For a happier new year:
Be around happy people, avoid unhappy people. Studies of social networks support the idea that our health and happiness are deeply affected by the people we associate with.
Think about major turning points in your life and what might never have been. One common piece of advice about how to be happier is to count your blessings. And that works. But researchers have found that it is even more effective to think about how those good things in your life might never have happened if things had gone a little differently. How you might have never met your spouse, or how you might have never got that job opportunity.
You get what you give. Giving to other does make you happier. A three part study found that varied levels of personal spending is unrelated to happiness, but spending on others is associated with greater levels of happiness.
Find meaning, be compassionate. The “why” of things drives how we react emotionally. Think about how the irritation at a traffic jam is reframed when you find out it’s because a whole family died in a car accident. Or how you might feel if you are told you have to work weekends, but then discover that the reason is that you are picking up slack for a coworker who has cancer. The world is not setting out to irritate us every day.
Think fast. Studies have found that people think an increase in positive mood when they thing quickly rather than slowly.
Smile. Researchers have show that engaging the muscles involved in smiling can increase positive mood. This is true not only when people make themselves smile, but is also true when the researchers use electrodes to make those muscles contract. The brain is an association machine. It associated happiness with smiling and smiling with happiness. It goes both ways.
How to make good experiences more pleasurable (and bad experiences less bad). People tend to take breaks during difficult tasks and want good experiences to be uninterrupted, but in many cases the opposite is the best approach. Studies have found that taking breaks during a pleasurable task like eating a good meal increases pleasure, while interrupting an unpleasant task makes the task more unpleasant.
Action this day! Procrastination results when we avoid the bad feelings associated with a task by avoiding the task. Psychologists Dianne Tice and Ellen Bratslavsky call this “giving in to feeling good,” and point out that this short-term increase in happiness leads to increased unhappiness in the long term. Don’t make that mistake. Focus on the long term and the increased positive feelings that come from progress on the task. Even the process of taking action itself, instead sitting and stewing about it, will make you happier. Nike got it right: Just Do It.
See part I of happiness tips here.