Hacking your brain for a happier life.
“Happiness is a choice, not a result. Nothing will make you happy until you choose to be happy.” – Ralph Marston
What is happiness?
Encyclopaedia Britannica describes happiness as “a state of emotional well-being that a person experiences either in a narrow sense, when good things happen in a specific moment, or more broadly, as a positive evaluation of one’s life and accomplishments overall – that is, subjective well-being.”
For millennia, people have tried to define what the ultimate happiness is and how to achieve it, only to conclude that there is no universal magic formula to happiness. It is unique to every one of us and, as Roy M. Goodman, an American politician and businessman pointed out, “happiness is a way of travel not a destination.”
The happiness-success link
We often think that when we achieve certain things in life (high-power job, money, fame – you can add to this list anything else that is important to you), we will become successful and happy. But, according to Yale psychologist Laurie Santos, successful people are not necessarily happier.
Interestingly, a 2005 meta-analytical study by Sonja Lyubomirsky, Laura King and Ed Diener established that happiness comes first and that happy individuals are successful across multiple life domains, including marriage, friendship, income, work performance, and health. The authors of this study argued that the happiness–success link exists not only because success makes people happy, but also because positive affect causes success.
The happiness paradoxes
Achieving happiness is not easy at least in part due to the following paradoxes.
Paradox 1 – Our brain is not designed for happiness. That’s right, its primary focus is on our survival and reproduction rather than happiness. For this reason, our brain is hardwired to scan our environment for potential present and future threats – not only predators, but also competitors for resources which are considered to be scarce. This worked well for our ancestors who lived in harsh and hostile environments – we survived and thrived as a species. However, in the modern world, this hardwiring of our brain to anticipate threat can lead to increased stress and anxiety, not happiness.
Paradox 2 – There is a gender difference in people’s perception of happiness. Researchers discovered that women may suffer from the “female happiness paradox” – the phenomena that women are unhappier than men when it comes to the frequency of negative emotions, their present emotional state and overall life satisfaction. To some degree, this could be a result of the gender inequalities which still exist even in the most developed societies.
Paradox 3 – Pursuing happiness makes people unhappy. According to research, chasing happiness makes people unhappy because the more people value happiness, the more likely they will feel disappointed. Another study discovered that people who chase happiness think that time is scarce. They often feel that they do not have enough time in the day and this, paradoxically, makes them feel unhappy.
Does it mean that we are destined to live our lives in misery and unhappiness? Not at all! The following brain hacks are proven by science to help you reshape your mindset and rewire your brain to bring more happiness and success into your life.
Hacks to build a happier life
- Accept life with all its ups and downs. Practise mindfulness which involves focusing on the present moment without judgment and accepting your inner experiences, is one of the way to achieve this. As Gerard Way, an American singer and songwriter said, “Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” A new book How to Use Mindfulness as a Mental Health Tool by Debbie Hampton contains a lot of insights and practical tips which can be easily integrated into our everyday life – both in the workplace and beyond.
- Tackle your ‘negativity bias’ (a heightened awareness of any sense of a threat to our well-being).We are hardwired for negativity because it was crucial for our survival as species. But in the modern world this bias often works against us leading to us feeling insecure, less capable than we really are, and more risk-averse than is reasonable. It is like driving your vehicle around with the handbrake on. The book Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson will teach you how to overcome that negativity bias and provide you with the tools to rewire your brain for a happier life.
- Practise gratitude. The growing body of research shows that gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with a greater happiness because it helps people to focus on what they have instead of what they are lacking. This article will help you to integrate simple yet effective gratitude practices into your everyday life to boost your sense of wellbeing and happiness. You can read more about the neuroscience of gratitude and its effects on the brain and happiness in this and this articles.
- Take regular ‘savouring walks’. A 2007 study established that taking daily ‘savouring walks’ for a week increased the overall happiness of participants because these walks gave them the time to notice the good things in their lives. You can amplify the positive effect of these walks on your mental health and wellbeing by choosing natural settings such as green (inland woods/parks/fields) and blue (costal/rivers/lakes) areas, according to the recent research across 18 countries.
- Cultivate your relationships and social networks. Connecting with others, forming relationships with them, inclusion and belonging are so important for human survival that we are hardwired to need others (people and communities) for our happiness and wellbeing. According to research, people in collectivist societies, in general, tend to rate their own happiness higher than people in individualistic societies. So make time and space in your busy life for enjoyable and meaningful connections with other people. You can find some useful brain hacks for better relationships in my earlier article published by The Maverick Paradox Magazine.
- Hack your ‘happiness hormones’. Our hormones act like chemical messengers – they transmit signals from the brain to different parts of our body with instructions to do a variety of things. We even have several hormones which help promote positive feelings, including happiness and pleasure. These include:
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- Dopamine (the ‘feel-good’ hormone) – a neurotransmitter which plays an important role in your brain’s reward system and is associated with pleasurable sensations, along with learning, memory, and more;
- Serotonin – a neurotransmitter which helps regulate your mood, sleep, appetite, digestion, learning ability, and memory.
- Oxytocin (the ‘love hormone’) – essential for childbirth, breastfeeding, and strong parent-child bonding. It is also involved in establishing trust, empathy and bonding in relationships;
- Endorphins (the ‘natural painkillers’) – these hormones are produced by the body in response to stress or discomfort.
You can find a lot of useful information on how to promote the production of happiness hormones in this article. For those who want to read more on this topic, there is an excellent book Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, & Endorphin Levels by Loretta Graziano Breuning.
You can find even more about the science-informed approaches to building a happier life in this article, this video and this podcast by a best-selling author Rick Hanson (a part of the Greater Good’s podcast series).
Want to know more about brain hacking? My next article will follow soon!
Editor’s Footnote:
Zoryna O’Donnell is a Featured Columnist and you can read her articles by clicking below:
