Can we use science to make ourselves happier?

Written by Sarah Gelbart, University of Bristol and Bruce Hood, University of Bristol

Can we use science to make ourselves happier?

When you offer a university course that makes students happier, everyone wants to know what the secret is. What are your tips? What are your top 10 recommendations? These are the questions most often asked, as if there is a quick and sure path to happiness.

The problem is that most of the work has already been talked about, so there are no life-changing discoveries. Social connections, mindfulness, letters of gratitude, acts of kindness, walks in nature, sleep hygiene, and limiting social media use. These are some of the approximately 80 psychological interventions that have been shown to work to improve (more or less) our well-being.

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But if we already know so much about what works, why are we still fielding requests for the best happiness tips?

Data shows that today’s students and young people are increasingly unhappy. A national survey has found that young people in the UK and US have the lowest levels of happiness compared to other age groups.

That’s why we started teaching the Science of Happiness course at the University of Bristol in 2019, to counter this worrying downward trend. During the course, we teach positive psychology lessons and create opportunities for students to put those lessons into practice.

Learn the science of happiness

We award credit based on engagement (an important component of getting the most out of life, not just education) rather than graded grades. After talking about problems with grade anxiety and student perfectionism, it is ironic to subject students to placement exams.

Would you like to get course credit without exams? You might say it’s a no-brainer. However, for many students, attending more than 80% of their lectures and tutorials on time, filling out a weekly diary, and submitting a final group project can be more difficult than expected. It turns out.

Approximately 5% of students each year fail to meet course requirements and are required to complete a reassessment in the summer. Developing consistent positive habits in the face of all the other demands of life is not an easy request.

Nevertheless, the Science of Happiness course is very popular. This also seems to be effective. Each year, we see an approximately 10-15% increase in measures of student mental health at the end of the course compared to a waiting list control group.

Life after the course

However, we recently published the results of a study that followed students one to two years after taking the Science of Happiness course until graduation. Looking at the overall trend, students’ happiness scores, which had initially increased, have almost returned to their original levels.

But we weren’t discouraged. One of the mechanisms we teach in this course is hedonic adaptation. In other words, we become accustomed to both good and bad things. The human brain is wired to pay special attention to problems. It’s no surprise, then, that the initial boost in well-being the course created disappeared as students returned to focusing on life’s hassles.

However, it was observed that not all students followed this pattern. Approximately half of the cohort reported that they continued to practice some of what they learned on a regular basis for months or years after completing the course. These included things like gratitude and mindfulness.

Students who stopped engaging in the activities returned to their baseline levels of well-being, whereas, on average, students who continued with at least some of the recommended activities did not experience such a decline. They maintained a high level of happiness until her second year.

Leveraging science for mental and physical health

In many ways, mental health is no different than physical health. Few people expect to continue gaining muscle over a long period of time after going to the gym once. Most of the time, we grudgingly accept that there are no shortcuts if we want to stay healthy. You have to stick to the program.

The same applies to our well-being. If we don’t keep working, the improvements will be temporary. In fact, if you had to focus on just one important tip, it might be learning how to use the lessons of psychology to build the better habits needed for lasting change. yeah. For example, aim for small incremental changes rather than an unsustainable total life overhaul.

focus on others

One of the things we wonder about is whether the self-care industry is sending people the wrong message that happiness is all about feeling good about yourself. One of us, Bruce Hood, says in his new book that focusing on others is far more important than focusing on ourselves to become happier people in the long run. I’m writing inside.

Self-care may have short-term benefits, but enriching the lives of others can have well-being effects that become less adaptive over time.

After all, no matter what methods or activities we choose to improve our well-being, it’s good to remember that happiness is always a work in progress.

Sarah Gelbart, Lecturer in Psychology, University of Bristol, Bruce Hood, Professor of Social and Developmental Psychology, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bottom line: Mental health is very similar to physical health. If you want to make consistent, positive changes in your happiness, you must continue to “work out” by maintaining good happy habits.

Read more: How astronauts to Mars cope with the stress of a long journey

Read more: David Rand: Happiness and sadness are contagious