A3: Individual Written Assignment

The Science of Happiness and Well-Being

Mindfulness & Awe, Wonder, Narrative, Laughter and Play Setting Goals and Charting One's Own Path to Happiness

Day 7

Course Topics – where are we?

§ Introduction to Happiness Concepts § Received Notions of Happiness - How They Steer us Wrong! § What Actually Makes Us Happy! § Social Connection, Compassion and Kindness § Gratitude, Savoring and Spirituality § Resiliency and Mindfulness § Awe, Wonder, Narrative, Laughter and Play § Setting Goals and Charting One's Own Path to Happiness

Insight #17 – Cutting Edge Research Promising new research that is not yet scientifically robust.

• Awe and Wonder • Laughter and Play • Narrative

Stacey Kennelley (2012) - Can Awe Buy You More Time and Happiness?

Awe and Wonder

Feeling awe (compared to pleasure) can make people

• feel like they have more time and might make them more likely to help others.

• less likely to feel impatient and more likely to volunteer their time

Jill Suttie (2014) – Why Do We Laugh?

Laughter… 1

• Laughter can increase blood flow and strengthen the heart, like aerobic exercise, decrease one’s threshold for pain with positive but not darker humor).

• Great for our social relationships. People list having a sense of humor as one of the most important traits in a mate.

• Other animals, such as rats, have a sense of humor, too. If one tickles a rat by scratching its belly, it emits high-pitched laughter (normally outside of the human hearing range).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn45diC0yqc

Laughter Clubs

David Elkind (2008) – Can We Play?

Play

• Play is crucial to physical, intellectual, and social- emotional development at all ages. This is especially true of the purest form of play: the unstructured, self-motivated, imaginative, independent kind, where children initiate their own games and even invent their own rules.

• Even adults have the potential to unite play, love, and work, attaining the dynamic, joyful state that psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow” (or “engaged life”).

Dacher Keltner, UC Berkeley – Greater Good

Narrative… 1

• Narratives are symbolic structures that we use to give our lives shape and imbue them with meaning.

• Micro-narrative - writing about specific stresses, gifts, and opportunities. • Meta-narrative - encompasses your life's journey as a whole. This form

of narrative helps us make sense of ourselves and our identities.

Narrative… 2 - Micro-narrative • James Pennebaker finds that narrating difficulties, frustration, stresses

in the simple writing expressive paradigm leads to increased happiness, reduced stress, reduced visits to health centers, reduced depression, even sort of better profiles of your immune system as you're handling disease. Narrating stress is a good thing for happiness.

Narrative… 3 - Meta-narrative • Dan McAdams says that narrating about our lives’ big themes - harm,

suffering, compassion, harming others, seeking forgiveness, understanding, empathizing with other people, great acts of kindness, (sort of expressing ourselves, finding who we are), kind of the classic life themes, the existential themes make their way into these narratives we tell about who we are.

• Having a rich sense of narrated self is good for our mental health that protects us from depression.

• Unhelpful Wiring of our Minds • Miswanting to Better Wanting • Sleep • Exercise • Time Affluence • Social Connection • Kindness and Compassion

• Gratitude • Savoring • Spirituality • Resiliency • Mindfulness - Meditation • Narrative • Awe, Wonder, Play

Major Course Learnings

Image: FI by Design

Hedonic Adaptation Curve

Setting Goals and Charting One's Own Path to Happiness

To successfully set appropriate goals and chart a path to really achieving them, we need the following:

• Define Well-being • Goal Setting Techniques • Goal Planning Techniques • Situation Support + Ask for help

WOOP

Strategies – Setting Goals + Charting Path

• What you Wish • Best Outcome • Potential Obstacles • If/then Plan

WOOP… 1

Gabriele OettingenImage: guilford.com

Positive thinking is not enough!

Different for each of us!

Define Well-being

• Remember what you consider well-being at this time in your life. • Goal Specificity (remember SMART goals)?

Goal Setting Techniques… 1

Goal Visualization

• Positive thinking is only part of the story. • How great it would be, how I’ll do it

• You also need to visualize potential obstacles • What can get in the way? How will I avoid the obstacles?

• Use Mental Contrasting technique which is positive thinking followed by visualizing obstacles.

Goal Setting Techniques… 2

“Implementation Intention”

• Have a plan which has an “If-Then” format. • Our mind has an automated component that responds almost robotically

to such rules, once they are firmly in place.

If Little Lingo has great pasta, then I will turn away and pick up a fruit.

Goal Planning Techniques… 1

Stadler & Oettingen (2010). Intervention effects of information and self-regulation on eating fruits and vegetables over two years.

• Design: Women between age 30 and 50 (N = 255), 24-month trial. All participants received the same information intervention; other participants learned in addition, a self-regulation technique combining mental contrasting with implementation intentions.

• Participants in both groups ate more fruits and vegetables (0.47 to 1.00 daily servings) than at baseline during first 4 months but two years later, the information + self-regulation kept higher intake, information only group returned to baseline levels.

Goal Planning Techniques… 2

• Information + self- regulation group were twice as physically active (i.e., nearly 1 hour more per week) as the information only group.

• Difference appeared in the first week and kept up over the 4 months.

• Information only group also slightly increased their physical activity.

• Seek out or create situations that support your goals • Seek out social agents, contacts, friends, family who have similar objectives

(meditation groups, running partners)

• Ask for help!

Situation Support + Ask for Help

Wansink et al. (2016). Slim by design: kitchen counter correlates of obesity

Situation Support… 2

• Fruit on the kitchen counter correlated with lower BMI, but presence of candy, cereal, soft drinks, and dried fruit were associated with weight differences of 9.4 to to 14.4 kg.

• Clear kitchen counter of all food except a fruit bowl!

Click on image to go to the site

How to Use Learnings to Help Others Let’s discuss!

• Free from fear • Supportive of employees’ life outside work • Reduces stress instead of increasing it • Facilitates happiness by “nudge theory”

• Exercise, cafeteria food

• Happify membership

Setting Goals and Charting One's Own Path to Happiness

• Myers (2000). The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

• Gilbert (2007). Stumbling on Happiness. Gilbert (2007) New York; NY: Vintage Books.

• Seligman (2004). Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

• Csikszentmihalyi (2008). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Additional Books

How Happy are You?

1-5 (Happier) Scale

Lottery vs Paraplegic

• Unhelpful Wiring of our Minds • Miswanting to Better Wanting • Sleep • Exercise • Time Affluence • Social Connection • Kindness and Compassion

• Gratitude • Savoring • Spirituality • Resiliency • Mindfulness - Meditation

Major Course Learnings

Practicing Your Top Strength This Week

The Science of Happiness and Well-Being Happiness Level – PERMA Profiler

PERMA Scores Date

Positive emotions

Engagement

Relationships

Meaning

Accomplishment

Health

Negative emotions

Loneliness

Overall Well-Being

The Science of Happiness and Well-Being

1. Students work in teams to develop a YouTube music playlist.

2. Pick music videos that act as triggers to make you happy; calm you down, make you peaceful.

3. We will create this playlist in YouTube and make it available as a takeaway from the course.

Shared Activity Around Music