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Happiness is an idea woven into the fabric of humanity, going back to ancient civilizations.
About 250 years ago, he entered this country. Declaration of Independence As an inalienable right: “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We have been struggling with it for thousands of years, the concept of happiness and how to find it is very simple. Some may see it as a sense of general well-being. For others, it may be feeling an unadulterated spark of joy. Others may find joy in chasing and achieving a dream. Maybe it's a combination of a few of these – or something else.
I like to think of myself as a pretty happy person. I have three wonderful teenage daughters and a wife, Rebecca, with whom I just celebrated 20 years; I am close to my parents, my “baby” brother and his family. I have a fulfilling and meaningful career as an intern neurosurgeon and 's Chief Medical Correspondent.
But I also understand that it is not that simple. There's plenty of variety in those tiers for fun.
Challenging question: What are the best ways to pursue happiness? Are we born with a stable, fixed level or is it something we can develop, increase and strengthen? If it's the latter, how can we go about it successfully?
Although the “pursuit of happiness” is built into the nation's founding, many Americans are not good at it. In the very near future World Happiness ReportThe United States dropped to No. 23 (from last year's No. 15), marking the first time in the report's 12-year history that the United States did not make the top 20 happiest countries.
A Gallup pollAs of 2024, less than half (47%) of Americans are “very satisfied” with their personal lives.
It's not just Americans. As it turns out, humans as a species cannot be above happiness. This may surprise you, but happiness is not necessarily something we can achieve genetically. We have to do it right.
“After all, natural selection doesn't care that much about our happiness. I mean, natural selection's only job is to keep us alive and reproduce. And I think he will not do this But making us feel these moments of satisfaction can do the opposite, cognitive scientist Dr. Laurie Santos recently told me.
“It does this by building in negative bias. So we worry a little bit that there might be a tiger around the corner, we take shelter at work. So we're constantly on alert,” she said.
Santos, who has a doctorate in psychology, is at Yale University, where she teaches Psychology and the Good Life, the most popular course in the university's history, and hosts the “Happiness Lab” podcast.
She is the first guest on the 10th season of the podcast, “Chasing life” started this week. This season, I'll be talking to experts in a variety of fields about the scientific foundations of happiness—how to define, find, maintain, and nurture it—and its impact on our minds and bodies.
Listen more to my conversation with Santos over here.
We haven't evolved to prioritize happiness, which may be why I'm generally a happy person, but I'm “not constructively satisfied.” It's a word I came up with on the flight while talking to Santos.
And here, I'm making the difference between happiness and contentment. Overall I'm still happy, but if I ever get complacent, I think that might erode my happiness. Because in my mind complacency leads to complacency which leads to stagnation. So, I seem to have one of those personality traits that you want – maybe even more so – dissatisfaction; Complacency or complacency saps my energy and enthusiasm.
The happiest times are when constructive dissatisfaction drives me into action, for the betterment of my condition, removing a brain tumor, a documentary, working in my garden, or eating dinner with my family.
This season's podcast guest, health psychologist and author Kelly McGonigal, says the term makes perfect sense to her. “Because dissatisfaction is often the soil where growth and positive change happen,” she said. “And displeasure doesn't really have to be a lack of appreciation or gratitude. Envisioning a better future for yourself or others requires creating a space between how things are and how things could be.
The “constructive” modifier before “satisfaction” is actually very important to me because I don't want to just wallow in dissatisfaction. I want it to be useful. And as long as I don't let the resentment grow too much, where it overwhelms my emotional well-being, it works for me. But I have to admit that it can be a source of stress and a regular struggle at times.
“It's amazing to me that you got something out of your journey, that you got something out of that fight,” Santos said.
But she warned against overdoing it. “We can push ourselves and take part in challenges; those can be the happiest and most flow-inspiring moments of our lives,” she said, “but we have to make sure we're doing that in a balanced way.”
If we lose sleep, neglect friendships and feel sorry for ourselves, “maybe think about pushing yourself in a different way,” she says.
Or find a way to get rid of negative emotions. “The antidote to that is to think about what are the ways that I can be on that important and purposeful journey, but also bring a few more moments of genuine joy into my life,” she said. “You know, maybe I need a little more laughter or some breaks, or maybe I need to engage in a little more socializing or something like that on that purposeful quest.”
Tried and true strategies
It's true, says Santos, that most of us have a certain happiness point. Mine is probably a little smaller than my brother's, for example; Although we have a very similar nature and care, he is more friendly and outwardly happy. Winning the lottery may raise your happiness level for a while, and a tragedy may lower it, but most people eventually return to baseline after a while. Santos believes, however, with some hard work and deliberate practice, you can start turning up your happiness thermostat. She also teaches her students.
For example, she not only teaches her students about the behavior and mindset changes known to elicit happiness, but also has her students practice them as homework. Instead of course requirements, she calls them course iterations., Because doing them regularly can actually make you work again.
Among the low-hanging fruit, Santos is sure to focus on healthy habits like getting enough sleep and exercise and eating right. Also on the list: Be a little more “other”-oriented and try to cultivate an attitude of gratitude and compassion both outside of yourself and inside of you.
But my favorite bit of advice is to cultivate and nurture your social connections. “Every study on happy people suggests that happy people are more social,” Santos said. And I gather that the opposite is also true: social people are happier. “So we have to make time for our friends and family and loved ones.”
She is not the only one preaching this. Dr. Robert Waldinger, a psychiatrist who conducts the Harvard Study of Adult Development—the longest study of adult life, running more than 85 years and counting—is the secret to happiness and joy. Health comes down to good relationships.
How can it be? According to Waldinger, a warm relationship (even one) generally keeps people's bodies stronger and minds longer, perhaps because they help protect us from life's ups and downs. This reduces our exposure to stress hormones (which, when constantly elevated, wreak havoc on the body and mind) and also reduces inflammation, which is thought to be at the root of many of our modern chronic diseases. So – again, for most of us – it reduces the diseases of aging, in part, happily.
This doesn't mean you have to be the life of the party or the party, and it doesn't mean you have to spend hour after hour fighting superficial gangstas. But, Waldinger said, you have to put some effort into maintaining your relationship on a regular basis.
To do this, he recommends a few things: be active and reach out to friends; establishing routines such as weekly phone calls; Fostering long-term relationships through innovation; make new friends by connecting around common interests; And get more comfortable starting conversations with strangers. The recipe is going to vary from person to person and depends on how much social interaction suits you.
Having a meaningful relationship really resonates with me. I know from my own life that good and strong relationships with family and friends are very important. And in the end they are the ones who make me the happiest.
Listen to the full episode with Joy Professor Laurie Santos over hereAJoin us next week on the podcast as we explore the fascinating connection between happiness and stress. Find out why you feel misunderstood.