Happiness is so interesting, because we all
have different ideas about what it is and how to get it. It's also no surprise
that it's the Nr.1 value for Buffer's culture, if you see our slidedeck about
it. So naturally we are obsessed with it.
I would love to be happier, as I'm sure
most people would, so I thought it would be interesting to find some ways to
become a happier person that are actually backed up by science. Here are ten of
the best ones I found.
1. Exercise more – 7 minutes might be
enough
You might have seen some talk recently
about the scientific 7 minute workout mentioned in The New York Times. So if
you thought exercise was something you didn't have time for, maybe you can fit
it in after all.
Exercise has such a profound effect on our
happiness and well-being that it's actually been proven to be an effective
strategy for overcoming depression. In a study cited in Shawn Achor's book, The
Happiness Advantage, three groups of patients treated their depression with
either medication, exercise, or a combination of the two. The results of this
study really surprised me. Although all three groups experienced similar
improvements in their happiness levels to begin with, the follow up assessments
proved to be radically different:
The groups were then tested six months
later to assess their relapse rate. Of those who had taken the medication
alone, 38 percent had slipped back into depression. Those in the combination
group were doing only slightly better, with a 31 percent relapse rate. The
biggest shock, though, came from the exercise group: Their relapse rate was
only 9 percent!
You don't have to be depressed to gain
benefit from exercise, though. It can help you to relax, increase your brain
power and even improve your body image, even if you don't lose any weight.
A study in the Journal of Health Psychology
found that people who exercised felt better about their bodies, even when they
saw no physical changes:
Body weight, shape and body image were
assessed in 16 males and 18 females before and after both 6 × 40 mins exercise
and 6 × 40 mins reading. Over both conditions, body weight and shape did not
change. Various aspects of body image, however, improved after exercise
compared to before.
We've explored exercise in depth before,
and looked at what it does to our brains, such as releasing proteins and
endorphins that make us feel happier, as you can see in the image below.
中文版請下拉至文後。
2. Sleep more – you'll be less sensitive to
negative emotions
We know that sleep helps our bodies to
recover from the day and repair themselves, and that it helps us focus and be
more productive. It turns out, it's also important for our happiness. In
NutureShock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman explain how sleep affects our
positivity: Negative stimuli get processed by the amygdala; positive or neutral
memories gets processed by the hippocampus. Sleep deprivation hits the
hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people
fail to recall pleasant memories, yet recall gloomy memories just fine. In one
experiment by Walker,
sleep-deprived college students tried to memorize a list of words. They could
remember 81% of the words with a negative connotation, like “cancer.” But they
could remember only 31% of the words with a positive or neutral connotation,
like “sunshine” or “basket.” The BPS Research Digest explores another study
that proves sleep affects our sensitivity to negative emotions. Using a facial
recognition task over the course of a day, the researchers studied how
sensitive participants were to positive and negative emotions. Those who worked
through the afternoon without taking a nap became more sensitive late in the
day to negative emotions like fear and anger. Using a face recognition task,
here we demonstrate an amplified reactivity to anger and fear emotions across
the day, without sleep. However, an intervening nap blocked and even reversed
this negative emotional reactivity to anger and fear while conversely enhancing
ratings of positive (happy) expressions. Of course, how well (and how long) you
sleep will probably affect how you feel when you wake up, which can make a
difference to your whole day. Especially this graph showing how your brain
activity decreases is a great insight about how important enough sleep is for
productivity and happiness: Another study tested how employees' moods when they
started work in the morning affected their work day. Researchers found that
employees' moods when they clocked in tended to affect how they felt the rest
of the day. Early mood was linked to their perceptions of customers and to how
they reacted to customers' moods. And most importantly to managers, employee
mood had a clear impact on performance, including both how much work employees
did and how well they did it. Sleep is another topic we've looked into before,
exploring how much sleep we really need to be productive.
3. Move closer to work – a short commute is
worth more than a big house
Our commute to the office can have a
surprisingly powerful impact on our happiness. The fact that we tend to do this
twice a day, five days a week, makes it unsurprising that its effect would
build up over time and make us less and less happy. According to The Art of
Manliness, having a long commute is something we often fail to realize will
affect us so dramatically: … while many voluntary conditions don't affect our
happiness in the long term because we acclimate to them, people never get
accustomed to their daily slog to work because sometimes the traffic is awful
and sometimes it's not. Or as Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert put it,
“Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day.” We tend to try to
compensate for this by having a bigger house or a better job, but these
compensations just don't work: Two Swiss economists who studied the effect of
commuting on happiness found that such factors could not make up for the misery
created by a long commute.
4. Spend time with friends and family – don't
regret it on your deathbed
Staying in touch with friends and family is
one of the top five regrets of the dying. If you want more evidence that it's
beneficial for you, I've found some research that proves it can make you
happier right now. Social time is highly valuable when it comes to improving
our happiness, even for introverts. Several studies have found that time spent
with friends and family makes a big difference to how happy we feel, generally.
I love the way Harvard happiness expert Daniel Gilbert explains it: We are
happy when we have family, we are happy when we have friends and almost all the
other things we think make us happy are actually just ways of getting more
family and friends. George Vaillant is the director of a 72-year study of the
lives of 268 men. In an interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant
Study subjects, Vaillant was asked, “What have you learned from the Grant Study
men?” Vaillant's response: “That the only thing that really matters in life are
your relationships to other people.” He shared insights of the study with
Joshua Wolf Shenk at The Atlantic on how the men's social connections made a
difference to their overall happiness: The men's relationships at age 47, he
found, predicted late-life adjustment better than any other variable, except
defenses. Good sibling relationships seem especially powerful: 93 percent of
the men who were thriving at age 65 had been close to a brother or sister when
younger. In fact, a study published in the Journal of Socio-Economics states
than your relationships are worth more than $100,000: Using the British
Household Panel Survey, I find that an increase in the level of social
involvements is worth up to an extra £85,000 a year in terms of life satisfaction. Actual
changes in income, on the other hand, buy very little happiness. I think that
last line is especially fascinating: Actual changes in income, on the other
hand, buy very little happiness. So we could increase our annual income by
hundreds of thousands of dollars and still not be as happy as if we increased
the strength of our social relationships. The Terman study, which is covered in
The Longevity Project, found that relationships and how we help others were
important factors in living long, happy lives: We figured that if a Terman
participant sincerely felt that he or she had friends and relatives to count on
when having a hard time then that person would be healthier. Those who felt
very loved and cared for, we predicted, would live the longest. Surprise: our
prediction was wrong… Beyond social network size, the clearest benefit of
social relationships came from helping others. Those who helped their friends
and neighbors, advising and caring for others, tended to live to old age.
5. Go outside – happiness is maximized at 13.9°C
In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor
recommends spending time in the fresh air to improve your happiness: Making
time to go outside on a nice day also delivers a huge advantage; one study
found that spending 20 minutes outside in good weather not only boosted
positive mood, but broadened thinking and improved working memory… This is
pretty good news for those of us who are worried about fitting new habits into
our already-busy schedules. Twenty minutes is a short enough time to spend
outside that you could fit it into your commute or even your lunch break. A UK study from the University of Sussex
also found that being outdoors made people happier: Being outdoors, near the
sea, on a warm, sunny weekend afternoon is the perfect spot for most. In fact,
participants were found to be substantially happier outdoors in all natural
environments than they were in urban environments. The American Meteorological
Society published research in 2011 that found current temperature has a bigger
effect on our happiness than variables like wind speed and humidity, or even
the average temperature over the course of a day. It also found that happiness
is maximized at 13.9°C, so
keep an eye on the weather forecast before heading outside for your 20 minutes
of fresh air.
6. Help others – 100 hours a year is the
magical number
One of the most counterintuitive pieces of
advice I found is that to make yourself feel happier, you should help others.
In fact, 100 hours per year (or two hours per week) is the optimal time we
should dedicate to helping others in order to enrich our lives. If we go back
to Shawn Achor's book again, he says this about helping others: …when
researchers interviewed more than 150 people about their recent purchases, they
found that money spent on activities—such as concerts and group dinners
out—brought far more pleasure than material purchases like shoes, televisions,
or expensive watches. Spending money on other people, called “prosocial
spending,” also boosts happiness. The Journal of Happiness Studies published a
study that explored this very topic: Participants recalled a previous purchase
made for either themselves or someone else and then reported their happiness.
Afterward, participants chose whether to spend a monetary windfall on
themselves or someone else. Participants assigned to recall a purchase made for
someone else reported feeling significantly happier immediately after this
recollection; most importantly, the happier participants felt, the more likely
they were to choose to spend a windfall on someone else in the near future. So
spending money on other people makes us happier than buying stuff for ourselves.
What about spending our time on other people? A study of volunteering in Germany explored how volunteers were affected
when their opportunities to help others were taken away: Shortly after the fall
of the Berlin Wall but before the German reunion, the first wave of data of the
GSOEP was collected in East
Germany. Volunteering was still widespread.
Due to the shock of the reunion, a large portion of the infrastructure of
volunteering (e.g. sports clubs associated with firms) collapsed and people
randomly lost their opportunities for volunteering. Based on a comparison of
the change in subjective well-being of these people and of people from the
control group who had no change in their volunteer status, the hypothesis is
supported that volunteering is rewarding in terms of higher life satisfaction.
In his book Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and
Well-being, University of Pennsylvania professor Martin Seligman explains that
helping others can improve our own lives: …we scientists have found that doing
a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of
any exercise we have tested.
7. Practice smiling – it can alleviate pain
Smiling itself can make us feel better, but
it's more effective when we back it up with positive thoughts, according to
this study: A new study led by a Michigan
State University
business scholar suggests customer-service workers who fake smile throughout
the day worsen their mood and withdraw from work, affecting productivity. But
workers who smile as a result of cultivating positive thoughts – such as a
tropical vacation or a child's recital – improve their mood and withdraw less.
Of course it's important to practice “real smiles” where you use your eye
sockets. It's very easy to spot the difference: According to PsyBlog, smiling
can improve our attention and help us perform better on cognitive tasks:
Smiling makes us feel good which also increases our attentional flexibility and
our ability to think holistically. When this idea was tested by Johnson et al.
(2010), the results showed that participants who smiled performed better on
attentional tasks which required seeing the whole forest rather than just the
trees. A smile is also a good way to alleviate some of the pain we feel in troubling
circumstances: Smiling is one way to reduce the distress caused by an upsetting
situation. Psychologists call this the facial feedback hypothesis. Even forcing
a smile when we don't feel like it is enough to lift our mood slightly (this is
one example of embodied cognition). One of our previous posts goes into even
more detail about the science of smiling.
8. Plan a trip – but don't take one
As opposed to actually taking a holiday, it
seems that planning a vacation or just a break from work can improve our
happiness. A study published in the journal, Applied Research in Quality of
Life showed that the highest spike in happiness came during the planning stage
of a vacation as employees enjoyed the sense of anticipation: In the study, the
effect of vacation anticipation boosted happiness for eight weeks. After the
vacation, happiness quickly dropped back to baseline levels for most people.
Shawn Achor has some info for us on this point, as well: One study found that
people who just thought about watching their favorite movie actually raised
their endorphin levels by 27 percent. If you can't take the time for a vacation
right now, or even a night out with friends, put something on the calendar—even
if it's a month or a year down the road. Then whenever you need a boost of
happiness, remind yourself about it.
9. Meditate – rewire your brain for
happiness
Meditation is often touted as an important
habit for improving focus, clarity and attention span, as well as helping to
keep you calm. It turns out it's also useful for improving your happiness: In
one study, a research team from Massachusetts
General Hospital
looked at the brain scans of 16 people before and after they participated in an
eight-week course in mindfulness meditation. The study, published in the January
issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, concluded that after completing the
course, parts of the participants' brains associated with compassion and
self-awareness grew, and parts associated with stress shrank. Meditation
literally clears your mind and calms you down, it's been often proven to be the
single most effective way to live a happier live. I believe that this graphic
explains it the best: According to Shawn Achor, meditation can actually make
you happier long-term: Studies show that in the minutes right after meditating,
we experience feelings of calm and contentment, as well as heightened awareness
and empathy. And, research even shows that regular meditation can permanently
rewire the brain to raise levels of happiness. The fact that we can actually
alter our brain structure through mediation is most surprising to me and
somewhat reassuring that however we feel and think today isn't permanent.
10. Practice gratitude – increase both happiness
and life satisfaction
This is a seemingly simple strategy, but
I've personally found it to make a huge difference to my outlook. There are
lots of ways to practice gratitude, from keeping a journal of things you're
grateful for, sharing three good things that happen each day with a friend or
your partner, and going out of your way to show gratitude when others help you.
In an experiment where some participants took note of things they were grateful
for each day, their moods were improved just from this simple practice: The
gratitude-outlook groups exhibited heightened well-being across several, though
not all, of the outcome measures across the 3 studies, relative to the
comparison groups. The effect on positive affect appeared to be the most robust
finding. Results suggest that a conscious focus on blessings may have emotional
and interpersonal benefits. The Journal of Happiness studies published a study
that used letters of gratitude to test how being grateful can affect our levels
of happiness: Participants included 219 men and women who wrote three letters
of gratitude over a 3 week period. Results indicated that writing letters of
gratitude increased participants' happiness and life satisfaction, while
decreasing depressive symptoms. Quick last fact: Getting older will make
yourself happier As a final point, it's interesting to note that as we get
older, particularly past middle age, we tend to grow happier naturally. There's
still some debate over why this happens, but scientists have got a few ideas:
Researchers, including the authors, have found that older people shown pictures
of faces or situations tend to focus on and remember the happier ones more and
the negative ones less. Other studies have discovered that as people age, they
seek out situations that will lift their moods — for instance, pruning social
circles of friends or acquaintances who might bring them down. Still other work
finds that older adults learn to let go of loss and disappointment over
unachieved goals, and hew their goals toward greater wellbeing. So if you
thought being old would make you miserable, rest assured that it's likely
you'll develop a more positive outlook than you probably have now. Read more
at:
http://www.social-consciousness.com/2013/10/ten-simple-things-you-can-do-today-that-will-make-you-happier-backed-by-science.html
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工作煩悶、感情不順？試試這 10 件能讓你更快樂的事情
我想要更快樂，該怎麼做？
此乃大哉問，但也是生活無時無刻須面對的問題呢！大家對於快樂都有不同的想法，也有自己獲得快樂的方式，而這篇要推薦給大家的是 10 個經科學證明，能讓人更快樂的活動，現在深呼吸一口氣，想想你最喜歡的事物、揚起嘴角微笑，然後開始往下閱讀吧。
1. 多運動
多運動不但有助於身體健康，也對心理健康有益唷。Shawn Achor 的「The Happiness Advantage」中提到一個研究，該研究將憂鬱症患者分成 3 組，一組只服用藥物，一組除了服藥之外另進行運動訓練，最後一組則只運動，不服用藥物。
剛開始時，三組病患恢復的程度相差不遠，但後續發展的結果則大為不同。後續的結果是這樣的：六個月後，僅服用藥物者憂鬱症復發率是 38%，服藥兼運動者為 31%，而僅靠運動治療者之復發率降低到僅 9%，運動對於情緒的影響程度可見一斑。
另外，運動也能讓你放鬆心情、頭腦靈活並對自己的身材更有信心。
根據 Journal of Health Psychology 中的研究指出，在我們運動之後，即使體重腰圍等等並沒有改變，我們還是會更喜歡自己的身體、更有信心。不過，這是不是代表我們慢跑完後感覺自己腰部緊實時，一切只是假象！
千萬別這麼想，如果我們運動完會自我感覺良好，那我們就會多運動，而運動久了，有一天身材就會真的變好、美夢成真了。
運動的好處很多呢，快穿上你的運動服裝，去痛快地流汗吧。
2. 多睡覺
大家都知道睡眠能修復人體，讓我們再度充滿能量，迎接挑戰；而充足的睡眠更能提升我們的專注力及生產力。想當然爾，睡得好也能讓我們更快樂。
《 NutureShock 》 這本書提到，睡眠能幫助我們正向思，大腦會以不同部位處理不同類型回憶，我們睡眠不足時，處理快樂及中性回憶的部分受到的影響比較大。
於是，睡不飽時，我們容易想起不開心的事情，英國心理協會研究文摘（The BPS Research Digest）中就有一研究證明，睡眠會影響我們的情緒。研究者以臉部辨識來研究受試者感知正面及負面情緒的狀況，研究中沒有睡午覺的受試者，在下午之後比較容易產生恐懼及憤怒等等負面情緒。
而午間小睡片刻的受試者，則產生較多正面開心的情緒，所以在公司或學校午休時，別顧著玩手機遊戲或是通訊軟體，小憩一下才能笑容滿面唷。
而睡眠的品質當然也很重要，睡眠品質可能影響到你起床時的心情，進而影響到你整天的情緒，茲事體大阿，各位讀者絕對要重視睡眠，多花點時間想想怎樣提升自己的睡眠質量唷。
3. 縮短通勤距離
每次上下班通勤時，捷運上總是人擠人、馬路上總是塞車、心裡滿是埋怨，對吧？根據 The Art of Manliness，我們常常忽略通勤距離遠時，對我們情緒造成的負面影響。
其實 The Art of Manliness的說法並不令人意外，對很多上班族來說，通勤這檔事，每週至少要經歷10次（一週 5 個工作日、每天來回上下班），諸多怨氣累積起來，心情怎麼會美麗呢？
很多人選擇買大房子以補償通勤距離造成的困擾，也有人告訴自己說，這份工作很不錯，所以值得自己舟車勞頓；然而，兩位瑞士經濟學家指出，無論是大房子或理想工作都不能有效抵銷通勤帶來的心理負擔。
4. 多花時間陪伴家人、朋友
想要快樂幸福，就一定要多花時間陪伴親愛的家人與朋友；許多人辭世前，常常後悔自己沒有多待在家人與朋友身邊，但卻為時已晚，足見家人與朋友在我們心中的重要性，千萬別忽略囉。
社交時間長短對於快樂的程度影響很大，即使內向者亦然，而哈佛大學的心理學家 Daniel Gilbert 也曾解釋道: 「當我們擁有家人與朋友時，我們便感到高興」。
The British Household Panel Survey 中指出，以生活滿足度來看，提升社交參與度時帶來的滿足感等同於一年多賺 85,000 英鎊（《TO》編按：約 400 萬台幣），而實質的收入改變則買不到多少幸福感受。
若我們真心追求快樂幸福，那我們一定要隨時提醒自己，人際關係對我們來說最為重要，不要誤以為財富才是快樂人生的關鍵。
5. 多到戶外走走
有研究指出，只要在天氣好時待在戶外 20 分鐘，就可以提振心情、開拓思維、並增強工作記憶(working memory) 。空出 20 分鐘絕非難事，例如在通勤時提早下車，走個 20 分鐘到上班或上課地點；或是在午休時間到附近的公園走走，都能讓自己開心不少。
6. 多幫助他人
大家想必都聽過「施比受更有福」，那大家是否知道「施比受更快活」呢？有研究指出，一週花兩個小時幫助他人，生活就會更豐富而踏實，心情更愉悅。
The Journal of Happiness Studies 中一項研究指出，一樣是花錢購物，買給他人所得到快樂感受比買給自己時來的強烈許多；而花時間做志工也有類似的效果。
德國一項志工相關的研究指出，在東西德統一之際，由於變化劇烈及種種因素，當時許多人失去做志工服務的機會，而此研究調查後發現，這些人在失去志工機會之後，生活滿意度減少許多。
由此可見，當你出錢或出力幫助別人時，你也會得到暖暖的好心情作為回饋。
7. 多微笑
笑一個，好心情就報到！心理學家指出，這是因為我們微笑時能藉由臉部回饋帶來好心情。不過要注意唷，皮笑肉不笑的話，效果會大打折扣呢。
一項 Michigan State University 的研究調查服務業的員工，他們在工作時需要面帶微笑來面對客人，整天假笑的服務生，臉都僵了、心情也變差、甚至對工作感到厭煩，進而影響到工作表現。
但如果微笑時由心出發，想像自己在熱帶島嶼度假、或是在觀賞孩子的演奏會等等，他們就能真心微笑，並改善情緒。以下這張圖讓各位參考，其實微笑時是否發自內心，他人一目瞭然阿。
另外，當我們遇到挫折時，微笑也能給自己勇氣去面對困難，微笑還能減輕壓力、增強大腦認知能力，像是提升注意力、讓我們見樹又見林等等。
8. 規劃旅行
工作壓力大時，總是很想出走旅行，為自己充電。很有趣的是呢，Applied Research in Quality of Life 中一項研究顯示，旅行本身雖然令人愉悅，但出發前規劃旅行時才是最開心的階段；該研究顯示，期待假期或旅行時所帶來的歡愉感受可以持續八周左右，但假期結束後，旅行所帶來的快樂情緒很快就會消散。
為什麼呢？ 這是因為「期待」所帶來的正面情緒非常強烈，甚至比「實踐」來的美妙，所以，各位讀者可以巧妙運用這點，比如說，現階段生活太緊湊，抽不出時間玩樂，卻又覺得壓力太大嗎？
沒關係，不需要急著請假出去玩，你可以計畫幾個月後出國度假，然後開始不時查旅館、景點、美食等等，讓自己處在期待的氛圍裡，想必心中將是艷陽天。
9. 多冥想
你有冥想的習慣嗎？如果有，恭喜你，冥想是追求快樂的好方法唷，是很健康的生活習慣。
Shawn Achor 指出，冥想可以長期增進正面情緒，讓我們更快樂，研究指出，在冥想後幾分鐘內，我們會感到平靜與滿足，如果我們持續進行冥想，還可以重整我們的大腦，長期提高幸福感受。
冥想可以幫助我們清除雜念，讓我們心境趨於平靜，並且提高專注力等等，此外，許多研究已佐證，多冥想可以讓我們更快樂且平靜，以下這張圖為冥想前後的大腦狀況。
記得每天空出一點時間來冥想，藉以調整你的大腦喔。
10. 心懷感恩
一項相關實驗中，受試者每天都要記錄下感恩的人事物，實驗發現，他們的生活滿意度增加不少，心情愉悅許多。
原來這是因為他們在紀錄時，必須以感恩的心看待週遭事物，藉此發現自己的生活是那麼美好與幸福，可見如果我們刻意觀察生活中值得感激的人事物，情緒也會受到正面影響。
那要如何變得知足感恩呢？ 我們可以每天睡前寫一篇感恩日記，寫下感謝的人事物；也可以每天跟家人朋友分享感動，告訴他們當天發生在自己身上的好事。
更直接的方法，則是向幫助你的人答謝，寫封感謝簡訊、當面道謝或是請他吃美食都是不錯的方法。稍稍改變觀點，用一顆感恩的心，享受有溫度的人生吧。
你知道嗎？ 人類天生就是快樂的料。
因為隨著年紀變老，我們自然會變得更快樂，且此現象在中年之後更為顯著。有一項研究請受試者觀看幾組不同的圖片或情境，它們各自帶有不同的情緒與氣氛，之後再請受試者回想自己看到那些圖片與情境。
結果顯示，年紀大的受試者記住的大多是開心的圖片與情境；也有研究指出，我們越老越懂得保護自己，會懂得避開不喜歡的朋友圈，也懂得淡然看待得失，學會如何放手。
