Science | Live Happy

Live Happy Tips for a Low-Stress Start to the School Year

3 Tips for a Low-Stress Start to the School Year

The last weeks of summer—before the typical school-time scheduling overload begins—are a good time for families to evaluate what went right during the previous school year, and what could have gone more smoothly. Take a minute to think about those details in order to improve your planning for the year to come. For your first step, make a “Family Mission Statement.” Write down what you want to accomplish this school year, both for your family as a whole and for each person individually, and discuss your top goals. Do you want to spend more time eating dinner together? Does your son want to apply and get accepted to college this year? Would your daughter like to join the swim team? Or do the kids need less scheduling and more free time? These goals will help determine how you address some of the problems below. Problem 1: Chaotic first days of school The first few days are the hardest. Here are my tips for getting back on track after those lazy days of summer. Modify your kids’ schedule during the two weeks before school starts. This means an earlier bedtime as well as an earlier wake-up time. Review and revise your summer technology-use rules. Do they still apply now that school is starting? Create a “charging station” in an area away from the kids’ rooms. (Beginning at a designated time each night, kids bring their devices and plug them in at that area—and screen time is over. Plus, the devices are fully charged and ready for use the next day.) Problem 2: Homework I hear a lot from parents about how difficult it is to get their kids to sit down and finish their homework. Here are a few time-tested tips for getting back into the routine. Make sure others in the house know to be respectful and quiet when someone is doing homework. Create a designated home study area. Gather all materials necessary to complete any type of assignment, and keep those materials in the study area (this will keep a child from having to get up and search for something in the middle of working on an assignment, and since brain research tells us that it can take more than 20 minutes to get back on topic after a distraction, we want to avoid one at all costs). Find a container to hold all the supplies in case the study area is in a space commonly used for other things, such as a kitchen table or den. The container can then be quickly and easily moved when needed. Include a timer with the study materials to easily determine 20-minute study periods and five-minute break periods for getting a snack, using the restroom or quick mental or physical breaks. Problem 3: Extracurricular scheduling Ask yourself the following questions as you organize extracurricular activities for the coming year: Last year, did your kids did have ample time for homework, hanging out with family and friends and extracurricular activities? What were the logistical and financial implications for your family? Is the activity an outgrowth of your child’s passion and desire, or is this something you want for your child for other reasons? How many activities can you reasonably take on? What are the pros and cons of each one? I hope these suggestions will provide a framework for a more realistic and positive start to the school year! Take it one day at a time, and remember: even baby steps taken one after the other will result in a change of course. Good luck! Susie Wolbe, Ed.D., is an experienced educator who writes frequently about mindfulness and positive education. Her most recent book is The Empowered Teacher: Proven Tips for Classroom Success.

Education

Does Grit Outweigh Talent?

You may remember this experience from your time at school: The principal stood in the auditorium and asked all the kids on the honor roll to stand up and come to the stage, while the rest of the students stayed seated and were instructed to clap. Awards ceremonies like these are intended not only to celebrate the successful students but also to inspire and motivate the other kids to strive for the honor next time around. But Angela Duckworth, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, believes that these well-intentioned scenes actually serve to cement kids’ place in school as either part of the “smart” or “not so smart” groups. “Kids really buy into the idea that they are innately capable or not,” she says. Yet Angela’s research has shown that academic achievement doesn’t come down to the IQ one is born with. What makes the difference is grit—hard work, practice and unyielding determination. In her new book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Angela presents her decade’s worth of research proving that grit trumps talent when it comes to success and satisfaction, whether you’re a freshman trying to make it through the grueling initiation at West Point, an athlete going for gold or a salesperson trying to make your numbers. Grit became an instant New York Times best-seller and sparked a “grit revolution” with readers professing to work toward their goals with renewed vigor and dedication. But the ultimate audience for Angela’s message, she hopes, is kids. As a former teacher, Angela’s personal mission and the ultimate goal of her lab work at the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center is to “use psychological science to help kids thrive.” Grit, Angela has found, is a key component in helping students reach their full potential. But how do you teach grit? After all, we all probably heard the platitudes “Practice makes perfect” and “Don’t give up!” thousands of times when we were growing up—not one of which made us study harder, sit at the piano longer or play baseball better. Angela spoke with Live Happy about meaningful ways to encourage children to work hard, love learning and flourish. Model possibilities “It’s not about the slogans you put on posters,” Angela says. And it’s not about drilling kids—Tiger-Parent–style—on their multiplication tables or periodic elements. “I’ve been in the position as a teacher where a kid keeps getting a problem wrong and it’s frustrating,” she says. “But when you let your exasperation show through your body language, facial expression and behavior, it sends a strong message that you’ve given up on the student. Kids pick up on that. Instead of thinking ‘This kid just can’t learn it’ when he or she struggles, we should ask ourselves, ‘What’s another way to teach this? What could I do differently?’ ” Adults should be as resilient in our teaching as we want our kids to be in their learning, she believes. “The best piece of advice I can give parents and teachers is to model a genuine sense of possibility for your kids.” Encourage self comparisons When you divide kids up in ways that make some feel like they are smart and others feel like they are not, Angela says, no one is motivated to do better. “I’d rather schools send the message to students that they are a team that is all learning things together, and that all kids learn at different rates. Students should only compare themselves to what they’ve done in the past. I think that’s the most meaningful way to learn and improve.” Angela’s suggestion for everyone, especially kids, is to compare yourself to your “yesterday self” and improve upon it. Is your kid reading more sophisticated books than she was two months ago? That is worthy of applause. Foster a passion Central to Angela’s conception of grit is following your passion. After all, it’s tough to stay motivated if you don’t ultimately love and enjoy what you’re doing. She’s a proponent of picking one or two top-level, passion-aligned goals and organizing the rest of your life around them. But with kids, the calculus is different. “Interests need to be discovered, and it’s a messy and inefficient and fun process. Kids need to be on the track team before they can realize they don’t like the track team,” she says. The hobbies don’t have to be formalized, either. Your child may enjoy being in a dance troupe, for example, but baking at home is just as much an “activity.” In later elementary and middle school, adolescents can begin to understand what it means to intensify an interest. “It’s such a wonderful and exciting thing when a kid gets into something.” So gently encourage your children or students to see what it would be like to delve deeper into things, Angela advises. “Novelty is so enticing, particularly for youth, so you have to find novelty within the same interest.” If your son loves cooking, spend lots of time whipping up omelets, of course, but sign him up for a nutrition class, too. If your daughter enjoys chess, introduce her to tournaments as well as other strategy games like backgammon or Dungeons & Dragons. Fall down, stand up Setbacks are a part of every learning curve, and your kids look to you to learn how to handle failure. So when you run more slowly than you had hoped in the 5K or when you don’t land the job or client you wanted, talk through the problem out loud. Explain what led to the disappointment—you didn’t get in enough practice runs, say, or you didn’t research the company deeply enough—and what you can do better next time. And don’t give up! Sign up for another race, and go after another client. By showing that losing can mean learning, your child won’t want to quit baseball the first time he strikes out. “A big part of grit is being optimistic and overcoming frustration,” Angela explains. Losing is a great opportunity to show the difference that practice can make, too. “Young kids shouldn’t spend all their time in serious- or goal-minded pursuits, but there can still be room for tiny amounts of practice in their days that continue to grow as they get older,” Angela says. Try it for two years By the time kids reach high school, Angela believes they should settle into a few favorite extracurricular activities. Not that they can’t or shouldn’t keep trying new things, but teenagers and beyond would do well to follow Angela’s two-year-rule: “Stick to one activity for at least two years. When you come back for another season of, say, field hockey or debate, you’ve grown. You learn different lessons from it and you bring different and valuable perspectives to it.” That doesn’t happen when you hop around from the Spanish Club one year to the cheerleading squad the next and guitar lessons another. Angela’s team has found that students who demonstrate progression—“they become a section editor and then editor-in-chief of the school paper over the course of high school,” Angela gives as an example—are more successful in college. And way, way beyond. The grit that builds confidence in kids and enables collegiate success can lead to a lifetime of joy. When any of us put time and effort toward pursuing a passion, we are richly rewarded with a strong sense of self-worth and a belief in ourselves and life’s possibilities…or in other words, happiness. What more could we want for our kids? Hear Angela speak about the importance of positive education in our podcast, here. To read more about Grit, see our book summary here. Patty Onderko is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in SUCCESS magazine and elsewhere.

Positive Psychology

Face Down Any Challenge With This Advice

On one of our first dates, we sat across the table from each other at a sushi restaurant in Chicago and shared stories of growing up in the midst of financial challenges. Shawn’s parents were educators in Waco, Texas, who struggled with credit card debts and as a result did not have enough money to pay for him to go to college. Michelle’s parents made it big with a computer consulting practice in Washington, D.C., before the recession caused them to lose their home. We are taught not to talk about such things. But if we don’t discuss our challenges, when we find ourselves in troubling times, we feel lost and lonely and cut off from help. These moments could be a source of bonding, healing and learning instead. Those childhood financial difficulties are the very reason we taught ourselves to be fiscally responsible and to save even when things are going well. We are grateful for those tough times as they made us who we are today. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" Sometimes the stressful events that we run from are the same ones that cause us to develop the best and strongest parts of ourselves. In a study we conducted at five companies, including UBS, we found that approximately 90 percent of events that had the biggest positive impacts on people were also high-stress situations. In this study, research participants were asked to list five pivot points in their lives that changed them and made them who they are today. On average, 80 percent of those points were seemingly negative, including losing a job, failing on a project at work or getting dumped by an ex. This reminds us that not only can stressful events be beneficial, but also that we should rethink our knee-jerk responses of trying to avoid them in the first place. We need to stop running from discomfort. Too often we are afraid of what can happen if we take a leap or get out of our comfort zones. We stay stuck in dead-end jobs and toxic relationships. We figure the familiar everyday unhappiness is better than the possible calamitous result if we were to make a change. We run from the risk of unhappiness, and as a result we stay in a less desirable present. Face your challenges We have a Marine friend who takes pride in the fact that Marines run toward conflict while others flee. What we flee from we begin to fear more. Facing our own challenges and developing an empowered mindset can help us weather the storm better than a fear-based one. Just like a workout can be uncomfortable or even painful, the mental and physical benefits often make it worth it. If we don’t show up to the gym in the first place because we fear those negative feelings, we will never know what we are capable of. If we show up ready to tackle the workout, that makes it all go more smoothly. What are you fleeing from? If you’re facing something that is either making you unhappy now or threatening to do so, we encourage you to think through the following takeaways based on our research on people who run toward unhappiness and prevail. 1. Be conscious of the narrative: Your brain quickly constructs a story around events, and some of those narratives are helpful while others are not. Ask yourself what narrative you’ve derived from this unhappy experience. (Ideally you are looking for something that will serve you in the retelling and make you a better person.) Helpful stories include facts about what you’ve learned from the experience and how you’ve grown as a result. Identifying ways in which you actually benefited from the experience can help you move forward. 2. Identify with strength: You are probably a strong person or you would not have made it this far. At this point life has probably dealt you a handful of hard circumstances. List them and reflect on the strength you accessed (which you might not have been aware of at the time) to overcome them. By reminding your brain how strong you are, you bolster that positive resource, which you can then tap into to help you in the face of your current challenge. 3. Find support: We say this nearly every day: Social support is the greatest predictor of long-term happiness. To overcome stressful events, a few supportive people in your life can make all the difference. Even though your first instinct might be to hole up and go it alone, resist that urge. Reach out to trusted friends or family, or find a community of supportive people like a church group or AA. Since we all have our pivotal stories to share, knowing that you’re not alone as you go through a difficult time can make all the difference. For us, just learning that we both experienced financial troubles in childhood was incredibly bonding. That became yet one more benefit to having gone through those experiences in the first place—and the start of a beautiful relationship! SHAWN ACHOR is best-selling author of the The Happiness Advantage and Before Happiness. Shawn’s TED Talk is one of the most popular ever, with over 5 million views, and his PBS program has been seen by millions. Learn more about Shawn at Goodthinkinc.com. MICHELLE GIELAN is an expert on the science of positive communication and how to use it to fuel success and the author of Broadcasting Happiness. Formerly a national news anchor for CBS News, Michelle holds a masters of applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Learn more at Goodthinkinc.com.

Positive Psychology

The Power of Grit

This week we welcomed positive psychology and well-being experts to Dallas for The Festival of Positive Education. Live Happy science editor Paula Felps spoke with Angela Duckworth, the leading authority on grit. To listen to more of this interview as well as others, stay tuned to the Live Happy Now podcast.

Smiling woman looking up from a laptop computer.

Positive Psychology

12 Top Positive Psychology Courses You Can Take Online

What brings a sense of purpose to our lives? Why is gratitude such an important factor in well-being? How can I be happier and bring a sense of authentic joy to those around me? Positive psychology is a fascinating field, but most of us aren’t able to set aside the time and money necessary to study for a master's or Ph.D. in the subject. Luckily technology has made it easier than ever to learn about the science of happiness since the days when Tal Ben-Shahar taught one of the first courses on the subject—and one of the most popular ever—at Harvard University, along with Shawn Achor. Information about positive psychology and well-being has now become much more widely available. Below are some of the best courses and certificate programs on positive psychology that you can access without having to leave the comfort of your own desk. 1. UPenn Positive Psychology Center Martin Seligman and the University of Pennsylvania's acclaimed Positive Psychology Center have coordinated with Coursera to create a five-course online certificate program called Foundations of Positive Psychology. The five courses offer an overview of the field, with insights into such topics as grit and character. They will be taught by regular UPenn MAPP (Masters in Applied Positive Psychology) professors including Angela Duckworth, Ph.D., and James Pawelski, Ph.D. For more information, click here. 2. Barbara Fredrickson Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., a psychology professor at North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Director of the PEP (Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology) Lab, and one of the founders of positive psychology, is an expert in the area of love and connection. You can get a taste of her research from her books, Positivity and Love 2.0, and articles, and now by taking her six-week MOOC (massive open online course) “Positive Psychology” on Coursera. The course includes discussion of concepts such as loving kindness and “positivity resonance,” as well as “practical applications of this science that you can put to use immediately to help you live a full and meaningful life.” For more information, click here. 3. Greater Good Science Center The Greater Good Science Center is a nonprofit research institute that provides excellent information and cutting-edge research on the psychology of well-being through its website, newsletter and books. They also offer a free online course called “The Science of Happiness” taught by University of California, Berkeley’s psychology professor Dacher Keltner, Ph.D., and Emiliana Simon-Thomas, Ph.D., the center’s science director. These two experts lead students through the fundamentals of positive psychology, such as why social ties are so important to well-being, the benefits of daily happiness practices and the new science of awe. You must register for the course, and it begins on a specific date (September 6, 2016), but you can take it at your leisure—as long as you finish within six months. The course (also a MOOC), taught on the EdX platform, is open to everyone, but for undergraduates, there is a midterm, final exam and class credits. Everyone else gets quizzes, polls and “emotional check-ins.” For more information, click here. 4. The Flourishing Center The Flourishing Center, founded by Emiliya Zhivotovskaya, offers a certificate in applied positive psychology (CAPP) program in locations all over the United States and Canada with a focus on flourishing, resilience, coaching and mentoring. Faculty include UPenn MAPP graduates, published authors and Live Happy writers such as Louisa Jewell, Louis Alloro and Carin Rockind. The Center has recently added an online option that covers the same curriculum as the in-person course and that has students connecting live online twice a week for 36 weeks. The online course is geared toward international students who don't have access to the in-person courses; however, exceptions are made. An application and interview are required for acceptance. For more information, click here. 5. The Big Know The Big Know, which partners with Life Reimagined—an AARP company, is a fantastic resource for free and low-cost online courses taught by some of the most respected experts in the mindfulness and happiness realms (many of whom have been featured in Live Happy). You can study “Brain Power: How to Improve Brain Health” with Wendy Suzuki, Ph.D., “Mindfulness and Meditation” with Richard Davidson, Ph.D., “How to Bring More Joy to Your Life” with Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., and the list goes on. Other instructors include Blue Zones' founder Dan Buettner and stress expert Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. It is truly a gold mine of quick and easy access to expert teachings on happiness—done through video—available at your fingertips. For more information, click here. 6. Profit from the Positive If you are a business owner, coach or executive who would like to bring the power of positive psychology into your workplace, this is a great place to start. Margaret Greenberg and Senia Maymin, Ph.D., co-authors of the book Profit from the Positive (and Live Happy columnists), have put together a 5-week online certificate program of the same name that teaches leaders and executive coaches how to harness the science of happiness in order to increase team productivity, decrease turnover, put employees’ strengths to work at the office and increase the bottom line. The class unfolds over the course of ten 90-minute live video sessions with Margaret and Senia and includes all editable slides and worksheets with no licensing fee and membership in a growing international community of positive psychology practitioners. Live Happy readers can receive a 20% discount off of registration using the promo code: LiveHappyNow. For more information, click here. 7. Pursuit of Happiness Pursuit of Happiness is a nonprofit organization led by prominent psychologists and educators such as Paul Desan, Ph.D., director of psychiatric services at Yale New Haven Hospital, and Todd Kashdan, Ph.D., professor at George Mason University and co-author of The Upside of Your Dark Side. They promote positive psychology by disseminating information and offering an online certificate course called “The Psychology of Happiness,” which is taught by Desan and other experts, including Dan Tomasulo, Ph.D., who created the positive psychology curriculum at Columbia University Teacher’s College. The course, which comprises two live webinars, emphasizes practical implementation of the latest scientific findings in the happiness realm. For more information, click here. 8. Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan Happiness expert, best-selling author and Live Happy columnist Shawn Achor has teamed up with Oprah Winfrey to create two 21-day courses on happiness. The first is called “21 Days to a Happier Life,” and the second is “21 Days to Inspire Happiness Around You.” The first class includes a happiness assessment, a discussion of daily happiness habits and creating a personal happiness formula. In the second class, students expand their happiness reach by learning about acts of kindness, increasing social bonds, inspiring positive change in others and sharing that happiness with the wider world. Michelle Gielan, Shawn’s wife, business partner at GoodThink Inc. and the author of Broadcasting Happiness, teaches a quick and inexpensive online course to help you improve positive communication and leadership called “Broadcasting Happiness.” For more information, click here. 9. Harvard University Extension Courses in the extension school are generally not taught by Harvard professors. They are, however interesting online courses that cost a whole lot less than enrolling at Harvard. The course catalog changes, but as of 2016, you could sign up to take “The Science and Application of Positive Psychology,” taught by Stephanie Peabody, Psy.D., Executive Director of the International Mind, Body, Health and Education Initiative. This is a general introduction to the concept of positive psychology, including "its implications for physical health and well-being." For more information, click here. 10. Via Institute on Character The nonprofit Via Institute on Character was created 15 years ago under the guidance of clinical psychologist Neal Mayerson, Ph.D., and positive psychology founding father Martin Seligman, Ph.D., in order to bring the benefits of “strengths theory” to as wide an audience as possible. Known primarily for its incredibly useful strengths survey, the institute also offers online courses, webinars and personalized coaching on such topics as “Character Strengths at Work,” “Positive Relationships and Character Strengths” and “Creating a Strengths-Based Life.” Courses are taught by Ryan Niemiec, Ph.D., education director at VIA and a licensed psychologist, and Donna Mayerson, Ph.D., lead consultant for applied practice at VIA and a licensed psychologist. For more information, click here. 11. Wholebeing Institute Run by happiness scholar and expert Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph.D., the Wholebeing Institute is devoted to educating the public about positive psychology, mindfulness, spirituality and the happiness movement. Taking a page from Martin Seligman's PERMA model for well-being, Tal has developed the acronym SPIRE to describe the mission of the Wholebeing Institute: Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Relational and Emotional. The Institute offers a certificate program at two-day in-person retreats with a changing roster of locations, as well as a variety of courses that you can access online. Self-directed courses are taught over five weeks and include video lectures from Tal. Subjects range from “Introduction to Positive Psychology” to “Mind-Body Connection,” “Relationships” and “Positive Psychology in Coaching.” For more information, click here. 12. University of Missouri Some universities—such as the University of Pennsylvania in particular—are well-known for their masters programs in positive psychology. The University of Missouri, however, offers a certificate in pos. psych of 15 class credits that is done completely online. The program entails a core course plus several electives. It is important to point out that this is a certificate, not a terminal or “higher” degree. It may be a good choice for someone who would like to further an existing career or perhaps become a life coach. For more information, click here. Emily Wise Miller is the web editor at Livehappy.com.

Stop ruminating and find solutions instead

Positive Psychology

Move Beyond the Problem

Whenever anything went wrong in her life, our dear friend Samantha became a broken record, stuck playing the same refrain over and over. If a colleague criticized her work, she’d call five of her friends to tell each of them the story in detail. If someone cut her off in traffic, she’d blast it out on social media and further fuel the fire by replying to all comments. If her husband put his dirty gym bag on the clean kitchen table, that would be her top story for days. Samantha was stuck focusing on the problem, with no thought to the solution. Our new research sheds light on just how toxic behavior like this is for both the problem-focused person like Samantha as well as the people listening to her. More importantly, it reveals exactly how we can all approach problems in a way that makes everyone feel better faster and that also yields better solutions. For parents, business leaders and teachers, there are important implications to this research. The negativity spiral Focusing on a problem has value, but getting trapped there leaves us stressed and decreases our ability to fix it. In a study we just completed with Arianna Huffington and researcher Brent Furl, we found that when people are merely exposed to problems and don’t spend any time thinking about solutions, their brains get stuck in negative places. However, pairing a problem with a discussion of a solution instantly makes us feel better. More importantly, though, if we focus on the right kind of solution, it fuels creative problem solving and overall performance. A study in contrasts In this study involving nearly 250 research participants, we tested each person’s mood and creative problem solving ability by having them read a randomly assigned article and then tested them again. There were four possible articles to read: Two pieces presented a problem in our world (either the mass shooting crisis or food bank shortages), while the other two articles discussed these same problems but then quickly moved on to solutions. The people presented with a solution-focused article reported feeling much less negative than the people who only read about the problem (specifically, 23 percent less uptight). This means individuals could be aware of a negative event but be buffered from its negative effects if they are also made aware that something can be done about the problem. Solutions-based approach The performance boost occurred when participants were presented with solutions they could be a part of. Focusing on personally actionable solutions increased creative problem solving on future unrelated tasks by 20 percent. In the solution-focused article about food bank shortages, we featured five ways you could help food banks, such as by donating or fundraising. The solution-focused article on the mass shooting crisis, by contrast, discussed measures a police department had taken to keep its city safe—and it did not create the same jump in performance. Personal solutions show our brain a path forward and give us a sense of empowerment. For anyone in a leadership role, including parents guiding their children through the pitfalls of growing up, here are three ways to apply this research to fuel success in others: 1. Ask a question Questions can sometimes be the simplest, least threatening way to move a conversation about a problem forward. For instance, if your son is worried about getting another C in math, you could ask him, “If you could do one thing to raise your grade, what would it be?” 2. Pivot the topic If a friend is having issues finding a solution to one problem, talk about ways he or she could solve another one. Seeing success in that domain can help fuel your friend’s success with the original issue, as we saw with the people who read the food shortages article with personally actionable solutions. 3. Be a positive role model The people around a leader often adopt his or her pattern of behavior. When discussing a problem in your own life, don’t just vent. Come up with solutions or invite other people to brainstorm with you. By consciously switching your focus to solutions when talking to others, you become a positive influence on them. In an amazing turn of events, our friend Samantha recently mentioned to us she was tired of having so many problems in her life, and she wanted to start taking action to fix them. (We of course told her that if she wants someone to brainstorm solutions with to call us anytime!) The result? Her Facebook feed is more positive, she gets along better with her husband and she has more time to focus on things that make her happy. It’s just more proof that a small shift in your attention can create an incredible ripple of positive change in your life. SHAWN ACHOR is best-selling author of the The Happiness Advantage and Before Happiness. Shawn’s TED Talk is one of the most popular ever, with over 5 million views, and his PBS program has been seen by millions. Learn more about Shawn at goodthinkinc.com. MICHELLE GIELAN is an expert on the science of positive communication and how to use it to fuel success and the author of Broadcasting Happiness. Formerly a national news anchor for CBS News, Michelle holds a masters of applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Learn more at goodthinkinc.com.

Positive Psychology

5 Ways to Flourish

While the specifics of what constitutes flourishing may vary by the individual, the basic foundation is the same. Building a life with more PERMA (positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement) is crucial. Here are the five pillars of PERMA: 1. Positive emotions Because of our natural negativity bias, it’s almost impossible to avoid negative emotions. However, offsetting those with positive interactions can have a powerful effect. John Gottman, Ph.D., suggests seeking out five positive emotions for each negative encounter. This can include practicing gratitude or self-compassion, doing something you love or even just making a point of being mindful of the positive emotion you’re feeling. Read more: 8 Easy Practices to Enhance Gratitude 2. Engagement Engagement can also be referred to as “flow,” that state where you are, in the words of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ph.D., “completely involved in an activity for its own sake.” Seek out things you enjoy and can do well and then make it a point to participate in those things regularly. Read more: The Flow in All of Us 3. Relationships There’s plenty of research pointing to the value of relationships in our happiness and well-being. Practice building positive relationships both at work and at home by creating more positive interaction and weeding out the relationships that are harmful to your emotional health. Read more: 7 Keys to a Happy Relationship 4. Meaning Meaning gives us a sense of belonging and connects us to our higher purpose. Simple ways to develop more meaning include participating in a spiritual practice that resonates with you, volunteering for a cause or charity you believe in and making positive changes, however small, in your little corner of the world. Read more: 5 Ways to Get in Touch With Your Higher Calling 5. Achievement An important aspect of flourishing, according to Martin Seligman, Ph.D., is achievement for achievement’s sake, not for the sake of a waiting reward. Work toward an accomplishment in which the reward is merely the accomplishment itself, and you may be surprised to see how it enhances your sense of well-being. Read more: 90 Days to Breakthrough Success Paula Felps is the science editor at Live Happy magazine.

Learning to flourish can help you go beyond happy

science

Go Beyond Happiness

When psychologist Corey Keyes, Ph.D., used the term “flourishing” in 2002, he assigned a single word to describe a mental state characterized by positive feelings and positive functioning. Since then, researchers, educators, employers and even governments have looked at the many aspects of flourishing, the role it plays in our overall happiness and, perhaps most importantly, how we can create and sustain a life that promotes it. Their discoveries have provided overwhelming evidence of how flourishing leads to positive, long-term change. In the workplace, for example, studies in many different countries—including France, New Zealand, The Netherlands and South Africa—have shown that employees who flourish are more creative and productive, have greater engagement with co-workers and are less likely to miss work or change jobs. In college, flourishing students have higher grades, lower incidences of depression and procrastination, are more likely to stay in school and, overall, exhibit greater self-control. And, in day-to-day living, adults who score high in the area of flourishing enjoy the highest level of resilience and intimacy and are at lowest risk for cardiovascular disease and chronic physical conditions. Corey, the Winship Distinguished Research Professor at Emory University and Founding Fellow of the Center for Compassion, Integrity and Secular Ethics, defines flourishing as “feeling good about a life in which one belongs to community, is contributing things of value to the world, is accepting of others.” These people have “a purpose to life, can manage their daily life and can make sense of what is going on in their world.” What flourishing looks like In short, it is the state of feeling good and functioning well—regardless of what challenges we may face in our personal and professional lives. It’s something that Renie Steves had the chance to practice when she slipped and fell down the stairs in November 2014, breaking two vertebrae in her neck. When the 78-year-old woman’s doctor gave her a grim prognosis, she got a different doctor. “I asked for one with a sense of humor,” says Renie, who lives in Fort Worth, Texas. She knew that her attitude and optimism were as important to her recovery as medical care, and when she returned home from the hospital and rehabilitation a month later, she says doctors “were still trying to figure out how I was alive.” Wearing a brace that kept her head and neck still, Renie resumed her active life as soon as possible. She was back in the gym five days after returning home, and when the holiday party season kicked in, she decorated her brace with seasonal touches such as holiday ornaments and Christmas lights. “I knew that a lot of the final result depended on me,” she says. “I survived and, yes, my life has changed because of it, but I’m still me.” Not just surviving, but thriving Today, she has an even greater appreciation for her friends and family and feels more engaged and inspired than ever before. “In general, the simple word for it is ‘thriving,’ ” says Ryan Niemiec, Psy.D., education director for the VIA Institute on Character. “It’s when we’re functioning at our best—physically, socially, psychologically. We’re on top of our game in all of those areas.” He’s quick to point out, however, that this doesn’t mean that our lives are entirely free from stress or conflict. Some, like Renie, may find their greatest joy during times that are also physically or emotionally challenging. Less than a year before her accident, Renie had gone through a divorce after 55 years of marriage. She was enjoying her new life and immersing herself in travel, writing and some extensive home design projects. “The divorce was a very positive thing for me,” Renie says. “I was learning how to express myself and be who I am again. So I wasn’t going to let my accident change that. I wanted to make this a happy, healthy, healing journey.” Essentials of flourishing Unlike happiness, which can mean different things to different people—and can present itself in many ways—flourishing is typically measured in terms of mental health. Corey calls flourishers the “completely mentally healthy.” In his book Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being, Martin Seligman, Ph.D., delves into the essential building blocks of a positive life. He establishes flourishing as the end goal of positive psychology, and the groundbreaking book introduced his well-being theory, a model that has five components, commonly known as PERMA. The elements of PERMA, Martin points out, contribute to well-being and are pursued for their own sake, not as the means to achieving one of the other elements. “Each one is related, but they also are independently measurable,” explains Ryan, adding that the key ingredient to achieving those five elements is the use of character strengths. Character strengths, as classified by the VIA Institute on Character, are 24 positive components that, when analyzed, can help us identify which attributes come to us most naturally. Learning to employ those strengths can help us improve certain skill sets, become more engaged in our relationships and feel more satisfied overall. “[Martin] squarely says that character strengths are the pathways to PERMA. It’s one thing to know or to become aware of your strengths, but to be actually trying to consciously use those strengths, that’s the level that is associated with PERMA,” Ryan says. In fact, a study co-authored by New Zealand researcher Lucy C. Hone published in the September 2015 Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine found that workers who regularly used their character strengths were 18 times more likely to flourish than workers who did not. “There are still benefits just with awareness of your strengths,” Ryan says, “but when you start thinking of how you can use them each day, you’re going to see more results.” Flourishing, languishing and what lies between In Flourish, Martin explains that positive mental health is not merely the absence of mental illness, and that “the absence of sadness, anxiety and anger do not guarantee happiness.” In fact, mental health exists on a continuum, much like physical health. At the far end of the scale are those who are languishing. But between those two end points are the moderately mentally healthy, those who are free from serious mental illness and depression but fall somewhere in the middle. It is there where the most opportunity exists for people to learn to flourish. “Studies show that increases in the level of positive mental health reduce the risk of developing mental disorders like depression,” Corey says. “We could prevent a lot of depression if we created more conditions for Americans to flourish. We cannot ‘treat’ our way out of the mental illness epidemic, we must promote and protect what makes life worth living.” When people are flourishing, they’re also improving the world around them. Lucy’s study found that individuals who flourish also improve the community and workplace around them. And research by the team of Jane E. Dutton, Ph.D., Laura Morgan Roberts, Ph.D., and Jeff Bednar, Ph.D., that was published in the book Applied Positive Psychology: Improving Everyday Life, Health, Schools, Work, and Society reported that helping others and giving to a cause greater than themselves promoted flourishing. Simple steps to flourishing Just as some individuals are genetically predisposed to be happy, some may flourish more easily than others. A 2015 study led by Marijke Schotanus-Dijkstra, a Ph.D. candidate in positive psychology at the University of Twente in The Netherlands, found that those who were flourishing were more conscientious and extroverted than non-flourishers. In fact, the research team found a strong connection between conscientiousness and flourishing, leading them to conclude, “conscientiousness might have a stronger relationship with flourishing than previously thought.” They concluded that conscientious individuals tend to set challenging goals for themselves and have the discipline needed to achieve those goals, which coincides with the need for engagement, achievement and other aspects of flourishing. They also confirmed what previous studies have found: Social support plays an important role in one’s overall well-being. That’s something Renie says has been key in her healing process, and she practices it daily. She attributes at least 50 percent of her recovery to positivity shared with good friends and to staying active socially and physically. “The support system I found was so phenomenal,” she says. “We made it a festive thing. People enjoyed being around me, and I was able to enjoy myself. There’s no way someone could be unhappy when you’re surrounded by that much love.” Paula Felps is the science editor for Live Happy magazine.

science

Should We Aim To Be Perfectly Happy?

If you were to score yourself on a scale of zero to 10, how happy were you yesterday? And how happy are you today with your life? Over the last decade, researchers, workplaces and governments have begun repeatedly measuring our levels of happiness. Why? As we have documented in Live Happy over the past two-and-a-half years, a growing body of research suggests happy people are more successful in marriages, friendships, earning money, work performance and physical health. So surely the higher our happiness scores, the more success we’ll all have. Right? Well perhaps. A more nuanced look at happiness “In our achievement-oriented culture, we often expect to see scores go up,” explains Dr. Peggy Kern from The University of Melbourne, and one of the world’s leading researchers on well-being and its impact. “But I think being 10 out of 10 on a happiness or well-being measure is probably maladaptive. It’s good to have a high level of happiness and to maintain that over time, but it’s also important to be aware that we can have too much of a good thing. And depending on what’s going on in your life, being happy is not always appropriate” For example, researchers have found that while many of us may believe reducing our level of stress is key to improving our happiness, the Gallup World Happiness Report has found that countries with high stress also score high on happiness and well-being. Despite the common perception, stress is not necessarily a bad thing. Happy lives are not stress-free, nor does a stress-free life guarantee happiness. The right kind of stress Health psychologist Kelly McGonigal in her best-selling book The Upside of Stress explains: “The Gallup Poll found that raising a child under 18 significantly increases the chance that you will experience a great deal of stress every day—and that you will smile and laugh a lot each day. Entrepreneurs who say that they experienced a great deal of stress yesterday are also more likely to say that they learned something interesting that day. Rather than being a sign that something is wrong with your life, feeling stressed can be a barometer for how engaged you are in activities and relationships that are personally meaningful.” As psychologists Richard Ryan, Veronika Hutaand Edward Deci write in a chapter of The Exploration of Happiness, “The more directly one aims to maximize pleasure and avoid pain, the more likely one is to produce instead a life bereft of depth, meaning and community.” The many facets of happiness “Happiness comprises multiple elements, such as positive emotions, engagement in life, relationships, a sense of meaning and accomplishment and good physical health,” explains Peggy. “By regularly measuring how we are doing in different areas, we can start to understand what happiness means to us personally, and how we’re impacted by the actions we choose to take and our life experiences.” “Again the goal is not a perfect score in every domain,” she says. “Instead, it’s about noticing when you are living in a way that is most adaptive for you based on what you value, the situations you find yourself in, the resources you have to draw upon and the results you want to achieve. Then take steps to maintain this consistently, or make adjusts as needed.” How can you broaden your measures of happiness? Here are six evidence-based steps: Track your well-being Take the free PERMAH Workplace Wellbeing Survey developed by Peggy to see how you’re doing, set small goals for improvement and access a database of more than 200 different evidence-based practices to improve your happiness at work. Balance your emotions Researchers have found that both positive and negative emotions have their place when it comes to flourishing. While positive emotions can boost our energy, self-confidence and creativity, negative emotions can trigger our awareness that something important to us is not right. They can be a catalyst for change. Happiness is about having the psychological flexibility to understand when heartfelt positive emotions serve us best, and when we need to practice being comfortably uncomfortable with stress and anxiety. You can track your emotions and reflect on their impact using the free two-minute test at www.positivityratio.com. Develop your strengths Researchers have found using our strengths—those things we’re good at and enjoy doing—can help us feel more confident, engaged and energized about our work. They also caution that focusing only on our strengths can give us a false sense of competence, result in over-used strengths and ignores the power of our weaknesses. Happiness requires being able to find the right strength, in the right amount and for the right outcomes, and being able to tackle our weaknesses head-on when they are important. You can start by discovering your strengths using the free 10-minute survey at www.viacharacter.org. Create authentic connections Considerable scientific evidence suggests other people matter. Practicing gratitude not only improves our relationships, but has also been found to reduce stress and negative emotions, and increase our levels of energy and resilience. Before you leave work each day, take the time to genuinely thank one person for how they made your day a little better. Be specific about what you appreciated and why. Find a healthy sense of meaning Adam Grant, Ph.D., expert in altruism and professor at the Wharton Business School of Business, notes the single strongest predictor of having a sense of meaning and purpose is the belief that what we do has a positive impact on others. Think about how what you do each day can help others—even if it’s just the person sitting next to you. Then take time each week to savor the difference you make. Be aware, however, that when our passion becomes obsession (and you hear yourself saying “I have to” instead of “I want to”), this can undermine happiness in the long term. So try to aim for balance, not obsession. Nurture hope While 89 percent of us believe tomorrow will be better than today, only 50 percent of us believe we can make it so. Researchers suggest this belief is the difference between wishing and hoping. When we hope, we set clear “want-to” goals, pathways to reach them, and we find ways to maintain our willpower. As a result, hope can add about an hour a day in terms of productivity, and it helps to improve our health and well-being. You can map your hopes at work by following these simple steps. So this year on the International Day of Happiness, what steps can you take to improve your happiness? Michelle McQuaid is a best-selling author and coach with a Masters in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Her work has been featured in Forbes, The Harvard Business Review, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal and many other outlets.

Education

How the Liberal Arts Lost Its Happiness Groove

“The liberal arts are a luxury we just can’t afford.” You’ve probably heard some variation of that line before. I hear it all the time—from politicians, pundits, business leaders, the parents of my students, and (occasionally) from students themselves. With belt tightening and concerns about resources and employability in the new global economy, the sentiment is certainly understandable. But it leaves out something central about the liberal arts. At their core, they are about living the good life—a flourishing and happy life in the fullest sense of the words. Liberal arts are about what it means to be a human Let me explain. What we call the “liberal arts”—broadly speaking, subjects such as history, literature, foreign languages, philosophy, natural philosophy (science), and mathematics—derive from the classical artes liberales, those subjects that the Greeks and Romans believed were essential to making human beings fit for dignity and freedom (the Latin word liber means free). They frequently overlapped with the studia humanitates—what we call the “humanities”—essentially the study of what it means to be a human being. Great thinkers pondered happiness throughout history This was the foundational question of philosophy, whose central aim from Socrates forward was the investigation of happiness or human flourishing. It remained the question of philosophy for many centuries to come. Aristotle asked it. So did the Stoics and the Epicureans. In late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, St. Augustine, Boethius, and St. Thomas Aquinas wrestled with the question, as did Erasmus and Thomas Moore, among many others, in the Renaissance. In the 18th century, the great philosophers of the Enlightenment tended to agree with Voltaire, who declared that the “the great and only concern is to be happy.” And leading lights such John Stuart Mill continued to grapple with that concern well into the 19th century. The 20th Century decides: Happiness isn't cool But then something happened. In the 20th century, philosophers for the most part turned their back on the good life. They analyzed language; they thought about nothingness; they worried about alienation and nihilism. And centuries of thought about living well were largely dismissed, forgotten or ignored. A similar forgetting occurred in the study of literature, which had existed since its inception to provide pleasure to readers and enhance life with insights about the human condition. But in the 20th century, in the shadow of the Holocaust and two world wars, the study of literature was transformed into a negative affair. In such a climate, the positive seemed glib. Convinced that pain alone was profound and positive emotion somehow superficial and trite, academics across the world took the joy out of the novel, play, and poem, forgetting in the process to stress the themes that were always there between the pages: optimism and resilience, hope and forgiveness, gratitude and altruism, kindness, laughter, wonder and just plain fun. The dismal science It would be easy to trace this negative turn in other disciplines in the liberal arts and the humanities. Economics, which emerged in the 18th century to maximize the greatest happiness for the greatest number, became in the hands of its descendants the “dismal science,” devoted to maximizing profits. Politics, too, got caught up in the pursuit of power at the expense of the pursuit of happiness. Even the venerable discipline of history, whose very first document—The History of Herodotus—begins with an inquiry about the happiest man in the world, was transformed into a long chronicle of cruelty, oppression, injustice and not much else. “There is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism,” the influential critic Walter Benjamin declared. Not much room for happiness in that. A new look at the positive humanities Fortunately, with the dawn of the 21st century, things have begun to change, with students of the liberal arts and humanities today actively reclaiming their historic mission to examine and cultivate the good life. Similar to the shift in psychology in recent years toward a positive psychology that seeks to understand well-being and not simply disease, humanists are moving toward a “positive humanities,” which would draw out and focus on those aspects of the liberal arts that are of benefit to human flourishing and provide insight and guidance about how to live. Philosophers have begun to re-engage with the question of happiness and well-being. Students of literature are studying the great novels and poems of the world through the lens of happiness, drawing out themes that reckon not only with tragedy but with triumph and joy. For some time now, leading scholars in economics and politics have been pursuing gross national happiness in their works. And even historians have begun to write histories of happiness and positive emotion, making clear that the record of human achievement can inspire more than just despair. Optimism, hope and imagination The aim of this collective work is not to ignore suffering, as if life were just one big bowl of cherries, but rather to balance out the negative by drawing attention to the positive. The liberal arts provide a vast repository of wisdom about human well-being, and the positive humanities aim to bring its treasures back into view. Thus a recent anthology On Human Flourishing gathers classics of the world’s poetic heritage around themes such as insight, pride, self-love and resilience, ecstasy, elevation and rapture, consciousness expansion and growth, inspiration and imagination, optimism, idealism, and hope, wonder and awe, vitality and mindfulness, compassion, serenity, justice, and self-determination. The poets of the world have had deep and inspiring things to say about all these matters, and much besides. It is hardly barbaric to read their work with wonder and a smile. If the liberal arts can continue to return to its core mission of helping human beings to live well, then surely the richest civilization in the history of humanity can afford them. Happiness may be a luxury, but it is one that we all deserve. Darrin M. McMahon is a historian, author, and public speaker, who lives in Somerville, Massachusetts and is a Professor of History at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Happiness: A History, which has been translated into 12 languages and was awarded Best Books of the Year honors for 2006 by the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Library Journal, and Slate Magazine.

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