Achieve your objectives, to give meaning to your work but also eat fresh food or maintain a long relationship is conducive to happiness.
Happiness is good for you.
Research by psychologists shows that happy people make more money, they are more efficient at work, they are living longer and that their marriage lasts longer.
But the causes of happiness are difficult to identify – philosophers trying to understand for thousands of years.
In recent decades, the science of psychology has found some tangible guidance on what makes people happy. As explained in the blog Lion Gym, happiness is less a matter of what one has and more a matter of what we do.
Here are some behaviors that make us happy:
Accomplishing goals
Like chocolate and peanut butter, goals and happiness are complementary. The process is quite simple: happy people have lots of energy, and this energy can be invested in their goal.
Psychologists claim that the more we consider a goal as a part of ourselves, the more these two elements – the purpose and ourselves – will be self-consistent; or, in other words, the more we will be inclined to invest energy there. Bettina Wiese, a psychologist at the University of Zurich, said that “empirical research have demonstrated that to set self-concordant goals strengthens the link between the progress of the fulfillment of that objective and well-being.”
Find meaning in your work
In 1997, Amy Wrzesniewski – Yale psychologist – and his colleagues published an article, quoted regularly on how people relate to their work. The article recounted three different perceptions of work:
Work: “Centered on financial need and money gains more than pleased to do this work; it’s not a very positive aspect of life.”
A career: “Centered on evolution.”
A vocation: “Centered on fun things to do, socially useful work.”
Their discovery: people who have found meaning in their work are the happiest.
Spending time with people who matter to us
While this may look like a greeting card cliche, research confirms that spending time with people you love (or at least, that you tolerate) will make you happier. Being at the “center” of a social network is a good welfare indicator.
Maintain a long-term relationship
An article in the New York Times recently explained that “being married makes people happier and well into their sneakers to remain single – particularly during difficult times of life as the midlife crisis.”
Why? When two people are together, they are stronger.
Eating fresh foods
A 2013 study, “Eating a lot of apples each day keeps the remote blues”, found a correlation between eating lots of fruits and vegetables and happiness.
Specifically, the young men who ate seven or eight servings of fruits or vegetables are, according to the study, more fortunate than others.
Play sports
A Dutch study of 8,000 people between 16 and 65 demonstrated the great virtues of sport. “Those who play sports are more satisfied with their lives and happier than people who do not, regardless of age.” If you want to exercise more, but you do not find the time, Walter Mischel, a psychologist deemed recommends a schedule of “if-then”.
Buy “experiences”
According to Daniel Gilbert, Harvard psychologist, if money does not buy happiness is that you do not spend it properly. Its key principle of the expense is to buy non-not objects but rather “experiences.”
In a survey of 1,000 Americans, 57% of respondents said draw more happiness buying an experience, as a journey, a concert or other event in life, buying a material goods such as a car, appliance or other. Research on the subject say that we prefer the experience because we can imagine them, we remember and therefore enjoy them longer.
“After having spent days choosing the perfect flooring for the new apartment, the buyer end up not even notice their Brazilian cherry floors color, once-adored, over which they now hang feet” relates Daniel Gilbert and colleagues. “However, the memory of the baby cheetah they have seen during a safari in Africa continues to provide them happiness.”
