How to feel happy and stay that way? Experts on the science of ‘rewiring’ your brain | South China Morning Post
Happiness can be elusive. When you get what you expect will bring happiness – a cool new job, a flashy car, the date you always wanted – for a time, you feel great.nBut that feeling subsides, and you start to feel that, really, you had it wrong, and you need that other thing you wanted to be happy.nThat is the problem with thinking that happiness comes from changes in our environment, says Laurie Santos, a professor of psychology at Yale University in the US.n“One of the worst things about happiness is that we get used to the good stuff,” she says.n“You get a raise, and it’s great at first, but then you get used to it, and it doesn’t make you feel happy any more. This is called ‘hedonic adaptation’, and it’s something that you have to fight against to truly feel the good stuff.”nnSantos was speaking at a webinar called “Can You Train Your Mind to be Happy?”, organised by the New York-based online Happiness Studies Academy. The academy is a science-based organisation co-founded by Professor Tal Ben-Shahar, a positive psychology expert who taught popular courses on happiness at Harvard.nThe academy offers a certificate and two degrees: a master of arts and a PhD.nSantos, whose research focuses on comparing the way animals think and reason to the way people do, says she was driven to use her psychological training to explore happiness when she became head of Yale’s Silliman College in 2016.nShe was shocked by the number of students who said they felt too depressed to function and had even considered taking their own lives.n“I wanted to do something to help the students,” she says. “Our field has lots of answers, and we need to do a better job of translating those answers into things that people understand so they can put that stuff into practice.”nnSantos launched a free in-person course at Yale, called Psychology and the Good Life, in 2018. It quickly became the most popular class in the university’s 300-year history. The course has since grown to include a popular podcast called Happiness Lab and a Coursera course, The Science of Well-Being. Coursera offers online courses from top universities and companies worldwide, available for free or at a small fee.nThe Coursera course is designed to be a “lab” in which participants are given weekly “rewirements” – challenges to put the science into practice in their own lives. These include practising gratitude, engaging in acts of kindness, mindfulness and meditation, and increasing social connection.nIt covers research-backed topics, from the importance of sleep and exercise to the psychological benefits of savouring moments and avoiding social comparisons.nMillions of people worldwide have taken the course, and it is highly praised for its practical, easy-to-understand approach to improving well-being.nnnnnnnnnnnnnView this post on InstagramnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnA post shared by Dr. Laurie Santos (@lauriesantosofficial)nnnnSantos recently launched a version of the course for teenagers, also available on Coursera.nMuch of what was in “Can You Train Your Mind to be Happy?” was taken from the course. The answer to the question in the webinar’s title, Santos says, is yes. There are psychological techniques, backed up by scientific data, that can overcome what she calls the mind’s “negativity bias” to allow you to feel happier.nConventional wisdom is that happiness is either a genetic disposition or the result of our environment. Both play a part, Santos says, but once the basic requirements of life – such as having food and shelter – have been met, it is more useful to think of happiness as a state of mind that can be attained through life practices, she says.n“The science tells us that happiness is a bit fixed, and also a bit unfixed,” she says. “Some of our happiness does seem to be built in, and related to our genes.”nnStudies have shown that identical twins, who share the same DNA, are more likely to experience a similar level of happiness than fraternal twins, who only share 50 per cent of their DNA.n“There is some composite of happiness that seems to be heritable,” she says. “But like most psychological traits, there is not a high heritability. The heritability is around 30 per cent, and that’s pretty small – so there is a big window for us to change things.”nThe biggest obstacle to achieving happiness is thinking that changing our external circumstances is going to make us happier, Santos says. Studies have shown this to be false.n“We have a mistaken assumption that our happiness is based on our circumstances. Our circumstances do matter – if you’re living below the poverty line, more money will probably increase your happiness, for instance,” she explains.nBut outside that, circumstances tend not to alter our happiness rating very much, she says.n“Changing our circumstances does not affect our happiness as much as people think. Happiness really comes from changing our behaviours and our mindset.”nnMany studies show that certain activities correlate with people reporting greater feelings of happiness, she says.nThese include learning to feel content with what we have rather than chasing the things we do not, showing gratitude to others, and taking steps to connect with people socially.n“It’s a matter of trying to figure out how to attune your mind to the positive stuff out there, of noticing the blessings, rather than the hassles,” Santos says.n“There is a power in simply writing down a few things you are grateful for every day. Studies show that you can improve your life satisfaction, improve your positive mood by training your brain to notice these small things and scribbling them down.”nSantos is aware that this may sound too “New Age” for the 21st century.n“Some of my students find that a little tricky in the world we live in. So I suggest an even lighter version of the practice, where you simply try and find some ‘delights’ in the day – a child’s laughter, or the warmth of a morning coffee. Even they can stop our mind’s negative bias [from] focusing on all the bad stuff.”nnThese small moments are incremental and can add up over a day.n“Satisfaction can come from the accumulation of a lot of micro-moments,” she says. Activities like showing gratitude become habits and influence long-term states of mind, she adds.nSantos and the Happiness Academy’s Ben-Shahar realise that such practices may not bring relief to those experiencing extreme hardship. But they can still help.n“Many of the principles apply even in the face of significant economic hardship,” Ben-Shahar says in an interview, adding that they can be adapted to any circumstance.n“Research consistently shows that practices like cultivating relationships, engaging in physical exercise, practising mindfulness, expressing gratitude, engaging in acts of kindness, and finding moments of meaning are not dependent on wealth.n“In communities facing scarcity, these practices often become even more vital, as they help people endure and even grow through hardship.”nNoting the loneliness epidemic, Santos points out that improving our social connections is a useful way to enhance our happiness.nnAlthough she is not a technophobe, she says that gadgets like our phones often act as a barrier to the real-person interaction we need.n“I often see students sitting alone wearing big headphones in the university dining hall,” she says.nInteracting with other people is important to our happiness.n“Every happy person tends to be more social,” she says. “This can mean spending more time with friends and family, or making a weak connection, like chatting with the barista at the coffee shop.”nNo one – especially those of student age – likes to be told what to do. Santos has worked out a method to deal with such resistance to her methods, she says.n“Gen Z are more evidence-based than previous generations, so it’s important to share the data with them,” she says. “They aren’t looking for platitudes about how they should live their lives. Show them the data, and they will consider it.n“Happiness takes work,” she concludes. “It would be good if it was a one-and-done situation, but it isn’t. The good news is that if you do put the work in, you end up feeling better.”nLike what you read? Follow SCMP Lifestyle on Facebook, X and Instagram. You can also sign up for our eNewsletter here.n
