Research Reveals 6 Surprisingly Simple Changes That Will Make You Happier

By Nancy F. Clark

You may be thinking, “What can scientists tell me about being happier and what exactly do they think happiness is?" Researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky can help us out here. She describes happiness as “the experience of joy, contentment or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful and worthwhile.” Plus, her studies have inspired happiness tip number six below, which will make you and those around you happier. Ready to get started?

1.  How Can I Have More Willpower?

Stanford’s Kelly McGonigal says there are ways to improve your willpower that are not difficult. Treat your willpower as if you’re building a muscle — increase it little by little. Choose a goal that you’ll look forward to rather than something others think you should do. Try to take little steps earlier in the day before fatigue begins to set in. Now when you slip up and don’t take the right action, the surprise is that you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself. Don’t go into that negative self-talk downward spiral. Instead, use a self-compassionate mindset and treat yourself as you would a good friend.

Research by Juliana Breines at the University of California, Berkeley shows that when you’re not happy with how you’ve performed or if you feel guilty about something you’ve done, it helps if you follow these instructions, which she gave to the study’s participants: "Imagine that you are talking to yourself about this [weakness/action] from a compassionate and understanding perspective. What would you say?"

By practicing this self-compassionate mindset, participants showed greater willingness to learn from and improve on their self-perceived weakness, mistake or failure. They were more likely to want to take action to reduce the harm of their previous misdeeds. Plus they also had greater optimism that their personal weakness could be changed.

Being kinder to yourself increases your optimism—and consequently your happiness.

2.  I Smell Coffee!

Imagine the scent of a cup of coffee at your afternoon break or a warm slice of apple pie. Neuroscientist Jessica Freiherr says that our sense of smell often happens under the radar of our consciousness. Unlike our other senses, our sense of smell (our olfactory nerves) do not go to the brain’s gateway (the thalamus) for processing. They go directly to the cortical areas to arouse emotions and memories without our awareness. So, if you’d like to feel happier several times a day, make plans to line up a few good smelling props. What three things will you choose?

3.  Can Talking About Being Positive Make It So?

What’s the story you tell? You may hear yourself say, “I’ll never be able to do this!” or, “I always fail at that.” Positive psychology expert Homaira Kabir says that stories having “should,” “always” and “never” embedded in them are based on extreme beliefs that are biased. Reflect on how this "story" may have helped you cope at a certain point in your life. Notice how it is now making you unhappy and holding you back. Now, be prepared to alter it dramatically or simply let it go and start from scratch.

Change the story you want to hear yourself telling others — and replaying in your mind. Put the successes you’ve had into the foreground that align with your goals. Don’t give your attention or your voice to those other situations.

Rick Hanson, PhD, of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, says you can use your mind to change your brain. This is known as “self-directed neuroplasticity.” The key to it is a controlled use of attention. If we put our attention on what we resent or regret, then unfortunately we’re going to build the neural substrates of those thoughts and feelings. Take Rick Hanson’s advice, “If we rest our attention on the things for which we’re grateful, the blessings in our life—the wholesome qualities in ourselves and the world around us; the things we get done, most of which are fairly small yet they’re accomplishments nonetheless—then we build up very different neural substrates.”

Build your positive story, put your attention on it and start talking about it.

4.  Appreciation vs. Gratitude

Professor Loretta Breuning explains that your brain has a built-in negativity bias to protect you from harm, but you can do things to develop new pathways of positivity. She advises you to take one minute three times a day to scan for the positive aspects of situations that are on your mind. For instance, you can try this by stopping for one minute at 9am, 2pm and 9pm each day to direct your thoughts. She says this is different from gratitude exercises where you may be in the role of a passive receiver.

She focuses on actively constructing positives, such as “Here comes that coworker who’s always complaining. I’m smiling and thinking of how I’m not letting this bother me. I’m handling this quite well,” or, “That project didn’t go as planned, but it could have been worse. I’ll make the best of this new direction.”

In this way you can appreciate how you’re directing your thoughts away from the negative and toward the positive, making yourself happier.

5.  What’s The Best Way To Handle A Negative Emotion?

Don’t hide a negative emotion. Recognize what it’s telling you and see if you need to take an action. If not, and if you’d like to reduce the intensity of your negative feeling that’s pulling your positivity down, there’s a simple trick for that—backed by science. A UCLA study lead by Matthew Lieberman says to give your feeling a one-word label. Here are some labels that might occur to you: irritation, anger, envy. Identify it with one word. Don’t rehash it deeply or you’re increasing the intensity—not what you want.

For instance, when you see that high-level manager walking down the hall towards you, you quell and shake inside. If you think of a word that represents your feeling, such as “intimidation” the reaction in your amygdala — the fight or flight trigger — lessens. Say “Thank you Dr. Lieberman,” if you feel more positive and happier having this tool available.

6.  Add This To My Fridays, Really?

Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky’s research shows that almost any type of act of kindness boosts happiness. A corporate project performed at a company in Spain showed that asking some employees to be generous to a randomly chosen list of colleagues (they called this the “Secret Santa” manipulation) produced huge benefits for increasing happiness, connectedness, flow and decreasing depression, not just for the givers, but for the receivers, and even for observers. She said, “The recipients of kindness ‘paid the kind acts forward’ and even acquaintances of the givers became happier and were inspired to act more generously themselves.”

In another study Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky asked UC Riverside students to commit five random acts of kindness each week for six weeks. Those who engaged in acts of kindness showed a 42% increase in happiness.

To make it easier for me to keep track, I decided that every Friday I would do three to five random acts of kindness. They can include simple things such as holding a door open for someone, smiling at a stranger who doesn’t look like me, or even giving a small gift card to a homeless person. Or it can be something big such as going out of my way to make a business introduction.

So try this and go for that 42% increase in happiness and make others happy while you’re at it!