In
2011, the Office for National Statistics started to measure how happy we are.
This follows Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to assess the 'general
wellbeing (GWB)' of Britons.
Is
this all airy-fairy stuff or could it be important?
Back
in 2000, NetDoctor ran a happiness survey. Happiness was not such a 'hot topic'
then. But even so, the survey attracted huge amounts of publicity. And I'm
convinced that the reason for this was because everyone wants to be happy.
Eleven
years later, various scientific studies have emerged to tell us that happy
people live longer, are less prone to heart disease, are less stressed and are more likely to form
satisfying relationships.
A 2008
study by Harvard University even concluded that if you have a friend living
less than a mile away from you who becomes happy, your own levels of happiness
will rise by 25 per cent!
Politicians
have clearly been influenced by science and have come to believe that a happy
nation is easier to manage, is healthier, is less trouble and costs less to
maintain compared to a miserable population.
Whether
or not they're right, there's no doubt that happy people find life easier and
also make it that way for those around them.
So, can we learn to be happier?
Many
experts believe that we can learn to be happier.
However,
we don't all appear to start with the same advantages because some individuals
seem to be born happier than others.
Back
in the sixties, psychologist Martin Seligman was working on the concept of
'learned helplessness' by experimenting with animals and humans.
He
expected to find that we all become passive, sad and helpless if enough bad
things happen to us. But to his amazement, he found that simply wasn't true.
Writing
about that time in his book Authentic Happiness, he said: 'Not all
of the rats and dogs become helpless after inescapable shock, nor do all the
people after being presented with insolvable problems or inescapable noise. One
out of three never gives up no matter what we do. Moreover, one out of eight is
helpless to begin with…'
This
discovery led to him to work on a different concept, 'learned optimism' and
from this a whole new health movement, called positive psychology, evolved.
Prior
to that time, mental health treatment focused entirely on reacting to a
patient's misery, depression or anxiety – and trying to treat it.
Positive
psychology looked at mental health in a more proactive way. It encouraged
people to develop ways of experiencing more joy and happiness – and in that way
to become more mentally, and physically healthy.
World Happiness Forum
Several
decades on, the pursuit of happiness has been taken up by huge numbers of scientists,
philosophers, doctors, educationalists, psychotherapists, psychologists and
religious leaders. And many of them regularly come together at conferences run
by an organisation called the World Happiness Forum.
Recently,
I went to one of these conferences in London and listened to a wide range of
speakers from diverse backgrounds.
What
struck me was just how much common ground there was between them – despite
their different specialties. And I realised that they were virtually all in
agreement on the same ingredients for happiness, which I'm now going to
outline.
Factors that increase our happiness
One of
the main happiness factors is 'altruism', which is defined in the dictionary as
'regard for others.'
But,
why should altruism make us happy?
Think
for a moment about people you know who are mean-minded and whose mantra is
'look after number one'.
Are
they optimistic, contented and cheerful? Usually not.
Many
experts have researched the link between happiness and altruism, including
Professor Felicia Huppert of Cambridge University.
She
investigated the happiness of various populations in Europe and also looked at
whether or not there was a tradition of altruism – in the shape of volunteering
– in those countries.
What
she found was that people who live in Scandinavian countries have the greatest
sense of happiness and wellbeing of all Europeans, and inhabitants of countries
from the former Soviet block have the least. The rest of us are somewhere
inbetween.
She
has also discovered that in Scandinavia, large percentages of the population –
70 per cent in Norway – were involved in volunteer projects of various kinds.
But in the less happy countries, volunteering was almost unknown. For example
only 7 per cent of Bulgarians were volunteers.
Of
course, these findings don't prove beyond doubt that altruism makes you happy.
But they are certainly worth thinking about.
Here
are some of the other components of happiness which experts agree upon.
Having an enquiring mind
Research
shows that individuals who are keen to exercise
their brains by learning a foreign language or getting to grips
with new technology – stay younger in spirit and are much more positive and
cheery than people who don't.
Physical exercise
Getting
active is crucial if you want to feel well and happy and keep your mind sharp.
Exercise gets
oxygen pumping round our bodies and brains – making us feel alert and lively –
and prompts the release of 'happy chemicals', called endorphins, into our
bloodstream.
Resilience
This
is a great commodity to have. Basically, it helps to prevent us feeling
hopeless and miserable when life throws tough problems at us.
We can
all become more resilient by identifying the strengths we've developed through
the years and then working out how we can harness them to assist us in solving
current or future problems.
Looking
back into the past, we can all remember difficult times that we survived. So
when we feel overwhelmed by one of life's challenges, it can help if we remind
ourselves that we've already got experience in dealing with problems and
remember what the skills were that we used before.
When
we do that, we feel more confident about the present problem. And when we're
confident, we feel happier.
Having a strong social
network
Many
research projects have shown that we're happier people when we have regular contact
with friends.
Ideally,
to get full benefit we should meet up with them face-to-face, but even emailing
and phoning a mate can lift our spirits.
Furthermore,
friendships appear to have various beneficial health effects.
A
long-term Scandinavian study found that people with a strong social network
were less likely to get dementia.
And in
2009, researchers reporting at the American Association for the Advancement of
Science conference stated that loneliness was as bad as being a smoker.
So,
there's no doubt that friends are good for us – and personally this makes me
very happy!
Transcendence
This
rather unfamiliar term means 'an exalted state'.
In
other words, it's a feeling that transports us away from the humdrum and gives
us greater perspective. You might get this from organised religion.
But
more and more of us are finding it in other ways – including meditation, walking by the sea, meandering
round historic buildings, listening to music, wandering in the countryside or
looking at great paintings.
It
doesn't matter what you choose – so long as you ensure that there's something
in your life that 'feeds your soul'.
When
you have that, you're likely to feel more balanced and happy.
Building a happiness habit
So,
what emerged from the World Happiness Forum was that your happiness can grow if
you focus on physical and mental good health. This includes activities and
thoughts that challenge you and which also give you balance and perspective.
I
would like to add a simple strategy to that list. It's something I've used with
my own psychotherapy clients
for years – which is to notice when you're happy.
It's
common for people who fall on hard times, or become ill, or lose a partner to
say, 'If only I'd appreciated my life when it was going well' or, 'I was happy
then, I just didn't realise it until tragedy struck'.
I
always find this sad. And I'm convinced we can all maximise our happiness
levels by being more aware of those moments that make us laugh or which bring
us joy.
So,
what I do with my own patients is to ask them to notice five happy things per
day. This isn't a big task. But it can have a large impact in that it encourages
people to focus on the happy bits and gives less attention to the various
things that go wrong in any one day.
I know
this works – because I have increased my own happiness levels that way and
helped others to do the same. But my own private theory has received a
scientific boost by developments in neuroscience.
Neuroscience and scanning
In the
past 10 years or so, there have been advances in what we know about the brain
and how it works. And many of those advances have happened because of the
development in scanning techniques.
When
scanning someone's brain, it's now possible to ask that person to think of
something really wonderful and see what happens.
The
result is that there's a sudden burst of activity in the front left side of the
brain. And this is the part of the brain that registers happiness, wellbeing
and contentment.
Physicist
and philosopher Stefan Klein highlights that – because of modern technology –
it's now possible to demonstrate that the more a person focuses on positive
things, the more he or she will generate activity in the 'happy' area of the
brain.
Finding
that there's brain activity for emotion, and that individuals can boost this
activity for themselves, has encouraged scientists to believe that we can
become happier by regularly 'exercising' this part of the brain.
Thinking
happy thoughts can become a habit. It doesn't cost anything and it's not time
consuming.
There's
a strong possibility that if we focus on thinking positively, we will elevate
our mood and become more optimistic and contented individuals.
Thanks
to:
Christine Webber, psychotherapist, author and broadcaster
NetDoctor.co.uk