[humanser] 6 Ways to Achieve Eternal Happiness

[Mary Ann Robinson]

6 Ways to Achieve Eternal Happiness -- According to Science
  Robert T.  Gonzalez February 26, 2013
  Science has all the answers, right? Wrong.  But it has a pretty
good sense of things, a lot of the timeinin.  So what does
science have to say about the pursuit of happiness? A lot.  Like,
build-an-entire-industry-around-it,
even-the-pseudo-scientific-stuff a lot.  So let's look at some of
the more recent things science has had to say about happiness and
how you can score some for yourself -- including one tip that
might actually work (and you won't even have to pay us to hear
it).
  *1.  Surround yourself with happy pinin
  Or, at the very least, surround yourself with people who
surround themselves with happy people.  A longitudinal
investigation conducted over 20 years in collaboration with the
Framingham Heart Study revealed that shifts in individual
happiness can cascade through social networks like an emotional
contagion.  That's right, happiness is kind of like a disease.
(The researchers don't mean Facebook, btw, but physical,
old-school networks -- like live-in friends, partners and
spouses; and siblings, friends and neighbors who live close by.)
  "Most important from our perspective is the recognition that
people are embedded in social networks and that the health and
wellbeing of one person affects the health and wellbeing of
others," conclude the researchers, noting that the relationship
between people's happiness was found to extend up to three
degrees of separation (i.e.  all the way to friends of friends of
friends).  "This fundamental fact of existence provides a
fundamental conceptual justification for the specialty of public
health.  Human happiness is not merely the province of isolated
individuals."
  Also worth noting: the researchers found sadness to be nowhere
near as "infectious" as happiness.
  *2.  Master a skillinin
  This one is kind of a tradeoff: a study published in a 2009
issue of the 100% real Journal of Happiness Studies found that
people who dedicate themselves to mastering a skill or ability
tend to experience more stress in the moment, but reported
greater happiness and satisfaction on an hourly, daily, and
longterm basis as a result of their investment.
  "No pain, no gain is the rule when it comes to gaining
happiness from increasing our competence at something," said Ryan
Howell, assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State
University in a statement.  "People often give up their goals
because they are stressful, but we found that there is benefit at
the end of the day from learning to do something well."
  *3.  Self-government is keyinin
  The same study that found mastering a skill could bolster
overall, longterm happiness found that the minute-to-minute
stresses of mastering a skill could be lessened by self-direction
and a sense of fellowship.  "Our results suggest that you can
decrease the momentary stress associated with improving your
skill or ability by ensuring you are also meeting the need for
autonomy and connectedness," explains Howell.  "For example,
performing the activity alongside other people or making sure it
is something you have chosen to do and is true to who you are."
  *4.  Smile for onceinin
  Darwin laid it out for us all the way back in 1872: "The free
expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it," he
wrote.  And recent studies -- involving botox, of all things --
suggest he was onto something.  SciAm's Melinda Wenner explains:
  Psychologists at the University of Cardiff in Wales found that
people whose ability to frown is compromised by cosmetic botox
injections are happier, on average, than people who can frown.
The researchers administered an anxiety and depression
questionnaire to 25 females, half of whom had received
frown-inhibiting botox injections.  The botox recipients reported
feeling happier and less anxious in general; more important, they
did not report feeling any more attractive, which suggests that
the emotional effects were not driven by a psychological boost
that could come from the treatment's cosmetic nature.
  "It would appear that the way we feel emotions isn't just
restricted to our brain-there are parts of our bodies that help
and reinforce the feelings we're having," says Michael Lewis, a
co-author of the study.  "It's like a feedback loop."
  Either that, or botulism-to-the-face is like a shot of good
feels? Let's just chalk this one up to smiling.  Note that this
is different from harboring feel-good happy-thoughts (more on
that below).
  *5.  Get therapyinin
  First of all, a side note: if you think you might benefit from
psychotherapy, but are too worried about what your friends and
family will think, get over yourself and do it.  Why? Because it
works (especially if you find the form of therapy that's right
for you.
  Anyway: in an interesting twist on the age-old question of
whether money makes people happy, psychologist Chris Boyce
compared the cost-effectiveness of psychological therapy versus
monetary compensation following instances of psychological
distress.  His findings, which were actually published in an
economics journal, found therapy to be 32 times more cost
effective at increasing happiness than cold, hard cash.
  "Often the importance of money for improving our well-being and
bringing greater happiness is vastly over-valued in our
societies," notes Boyce.  "The benefits of having good mental
health, on the other hand, are often not fully appreciated and
people do not realize the powerful effect that psychological
therapy ...  can have on improving our well-being."
  *6.  STOP IT.  Stop trying to be happyddinin
  If you take away one thing from this post, let this be it: to
be happy, there's a decent chance you'll have to stop trying to
be happy.  Sorry to get all zen-master on you, but that's the way
it is.
  Nevermind the fact that measuring happiness is a lot like
trying to weigh an idea in pounds and ounces.  Yes, there are
ways to gauge happiness, whether chemically or with a
questionnaire, but when you get right down to it, "happiness"
means different things to different people, and is one of the
single most nebulous ideals in existence and one of the biggest
downsides to this truth is that setting a goal of happiness can
actually backfire.
  Some of the most important research on happiness to emerge in
recent years stands in direct opposition to the cult of
positivity typified by bullshit positive-thinking self-help books
that place a lopsided emphasis on setting grand personal goals of
happiness.  In a review co-authored in 2011 by Yale psychologist
June Gruber, researchers found that the pursuit of happiness can
actually lead to negative outcomes -- not because surrounding
yourself with positive people, mastering a skill, smiling,
getting therapy or practicing self-governance aren't conducive to
happiness, in and of themselves, but because "when you're doing
it with the motivation or expectation that these things ought to
make you happy, that can lead to disappointment and decreased
happiness," says Gruber.
  So be the zen master.  Stop trying to focus on becoming happier
and just be.  Surround yourself with people not to become happy,
but to enjoy their company.  Master a skill not to increase your
happy feels, but to savor the process of becoming.