minor catastrophes

I recently watched a fascinating documentary on PBS called “This Emotional Life.” A four-hour special over two nights, it explored the range of human emotions as they relate to happiness. The individual stories of people struggling with happiness are still with me a week later. It was hosted by Daniel Gilbert, the author of a book I’ve read called Stumbling on Happiness. Here are a few insights from the book and documentary: 

• Studies indicate that people have a “happiness set point.” This means that outside of positive or negative circumstances, each person is born with a greater or lesser tendency towards happiness, which they repeatedly return to. 

• Married people tend to be happier than single, but having children was not found to be an indicator of greater happiness, according to research. Childless couples were found to be just as happy (if not happier!) than couples with children. 

• People who’ve undergone profound trauma, such as a life-changing injury, more often than not are generally able to return to the level of happiness they experienced before the trauma. 

• Money can buy happiness. (The book explains this point more than the show.) Obviously, if you don’t have basic needs met, having money can help you meet your needs, decrease stress and increase happiness. But money buying happiness was found to be true even beyond meeting basic needs — to a certain point, beyond which the “happiness returns” diminish. People who gave some of their money away (whether to loved ones or charity) and who used money to buy experiences rather than products tended to be happiest. 

• One study approached elderly subjects with the assumption that in facing inevitable physical and emotional losses associated with aging, they would be less happy than younger people. The results indicated the opposite: Because older people tended to no longer live life preoccupied with the future, they were able to focus on and enjoy what was in front of them. They found contentment in no longer being distracted by things like how they looked, their possessions, etc. 

• Studies on people who regularly meditate show there are actual changes to the brain that result in increased happiness. 

• People who are clinically depressed actually have smaller amygdalas than non-depressed people, indicating depression is truly an illness; dispelling the notion that one should be able to simply “power their way out of depression.” Medication can actually help regenerate cells in the affected part of the brain. 

• You really can spread happiness or unhappiness. One long-term study found that an unhappy person sent waves of unhappiness out which were experienced even by people they’d never met before as that emotion was passed from person to person. The same ripple effect is true of happy people. 

• A big indicator of happiness is the goodness and extent of a person’s social relationships. People with community, with others around them they regularly connect with including friends, family, neighbors, friendly acquaintances, are happier than people who are more isolated. We need each other. 

Overall, three points the show makes are worth considering: You can’t be happy alone, you can’t be happy all the time, and more than likely, there are things you can do to be happier. 

There are snippets of individual stories from the show on YouTube that are really powerful, like this one, and this one.

Wishing you happiness in 2010!

END NOTE: Welcome "Real Time" listeners! Thanks so much for visiting my blog...Please feel free to read as much as you like, leave comments if you wish.

And for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I was interviewed about blogging along with friend/colleague/fellow blogger Nicole Rosenleaf Ritter by radio host George Cole, over at Yellowstone Public Radio. You can listen to our interview, which originally aired on January 11th, here.