Most happiness research revolves around three primary sources of potential happiness: temperament and personality, life circumstances such as health and wealth, and our focus and choices. Learn more in this week’s blog.
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Most of us would say we want to experience happiness and avoid sadness. We also think of one emotion as good and the other as bad. However, all emotions serve a purpose and are part of what it means to be a human. Here’s why sadness is as important as happiness in our lives…
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In an overview of studies on happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky found that we control at least 40% of our happiness through our focus and choices (Lyubomirsky, 2013). We now know we can raise our happiness by cultivating positive emotions such as love, kindness, compassion, gratitude, hope, and inspiration. Here are some science-based ways to boost your happiness and well-being.
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Happiness is an emotional state—feeling happy about something means feeling satisfied—or maybe it’s an assessment of our life or someone else’s. Joy is an episodic emotion and is felt concurrent with the situation prompting this emotion and arises during activities. The following factors can explain the main differences between joy and happiness…
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Research on happiness indicates that only 10% of happiness is accounted for by life circumstances, with genetic differences accounting for 50%, leaving us with 40% of happiness within our control. While a rewiring of our inner world may be much more daunting than cleaning our closets, it will be worth the effort. To help you get started on this critically important task, you can practice these four areas. Give them a try!
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The practice of recognizing the positive things can engender gratitude for the good things in our lives and for the bad things that we have avoided. What have you noticed? Reflect upon your gratitude challenge with us…
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Researchers around the world are exploring how gratitude could help us cope with crisis situations. Here are some highlights…
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A foundational study completed in 2002 linked gratitude to life satisfaction, optimism, hopefulness, and vitality (McCulloch et al., 2002). Here are a few tips on when and how to practice gratefulness…
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