Did you know that happiness has its own holiday?
Four years ago, the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed
March 20 to be the International Day of Happiness. It’s easy to understand why
they see happiness as something to celebrate: Happy people are healthier; they
get sick less often and live longer. Happy people are more likely to get
married and have fulfilling marriages, and they have more friends. They make
more money and are more productive at work. Based on decades of research, it
has become clear that happiness is not just a personal issue; it’s a matter of
public health, global economics, and national well-being.
But it doesn’t come easy, as most of us know. Disappointments and
annoyances grab our attention like gnats, and even the good things in life seem
to lose their luster over time. Add to that a crammed schedule and mounting
obligations, and happiness might just seem out of reach—achievable for other
people, perhaps, but not us.
Fortunately, research suggests that happiness is something we can
cultivate with practice. The Greater Good Science Center has collected many
happiness practices on our website Greater Good in Action, alongside other
research-based exercises for fostering kindness, connection, and resilience.
Below are 11 of those happiness practices, grouped into five broader strategies
for a more fulfilling life.
1. Acknowledge the good
If we don’t feel happy, it’s tempting to look for things to fix: the
job that isn’t prestigious enough, the apartment that’s too cramped, our
partner’s annoying habit. But focusing on all the negatives isn’t the surest
route to feeling better. Instead, a simple way to start cultivating happiness
is by recognizing the good.
In the Three Good Things exercise, for example, you keep a journal
devoted solely to the positives in your life. Each evening, you write down
three things that went well and add some detail about each, including how they
made you feel. For example, you might recall a heartfelt thank you from a
coworker, a quiet moment drinking tea, or your daughter’s infectious laughter. Importantly,
you also briefly explain why you think each good thing happened—which focuses
your attention on the enduring sources of goodness that surround you.
A 2005 study invited participants to do this practice daily for a week,
and afterward they reported feeling happier and less depressed than when they
started. In fact, they maintained their happiness boost six months later,
illustrating how impactful it can be to focus on the good things in life.
Many of those good things lie just outside our doorstep, and we can
practice noticing them on a Savoring Walk. Here, you take a 20-minute walk and
observe the sights, sounds, and smells you encounter—freshly cut grass, an epic
skyscraper, a stranger’s smile. Each time you notice something positive, take
the time to absorb it and think about why you enjoy it. On your subsequent
Savoring Walks, strike out in different directions to seek new things to
admire.
In a study by Fred Bryant of Loyola University Chicago, participants
who took Savoring Walks daily for a week reported greater increases in
happiness than participants who went for walks as usual. “Making a conscious
effort to notice and explicitly acknowledge the various sources of joy around
us can make us happier,” write Bryant and Joseph Veroff in the book Savoring.
If you have trouble seeing the good that’s already around you, another
strategy is to create some. In Creating and Recalling Positive Events, you
carve out time for yourself and fill your schedule with enjoyment.
When you have a day free, don’t rush around doing chores; instead, try
three different happy activities:
Something you do alone, such as reading, listening to music, or
meditating.
Something you do with others, such as going out for coffee, riding your
bike, or watching a movie.
Something meaningful, such as volunteering, helping a neighbor in need,
or calling a friend who’s struggling.
If your go-to happiness practice has been Netflix and a bowl of ice
cream, this exercise can reconnect you with different sources of satisfaction.
These three activities should offer you a sense of pleasure, engagement, and
meaning, all viable paths to a satisfying life. A 2014 study found that even
psychiatric patients with suicidal thoughts found value in doing this exercise,
reporting more optimism and less hopelessness afterward.
2. Add happiness through subtraction
In a 2008 study, participants who performed this exercise reported feeling
more gratitude and other positive emotions than participants who simply thought
about past positive events without imagining their absence. Mental Subtraction
seems to jolt us into the insight that the good things in our lives aren’t
inevitable; we are, in fact, very lucky.
If imagining absence isn’t quite enough for you, what about
experiencing it for real? In the Give It Up practice, you spend a week
abstaining from a pleasure in order to appreciate it more fully. This pleasure
should be something that’s relatively abundant in your life, such as eating
chocolate or watching TV. At the end of the week, when you can finally indulge,
pay special attention to how it feels.
In a 2013 study, people who gave up chocolate savored it more and
experienced a more positive mood when they finally ate it at the end of the
week, compared with people who ate chocolate as usual. This exercise may not
only open your eyes to a single pleasure (like the miracle of cacao), but make
you more conscious of life’s many other pleasures, too.
3. Find meaning and purpose
Creating and Recalling Positive Events reminds us that pleasure isn’t
the only path to bliss; meaning can also bring us happiness, albeit a quieter
and more reflective kind.
In the Meaningful Photos practice, you take pictures of things that are
meaningful to you and reflect on them. Over the course of a week, look out for
sources of meaning in your life—family members, favorite spots, childhood
mementos—and capture about nine or ten different images of them. At the end of
the week, spend an hour reflecting on them: What does each photo represent, and
why is it meaningful to you? Jot down some of those thoughts if it’s helpful.
Amid the chores and routines, life can sometimes feel dull and mundane.
Reigniting our sense of meaning can remind us what’s important, which boosts
our energy and gives us strength to face life’s stresses. In a 2013 study,
college students who completed this exercise not only boosted their sense of
meaning, but also reported greater positive emotions and life satisfaction as
well.
We can also boost our energy and motivation by fostering a sense of
purpose, and the Best Possible Self exercise is one way to do that. Here, you
journal for 15 minutes about an ideal future in which everything is going as
well as possible, from your family and personal life to your career and health.
In a 2006 study, participants who wrote about their Best Possible
Selves daily for two weeks reported greater positive emotions afterward, and
their mood continued increasing up to a month later if they kept up the
practice.
This exercise allows us to clarify our goals and priorities, painting a
detailed picture of where we want to be. This picture should be ambitious but
realistic so that it motivates us to make changes, rather than reminding us how
imperfect and disappointing our lives are now. When we reflect on our future
this way, we may feel more in control of our destiny.
4. Use your strengths
Just as we hunt for things to fix in life, we also tend to obsess over
flaws in ourselves; our weaknesses loom large. But what if we put more time and
attention into our strengths and positive attributes?
The Use Your Strengths exercise invites you to consider your strengths
of character—from creativity and perseverance to kindness and humility—and put
them into practice. Each day for a week, select a strength and make a plan to
use it in a new and different way. You can repeat the same strength—directing
your curiosity toward a work project one day and toward your partner’s
interests the next—or work on different strengths each day. At the end of the
week, synthesize the experience by writing about what you did, how it made you
feel, and what you learned.
In a 2005 study, participants who engaged in this exercise for a week
reported feeling happier and less depressed, and that happiness boost lasted up
to six months. Use Your Strengths may help us transfer skills between home and
work—applying our professional creativity to our children’s school assignments
or our domestic kindness to our co-workers—and give us a confidence boost all
around.
5. Connect with others
The practices above invite us to turn inward, tinkering with our
attitudes and the way we view the world. But decades of science also suggest
that turning outward and connecting to the people around us is one of the
surest routes to happiness.
As a first step, you can try an adapted version of the Best Possible
Self exercise for relationships to give you insights into what kinds of social
connection you desire. In an ideal life, what would your relationships with
your spouse, family, and friends look like?
One way to feel an immediate boost of connection is through Random Acts
of Kindness. Random Acts of Kindness don’t have to be flashy or extravagant;
they can be as simple as helping a friend with a chore or making breakfast for
your partner. You can also extend your circle of kindness to strangers and
community members, feeding a parking meter or offering a meal to someone in
need.
In a 2005 study, participants who performed five acts of kindness on
one day a week for six weeks reported increases in happiness. (This didn’t
happen when they spread out their acts of kindness across the week, perhaps
because a single kind act may not feel noteworthy on its own.) Researchers also
suggest varying your acts of kindness over time to keep the practice fresh and
dynamic.
Some of your acts of kindness may involve giving, and the Make Giving
Feel Good practice helps ensure that giving does, indeed, bring happiness.
Researchers Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton, among others, have found
evidence that being kind and generous does make us happier, but they’ve also
found that acts of giving are most effective when they meet these three
criteria:
It’s a choice: Give because you choose to, not because you feel
pressured or obligated to.
You connect: Giving can be an opportunity to make connections with the
people you’re helping, so choose activities where you get to spend time with
recipients, like helping a friend move or volunteering at a soup kitchen.
You see the impact: If you’re donating money, for example, don’t just
give and move on. Find out what your money will be used for—like new classroom
supplies or a cooking stove.
In a 2011 study, participants were offered a $10 Starbucks gift card to
use in different ways: They either gave it to someone, gave it to someone and
joined them for a drink, or used it on themselves while drinking with a friend.
The ones who gave the card away and spent time with the recipient—connecting
with them and seeing the impact of giving—felt happiest afterward.
Of course, the pursuit of happiness isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and
mugs of tea and smiling children. Sometimes we need to tackle our insecurities
and weaknesses, and we can’t just ignore our draining jobs and nagging
relatives. But the practices here represent the other side of the coin, the one
we often neglect: seeing, appreciating, and mobilizing the good.
***
I am grateful to know proven reproducible ways to make more happiness
in my life.
