Few concepts in society are more written about, analyzed or debated than why some people are generally happier than others. Yet besides the obvious, health, relationships, wealth and career, why are some people more prone to being happy than others?
The answers are as varied as the reasons people are unhappy. Yet, research suggests a few key variables separate the chronically miserable from those who are more often joyful.
Happiness as a Choice
In a 2007 LiveScience article titled, "The Keys to Happiness, and Why We Don't Use Them," Robin Loyd explains that while psychologists continue to tell patients the "keys to happiness," many continue to adhere to comfortable, habitual ways of thinking.
Moreover, Americans are no happier today than they were 50 years ago despite significant increases in prosperity, decreases in crime, cleaner air, larger living quarters and a better overall quality of life.
So why the long faces?
Happiness it turns out, is 50 percent genetic, explains researcher David Lykken. What people do with the other half of the equation depends largely on their determination. As Abraham Lincoln once said, "Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be."
To be happy, a person has to habitually shift their paradigms, ingrained mental maps that lead to a way of thinking and responding. Making the shift doesn't require denying negative feelings or pretending something bad feels good; it means consciously focusing on positive aspects in a rotten situation, or if that's not possible, gradually focusing on the positive in other areas.
Happiness not Always in Antidepressants or Bank Account
While a brain chemistry imbalance can lead to a lack of joie de vie, taking antidepressants to combat a mood disorder may offer only a temporary mental lift rather than a permanent positive attitude. In addition, side effects can cause a new set of "misery" symptoms such as weight gain, decreased sex drive or lack of affect (i.e. an ability to cry).
And although money doesn't cause happiness, it contributes. Money moves people out of poverty, lifts the emotional burden of financial strain, and adds joy by supporting a plentiful lifestyle. Yet having big bucks is no sure formula for daily happiness research shows.
During a study on happiness, Ed Diener, PhD and Robert Biswas-Diener found that a large income was more directly related to a stronger sense of happiness than any other factor. Overall, people who said they had a great life reported higher income yet, a larger salary did not mean people felt happier on a day-to-day basis. Having "psychological wealth," the ability to adapt to both good and bad events in order to move forward in life, is an asset.
"Essentially, we have two forms of prosperity: economic and psychological," said Diener. "I don't know if one is better than the other. But what we've found is that while money may be able to make people lead more comfortable lives, it won't necessarily contribute to life's pleasant moments that come from engaging with people and activities rather than from material goods and luxuries."
Find Flow to Achieve Happiness
Getting into the "flow," suggests psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihali, author of "The Psychology of Optimal Experience," offers a natural pathway to happiness. Flow describes a state of mind that comes with being deeply engrossed in a creative or playful activity, so much so that a person often loses all sense of time. Athletes, musicians, writers and religious adherents often move into this highly focused state simply by concentrating their attention and energies in areas they innately enjoy.
Church Behaviors Evoke Happiness: Gratitude, Forgiveness, Fellowship, and Acts of Kindness
Gregg Easterbrook, author of "The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse," [Random House, 2004], explains that "There are selfish reasons to behave in altruistic ways. Research shows that people who are grateful, optimistic and forgiving have better experiences with their lives, more happiness, fewer strokes, and higher incomes," according to Easterbrook. "If it makes the world a better place at the same time, this is a real bonus," he says.
Research shows that being grateful leads people into a higher state of happiness. Sonja Lyubomirsky author of The How of Happiness, suggests that making a list of things people are grateful for in life, practicing random acts of kindness, forgiving enemies and appreciating life's small pleasures leads to happiness. Lyubomirsky's five steps for happiness include:
- Positive emotion – Pursue activities that create positive emotion and make them a habit.
- Optimal timing and variety – Time activities according to lifestyle and vary them so as not to habituate (become bored, neutral) to the activity.
- Social support – Connect to others. Social bonding is essential to feeling happy.
- Motivation, effort and commitment – A person has to be motivated to want to be happy. They need to make a conscious effort.
- Habit – Continue the strategies until they're habit, until they become natural and effortless.
Positive Psychology Workshops
Professor Yoram Barak of Tel Aviv University's Sackler School of Medicine has studied the "attempt to find the happiness gene, the genetic component of happiness." Yet outside of one's DNA, positive psychology can also help and is the "fastest and largest growing area of psychology in the United States, and in the world," says Barak.
Barak's research showed that the psychological benefits of a positive psychology program were followed by physical benefits as well. "We were able to raise levels of happiness in these patients so they were just about equal to those of healthy subjects," he says. "If we can apply positive psychology, we can better their adherence to their treatment regime. And we have been able to show that there is a stabilization of the neurological disability as well," explains Barak.
While research shows that genes play a sizable role in the preponderance towards being upbeat, specific mental strategies and behaviors will increase a person's propensity for being happy. Happiness is largely a product of employing gratitude, compassion, forging friendships and a willful and habitual determination to shift one's thinking away from ingrained negative patterns of thought, to positive ones.
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Laura Owens - Laura Owens has a B.S. in Psychology from Rollins College & U of FL. She is a freelance writer with expertise in motivation & wellness.
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