindfulness exercises that fit into your day.
• Gain self-insight through abstract thinking.
• Acts of kindness boost happiness.
• The psychological effects of being compassionate.

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Dahl et al., 2020).

Most people think that spending money on themselves will make them happier than spending it on other people.

This is not a radical idea which will blow your mind with its incredible newness.

Far from it.

But, because it’s advice that sometimes goes against our natural instinct, it’s worth repeating.

Research suggests that many people think that spending money on themselves will make them happier than spending it on other people (Dunn et al., 2008).

But there is evidence from various different studies that, on average, this isn’t true:

• Participants who were given $5 or $20 to spend on another person were happier than those who spent it on themselves (Dunn et al., 2008).
• People who spend greater proportions of their income on giving to others or to charity are happier than those who spend it on themselves (Dunn et al., 2008).
• Canadian and Ugandan students who thought back to times they’d been generous to others were happier than those thinking back to money they’d spent on themselves (Aknin et al., 2010).

And we haven’t even taken into account how happy it makes the recipient.

Prosocial spending

But why? Why is it that spending our money on others—prosocial spending—makes us happier?

It’s partly because giving to others makes us feel good about ourselves.

It helps promote a view of ourselves as responsible and giving people, which in turn makes us feel happy.

It’s also partly because spending money on others helps cement our social relationships.

And people with stronger social ties are generally happier.

So if prosocial spending makes us feel good, how come we tend to think personal spending will make us happier?

It’s because of the insidious effect money has on the mind.

Studies have shown that the simplest reminder of money has all kinds of negative effects (from Vohs et al., 2006).

It makes us:

• less likely to help others,
• less likely to donate to charity,
• less likely to spend time with others,
• three times more likely to want to work alone, despite knowing we’re taking on more work.

These are all precisely the behaviours that are likely to make us happy, yet just being reminded of money makes us less likely to engage in them.

It’s not that money is always evil; under the right circumstances it can motivate us and modern societies would be difficult without it.

But money clearly has some negative psychological effects.

So fight money’s evil side. Fool it. Betray it. Give it away!

Generosity is the good type of selfishness.

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How to feel mastery and satisfaction with life — even when it’s out of your control.

We all want to exert control over our lives, and that control feels good.

But life can spin out of control.

No matter how hard we try, some things are hard to change.

Research finds that accepting and adapting to circumstances that can’t be changed is linked to fewer negative emotions.

Dr Erik G. Helzer, one of the study’s authors, said:

“Think of the old Frank Sinatra song, ‘My Way.’

A man is looking back on his life, and he generally feels satisfaction with how things turned out, but it wasn’t all happiness.

That’s a richer notion of what it means to live a good, full life.

It’s an attitude that doesn’t downplay the negative experiences of life, and yet it allows for a different kind of engagement with life so that reappraisal and learning can occur and lead to greater satisfaction.”

Primary vs. secondary control

The study tested the effects of two different types of control on felt emotions.

Primary control is all about controlling and creating your destiny, while secondary control refers more to accepting things that can’t be changed.

Dr Helzer said:

“… secondary control is about being able to fit one’s experiences into a broader narrative of life.

Gaining mastery of your life and feeling satisfaction shouldn’t be the domain exclusively of primary control.

The idea of gaining mastery over your circumstances without having to conquer them is an important one.

That’s one thing we wanted to get across in this paper, that secondary control shouldn’t be viewed as a passive, second-best, last-resort strategy, as it is in the previous literature.”

In the survey of over 500 people, the researchers found that both primary and secondary control were linked to positive emotions.

Only primary control, though, was linked to negative emotions.

This is presumably because trying to fight things that can’t be changed is often worse than accepting them.

Dr Helzer said:

“You don’t have control over a lot of situations, at work or elsewhere in your life.

But you do have control over your response to it, over the meaning you assign to the event.

Sometimes you have to give up on the idea that ‘I just want to show that I’m right.’

It’s important to note that secondary control can be just as active and beneficial a method as primary control.”

The study was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science (Helzer & Jayawickreme, 2015).

It’s amazing how little you have to do to make yourself happier right now.

You can lift your spirits without a gym membership, wearing Lycra or even leaving the house.

For sedentary people, getting out of the chair is enough to improve happiness, research finds.

It turns out that very light activity is surprisingly effective in raising people’s level of well-being.

Mr Gregory Panza, the study’s first author, said:

“…simply going from doing no physical activity to performing some physical activity can improve their subjective well-being.

What is even more promising for the physically inactive person is that they do not need to exercise vigorously to see these improvements.

Instead, our results indicate you will get the best ‘bang for your buck’ with light or moderate intensity physical activity.”

Light physical activity is equivalent to a leisurely walk.

The kind of walk that doesn’t make you sweat, breathe faster or even change your heart rate.

Moderate activity is walking fast enough to nudge up your vital signs for around 15 minutes.

Vigorous exercise is equivalent to going for a jog.

The study looked at 419 healthy, middle-aged adults.

The biggest gains in happiness were seen among those who were the most sedentary and then did some light or moderate physical activity.

People who sat around a lot had the most to gain.

Mr Panza said:

“The ‘more is better’ mindset may not be true when it comes to physical activity intensity and subjective well-being.

In fact, an ‘anything is better’ attitude may be more appropriate if your goal is a higher level of subjective well-being.”

People doing vigorous activity did not see increases in their happiness.

This is the reverse of a recent study that found vigorous activity can actually decrease mental well-being.

Dr Beth Taylor, a study author, said:

“Recent studies had suggested a slightly unsettling link between vigorous activity and subjective well-being.

We did not find this in the current study, which is reassuring to individuals who enjoy vigorous activity and may be worried about negative effects.”

The study was published in the Journal of Health Psychology (Panza et al., 2017).

Over four hundred studies including 50,000+ people reveal the best happiness techniques.

Meditation, mindfulness and conscious breathing are some of the best techniques for improving happiness, a review of over 400 studies reveals.

Positive psychological interventions like a gratitude journal, performing small acts of kindness and working on your sense of purpose are also effective.

Positive psychological interventions work best, though, when done together — individually they have little effect.

These techniques work well for people in good health and those with physical and mental illnesses, the research found.

However, it is important to find the right technique that fits you.

Mr Joep Van Agteren, the study’s first author, said:

“During stressful and uncertain periods in our lives, pro-actively working on our mental health is crucial to help mitigate the risk of mental and physical illness.

Our research suggests there are numerous psychological approaches people should experiment with to determine what works for them.”

Unsurprisingly, psychological therapies are also effective at improving well-being, although techniques need to be fitted to people’s requirements.

For people with mental health problems, cognitive-behavioural therapy was effective.

For those who already have good mental health, acceptance and commitment therapy works well.

Stick at it

All psychological techniques require that people stick at them for a period.

Mr Matthew Iasiello, study co-author, said:

“Just trying something once or twice isn’t enough to have a measurable impact.

Regardless of what method people are trying out, they need to stick at it for weeks and months at a time for it to have a real effect.”

While seeking professional help is important, there are many things individuals can do to improve their well-being, said Professor Michael Kyrios, study co-author:

“Implementing such interventions can be done safely for individuals on their own or in a group format, either in person or online.

It is therefore potentially a cost-effective addition to current referral pathways and treatment methods.”

The study was published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour (Agteren et al., 2021).