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I'm taking this free online class from Yale on the Science of Well-Being,
and it's free, so I'm gonna share the extremely short notes about what I'm learning. Why does well-being and happiness matter? Because people have more energy and more capacity to effect change if they are doing well mentally.
And because I think American culture in general is structured in a way that ignores human needs and leads to increased suffering in all sorts of ways.
So the first classes really focused on the idea that what "we" think makes us happy does not actually, and that we have really strong ideas about what makes us happy that is wrong.
She's talking to Yale students, so she's talking about events like getting into the dream college, getting good grades*, getting that internship, that job, getting married, etc.
And the thing is, people think those big events are going to lead to increased happiness in general, but actually our brains get used to it and our happiness returns to baseline pretty quickly. This is called hedonic adaptation, and there's a lot of info about it out there.
Hedonic adaptation also works on the reverse- big negative events don't really have that big of an impact on our day-to-day happiness and well-being about six months later.
Also, people think that making lots of money will make you happier, but the truth is, that past a point, happiness increases level off. It seems that around $75k, getting more income doesn't dramatically increase your happiness. Someone should tell all the folks making 6 or more figures.
The other big idea was that we think in terms of Reference Points, rather than absolutes, which in this setting means we tend to judge how well we're doing by the examples we see, rather than any sort of objective measure. This is apparently why social media, and tv and stuff like that in general, reduces happiness, because we're looking at the polished images of the highlights of peoples lives, or watching shows about people who make way more money than us, are more skilled than us, have nicer homes than us, or whatever. Apparently if you're only consuming media of people who are doing about the same as you, or worse, there's not a hit or boost to your happiness.
*I want to note that focusing on grades is counter-productive to actual learning and happiness, and that everyone should look into growth mindset vs entity theory.
So how do you fight Hedonic Adaptation?
- Savoring- when good stuff is going on in your life, pause and observe and really appreciate it, on purpose. Tell other people about it, especially if they're there in the moment with you. Think about how lucky you are in that moment. Also reflect on past moments of enjoyment.
- Negative Visualization, which is a really old idea that I first came in contact with through the stoics. In this version, you imagine if you never had something that you enjoy. So if you're in a happy relationship, what if you'd never met?* If you have a living space with a roof that doesn't leak and 4 solid walls, what if you didn't? If you like a particular meal, what if you never got to eat it again? And then be life, whew, I am sure glad that's not the case!
- Practicing gratitude, and like, really doing it. Write down things you're grateful for, tell people who are sharing the moment with you, express gratitude to directly to the people you're grateful for.
- Interrupt consumption. That is, studies show that you enjoy your shows more when you have ad breaks. Or, when they had people listen to their favorite song, and then interrupted them, when they got to return their enjoyment was increase. So if you're doing something pleasant, stop, and then come back, and your enjoyment will increase.
- Conversely, if you have to do sometime unpleasant, try to do it all at once instead of little bits because remember, Hedonic Adaptation works both ways
- Increase variety, do your favorite things different ways. Like, if you drink coffee, make it a little different each day. This one in particular will be hit on again, in different contexts.
- Remember that hedonic adaptation can be a good thing, too. Bad things will, over time, feel less bad than you think they will.
And how to deal with the issues of having reference points of people who are, you know, super polished and only showing the cool parts of their lives?
- Stop watch tv, social media, etc. (She recognizes that most people aren't going to do this)
- Concretely re-experience- which means switch your reference point to your own past. This is especially useful for people who've had crappy experiences in their past, because look! you're doing so much better now! Isn't that awesome!!! But like, I imagine even people with super happy childhoods are glad they have more independence now?
- Concretely observe (and this is where the fact that their assuming they're only talking to the richer half of the populace) by which they mean go look and experience first hand the "experience of the other half". BARF. Or, alternatively, go volunteer on an organic farm** to get the pastoralist fantasies out of your head and build appreciation for the nice parts of your life.
- Avoid the social comparison (of social media) by using the 'stop-think' method, by which she means, when you notice that you're being envious of someone, tell yourself aloud "Stop!", and intentionally stop comparing to that thing whatever it is, and set your reference point to something else.
*If the idea of never meeting your current partner gives you a sense of relief or happiness, that's a sign. A sign that you should leave. There are resources out there to help you.
**https://wwoof.net/
Next, apparently people have found out that 50% of your happiness is determined by your genetics, 10% by life events, and 40% by your thoughts and actions. Here's where we really start getting to the heart of the matter.
Super basics that I think we've all heard before, but bare repeating because they are super important:
- Get 7 or more hours of sleep a night
- Move 30 minutes a day (walks, gym, swimming, dancing in your living room, what ever you can do and ideally enjoy doing)
- Meditation.
More, but about jobs and money and stuff:
- Having a good job matters, but! A lot of money is not equal to a good job. There's these things called "signature strengths" which are things like curiosity, appreciating beauty, wisdom, zest, etc which are apparently regarded well across cultures. Apparently if you identify your signature strengths (quiz here: https://www.viacharacter.org/character-strengths), there's a sweet spot where if you can use 4 of your own strengths in your job, you'll be happier.
- Also, a job that allows you to hit a flow state is awesome. There's a whole book about flow which has been out long enough that it's free in libraries. Basically, you become absorbed in what you're doing, lose track of time, and feel enjoyably challenged. (Basically ADHD hyperfocus, except you can leave to use the bathroom :P [this is a joke])
- Also, once you hit that $70-ish thousand, more time is more impactful than more money on your happiness and sense of well-being
- Doing kind things (and a variety of them) is really good for your happiness levels. Doing a different type of kind thing each day is great, because it thwarts Hedonic Adaptation
- If you have money to spend on making yourself happy, it is much more effective to spend the money on someone else than on yourself.
- Charity makes you happier if you can see the effects/it builds social connection. In other words, taping into your mutual aid groups to help people will make you happier. Go help people, it will make you feel better!
So, you know what I'm noticing? I'm noticing that if we as a culture started actually working towards what increases individual happiness, I think a lot of things would get better for everyone.
Ok, the next bit was about social connection, and I think a lot of us have heard about the 'loneliness epidemic', and one of the striking things is I've heard people blaming this on there being fewer romatic relationships, but what I'm hearing here is that it's much more broad than that.
First off, social connection:
- Makes you less vulnerable to premature death
- More likely to survive cancer, heart disease, etc
- Less likely to "fall prey" to stressful life events.
Social connection means time with friends, family, and partners, but it also means... talking to strangers in public, apparently. Which, they did start off this whole thing by saying what our intuition tells us will make us happy is often wrong, and apparently this is a big one. Ugh.
So they've done this study in trains, buses, and lobbies. Where they grab people and tell them to either a) talk to people and try to make a connection, b) enjoy their solitude, or c) do whatever they normally would do. And, talking to people and trying to build a connection makes both the person doing the talking happier, and also makes the person talked to happier.
Which, you know, as one of the biggest introverts I know, this just does not sound right. But I think that might be because in my experience, if someone I don't know is talking to me in public it's either because they're trying to sell me something, they're proselytizing, or they are (rarely) trying to hit on me. Now, if someone came up to me and started talking about plants, well, that might just be a more enjoyable experience.
Also, sharing an experience with others makes you subjectively think that it was a better experience. Chocolate was rated as tasting better when you were eating chocolate with another person. That one is easy to believe.
Also, being lonely had 7 times the impact on happiness than a four fold increase in income. In the other direction, presumably.
I am really curious if there have been any studies on whether social connections through stuff like co-op games, discord, forums, etc counts.
People who value time over money are happier, though 69% percent of those surveyed value money over time. Also, people who were primed to think about time were happier and spent more time socializing.
They called this next part mind control- which means here basically the ability to prevent mind-wandering. So the ability to focus. About 46.9 precent of the time, people aren't thinking about what they're doing.
We have a default network in our brains which is active when we're not engaged in a task, which is more efficient than other parts of your brain. Features:
- comes online very fast (as soon as you're not doing a task)
- thinks about the past, future, and others
- Less happy when this network is engaged
What can we do to not mind wander?
Meditation (at least the way where you choose to focus on a single thing. Be like the Vulcans and focus on the flame) (and the effects go beyond the single session, leading to people living in the moment more)
Also an 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction meditation course increased gray matter. Also meditation lead to high scores on the GRE.
Also Loving Kindness Meditation increased social closeness- and not just towards your target
More Healthy Practices:
- Exercise, again.
- In people with major depression, 30 minutes three times a week was as effective as Zoloft. Which is just incredible. Like, literally unbelievable. Because I've known people who were clinically depressed and were getting that much exercise. (But on reflection, those people also had things going on in their lives like parental deaths or addiction or other terrible things so maybe that's a confounding factor. I don't know, I'm really struggling with this one.)
- Exercise also boost cognitive function, especially as we get older.
- Sleep again boosts happiness and cognitive function.
- 5 hours of sleep really made people's mood to deteriorate, and also your perception of your life is much more negative.
- Getting enough sleep also helps increase insight/thinking outside the box.
- One night of disrupted sleep: hungrier, emotionally disregulated, memory problems, more likely to have an accident on the job, immune system is impaired.
- Chronic sleep times of 5 or fewer hours of sleep increases risk of death, increases risk of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, some cancers, and stroke.
One of the things I do like is she's really emphasizing that knowing isn't enough to change the behavior. Even if we wish it were.
This one touches on that, and she says there's two tings you can do:
- Pay attention to the situation- that is, find situations that support you. One suggestion is changing the visibility & convince of the things you don't want to be doing. They use a food example*, but I've done this by putting my phone in a different room.** Given what I know of psychology, I think it may be more helpful to think of ways to make the thing you want to do more of easier. Like maybe making a really cozy little nook to practice meditation in, or finding a physical movement that you actually enjoy, or having vegetables and fruits that you enjoy easily accessible, or giving yourself something nice to get out of bed for in the morning.
- Change your social context- want to start meditating? Start a meditation group with your friends. Want more movement? Go dancing, go hiking with friends, etc.
Goals:
- Be specific (how, when, where, with who, how will you know you've succeeded)
- Visualize your goal, both what achieving it will do for you, but also obstacles that might get in your way and how you'll deal with them.
- Goal planning: Creating an If-then plan. Basically visualize yourself dealing with the obstacles. One example is if you often forget your keys, imagine grabbing the door knob and thinking "where are my keys?" Seems to help with automatic actions***. The if-then strategy can increase your percentage of succeeding about a threefold for harder goals.
- WOOP = Wish, Outcome, Obstacles, and Plan. "What's your wish for your goal? What's your best outcome? What are the obstacles? What's your if-then plan?" Really helps with actually accomplishing your goals.
*there is weight lost talk in Week 6, in the first video for anyone who would like to avoid that.
**note that I did not say that I was particularly effective at this strategy
***I, a person with ADHD, have actually used this strategy and no longer get locked out of truck regularly.
