In the beginning this viral pandemic, I stumbled on an article my friend shared on Facebook:
“Yale’s most popular class ever is available free online – and the topic is how to be happier in your daily life.”
Mara Leighton, Business Insider
After reading the intriguing article, I decided to enroll at Yale University. I wanted to take the course for several reasons. Primarily, I wanted to improve my well-being as an effort to prevent future mental breakdowns [like the time I left PT school]. Additionally, I can say that I “went to Yale” upon completing the course. The other benefit was getting used to an online class format in preparation for the virtual summer semester that was welcomed me back into PT school.
So you’re interested in becoming happier, but don’t have the time to go through 10-weeks worth of information? I mean, you could speed through the video lectures over the course of 2 to 3 days and just do the other assignments in your own time. The information is digestable, but it’s nice to let the concepts resonate with you and apply them to your personal life. Personally, I think you will reap the most benefits if you take the time to do the class every week. But here’s the highlights:
- We think we know what makes us happy – but we don’t!
A successful career, a big salary, good grades, a hot body – we think it’s what we want to be happier, but science shows that these desires do not make us as happy as we think. It’s the concept called “miswanting.”1
2. Our mind is responsible for our miswanting and “unhappiness.”
Part of our miswanting is due to our instinct to compare ourselves to others. Another part of it is the reference point with which we compare ourselves. For example, if you get the silver medal, you feel disappointed because you were close to getting the gold. However, if you get the bronze medal, you feel accomplished because you at least won something.2
Even if you don’t compare yourself to other people, our mind just gets used to our lifestyle. It’s like the honeymoon phase in marriage. Research shows that after 1-2 years of the ceremony, your happiness goes back down to what is was before you were married.3
Lastly, our mind tends to wander. Did you know that our mind wanders 46.9% of the time? We lose focus on the task at hand and being to worry about future and past events.4
3. So how do we become happier?
In addition to understanding why we feel unhappy, Dr. Laurie Santos goes over practical ways to increase our happiness:
- meditation
- exercise
- adequate sleep
- social connections (both with strangers and loved ones)
- practicing graditude
- savoring moments
These simple (and free) techniques are backed by science and proven to improve happiness in the lives of people.
There are other things to consider that makes us happy. First, let’s talk about time affluence, the feeling of having all the time in the world to do meaningful things in your life. While most people choose earning more money over having more time, the evidence shows the opposite – people who have more time are happier.5 But how should we spend our time? While we prefer to do activities that require little to no skill and difficulty, we actually thrive in a state of “flow,” a place where high skills are required to accomplish challenging tasks.6
Second, we can make the most out of our career by using our inherent strengths. If you don’t feel like your career is your calling, incoporating up to 4 of our top strengths everyday can gives us a better sense of purpose.7 You can find your strengths by taking this quiz.
Those the concepts that I learned in the course. Has the course actually improved my happiness? Well, prior to taking the course my authentic happiness score jumped from a 3 to a 3.3 (out of 5). But if you don’t think that’s significant, my results of taking the PERMA outcome measure should speak for itself:
Since I started taking the class, other people have told me that I seem to be in a better place than where I was before when I had to take a break from my graduate school courses. As an Enneagram 7, I’m quite optimistic as a person, so it can be challenging to realistically see how I’m doing in my life in regards to overall wellness. I had a feeling by Week 2 of the final rewirement challenge (Week 8 of the course) that my post-course happiness scores would increase, but to hear feedback from people in my life really confirms the change in my happiness.
If you have the time, I highly recommend doing the free course. The class does have homework assignments, but it’s basically tracking the habits mentioned previously. Luckily, the course also comes with a guide book to keep track of your progress. Again, you’ll reap the most benefits if you treat it like any other college course. The journey to improving your well-being takes time, so just embrace the process.
I hope you learned something new and will put some of these habits of happiness into practice. Additionally, I hope this will lead you to pursue a life of more happiness. I began reading a book prior to taking this course entitled, “The Happiness Project,” by Gretchen Rubin. After reading this book and completing this course, I am definitely want to work on increasing my personal happiness as happiness can contribute to joy. [Perhaps that’s something to blog about…]
Until next time,
Jordaine Enriquez, a Yale student
References:
*Straight from the course itself.
Gilbert & Wilson (2000). ”Miswanting: Some problems in the forecasting of future affective states.” In Thinking and feeling: The role of affect in social cognition. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Pages 178-197.
Medvec et al. (1995). When less is more: Counterfactual thinking and satisfaction among Olympic medalists. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(4), 603–610.
Lucas et al. (2003). Reexamining Adaptation and the Set Point Model of Happiness: Reactions to Changes in Marital Status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(3), 527-539.
Killingsworth & Gilbert (2010). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science, 330(6006), 932–932.
Hershfield et al. (2016). People who choose time over money are happier. Social Psychological and Personality Science,7(7), 697-706.
Csikszentmihalyi (2008). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Harzer & Ruch (2012). When the job is a calling: The role of applying one’s signature strengths at work. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 7,362-371.