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Combat Depression and Anxiety With These Tools

Depression can make you feel like you are stuck in a black hole while the rest of the world goes about its day in a spray of sunshine, as usual—joyfully alive. In your mind, you may want to be happy, but the weight of darkness can feel insurmountable. For others, anxiety puts up roadblocks in the way of happiness. It appears out of nowhere, jittery and malignant, darkening a perfectly ordinary situation with a veneer of fear and dread. The World Health Organization reports that as many as 350 million people worldwide suffer from depression. Around 15 million Americans suffer from depression, and nearly half of those diagnosed with depression are also diagnosed with anxiety, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. Even those who have never struggled with clinical depression or anxiety will have the occasional emotional crisis, blue mood or situational depression. While negative emotions can be helpful—by letting you know something isn’t right in your life—finding happiness isn’t possible unless you are equipped with emotional tools to overcome the weight of dark days. We turned to the experts to find out what emotional power tools they recommend to chip away at depression, reduce anxiety and become more mentally resilient so you can welcome happiness back into your life. Challenge your thoughts Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., psychologist, author and daughter of cognitive therapy founder Dr. Aaron Beck, says, “When you have depression you tend to understand your experience through black glasses instead of clear lenses. With depression, it’s important to stay active and be skeptical of any negative thoughts you might have. “Just because you think something doesn’t necessarily mean it is true,” says Judith. She suggests doing things that make you feel productive and in control, even when your mood is low and you don’t feel like it. According to Dr. David Burns, Stanford psychiatrist and author of the best-selling book Feeling Good, “our thoughts create all of our moods. When you are depressed and anxious, you are giving yourself negative messages; you are blaming yourself and telling yourself terrible things are going to happen. Distorted thoughts cause human suffering.” “Cognitive distortions are things like all-or-nothing thinking,” says David. “For example, if your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total loser. Or fortune telling, where you anticipate things will turn out badly and you treat your prediction as fact. Another cognitive distortion is mental filter, where you hone in on one negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of reality becomes darkened. Or, disqualifying the positive by rejecting positive experiences—as if they don’t count for some reason.” Each of the 10 cognitive distortions that David has identified can be challenged with more positive and realistic thinking, talking back to your negative thoughts. David recommends what he calls a triple column technique to identify distortions in your thinking. Take a piece of paper and make three columns. In the first column, write down your negative thoughts. In the second column, identify the cognitive distortion, and in the third column challenge your negative thought. Examine the evidence and question whether your negative thought is really valid. When you change the way you think, you change the way you feel. Accept that you are imperfect The experts agree, perfectionism is a happiness killer. If you want to welcome a giant wave of calm into your life, accept that you don’t have to be perfect. There are so many stressful moments you could easily diffuse by whispering to yourself: “I don’t have to be perfect. I can just be me.” Self-acceptance is tied to mental resilience, says Judith. “Having unreasonable or rigid standards that continually outstrip reality is a recipe for a negative self-image and a lack of resilience.” Positive psychology expert Caroline Miller has drawn similar conclusions from her research. “People who are exposed to stories of other people’s hardships and how those people successfully overcame those hardships are more persevering and less likely to be self-critical,” Caroline says. “Carol Dweck’s (Stanford psychologist) work on fixed mindsets has also found that when you don’t see yourself as someone who is capable of change, you can’t deal with the prospect of failure, but people with a growth mindset are more forgiving of their mistakes because they see themselves as works of progress who are capable of making tremendous change.” “Aim for success and not perfection,” says David. “Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself to be human can make you a happier and more productive person.” Learn how to comfort yourself You probably know instinctively how to provide comfort to a child, a best friend or a beloved pet. But do you know how to comfort yourself? You can become better at self-compassion with practice. Judith suggests “being sensitive to the suffering of others as it will help you be compassionate toward yourself. Accept and acknowledge your own suffering. Work to relieve and prevent it by non-judgmentally caring for your own wellbeing.” Positive psychology expert and author Michelle McQuaid says, “Self-compassion is hugely important for mental resilience. Too often we turn to our inner critic as a means of motivating ourselves and fail to recognize that while this may get us moving in the short term, neurologically, over time, it actually undermines our motivation, confidence and willingness to pursue our goals.” Self-compassion, she says, allows us to recognize that like everybody else, we’re human and still learning. Say kind things to yourself in a compassionate way you talk to others. “When you show yourself self-compassion, it’s like having a good friend with you all the time,” writes Kristin Neff, Ph.D., in her book Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. When you feel a dark mood approaching or are having trouble getting through a rough time, here are 20 more tested, effective tools to fill out the rest of your kit: Embrace anxiety Don’t try to fight or eliminate anxiety, suggests Judith Beck. “Instead, watch it from a distance, evaluate your anxious thinking and correct it if it’s distorted. If it’s not, go to problem-solving. Act in accordance with your values. Avoid action or inaction that’s tied to fear.” Read more: 6 Steps to Win the War Against Worry Connect with people According to Michelle McQuaid, reaching out for social support can boost resilience. By courageously reaching out, you no longer feel alone, your vulnerability connects you with others, and you often realize everyone shares similar struggles. Read more: 8 Tips to Find Your Own Tribe Sleep on it Some days may be dark if you didn’t sleep well, if there’s a hormonal shift, or you are simply just having a bad day. A good night’s sleep can sometimes be enough to turn your entire outlook from negative to positive. Sit in silence Sometimes out of fear of feeling depressed or anxious, we can fill up our lives with being busy or fill up the silence with TV, but getting quiet with your thoughts can be a remedy for depression and anxiety. Silence can foster a state of calm and often give you enough mental space to have insights about your own life. Disconnect from the external Realize you always have a choice when it comes to your thoughts and outlook. Don’t lock your mood into something you can’t control such as how your work day is going or how much you get accomplished in a day. Make a choice to stay positive despite what may be going on around you. Schedule a favorite activity into your calendar When you are busy, you might postpone favorite activities like taking walks outside, having lunch with a friend or even something easy like listening to beautiful music. Your favorite activity is more than a luxury, it’s a powerful way to recharge. Schedule your favorite activities into your calendar like weekly appointments. Read more: Put Happiness on the Calendar Set boundaries Boundaries are our protective borders of what’s acceptable to us and what isn’t. By setting boundaries you are declaring that you will not let people exploit you, and that you are in charge of your own emotions. A boundary can be as simple as saying “No.” Don’t take things personally It’s hard not to take things personally. But we have the capacity to take a step back and realize that what others do and say—even if it is negative and aimed at us—usually has more to do with their own situations than ours. Change the channel “Gritty people have the talent of ‘changing the channel’ in their heads when they are heading toward depression or a desire to quit,” says Caroline Miller. For a quick lift, try posting positive messages and meaningful images in your home or office that you can turn to anytime. Make a happy, uplifting playlist on your phone that you can access when your mood is dragging—or you are stuck in traffic! Choose whom you spend your time with regularly Your closest associations affect you more than you might realize, so choose to spend time with people who are kind and uplifting. Studies show that many of our emotions and character traits—positive and negative—are contagious. Those who have more grit are less likely to fall into a depression spiral, according to Caroline. “And you can increase your grit,” she says, “by being around those who model better ways of dealing with impatience, challenges and pessimistic thinking.” Rewrite the story of you In his best-selling book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., writes that we can change our relationships to our thoughts and feelings by paying attention to the dialogues that stream through our minds. “The stories we tell ourselves give us implicit limits and possibilities,” he says. If your story is holding you back, consider a rewrite with what’s possible. Be aware of your body Michelle McQuaid suggests being “more aware of what our bodies are telling us. And tuning in to the moments when we are feeling overwhelmed or stressed to recognize that our body is trying to tell us that something isn’t unfolding in the way we hoped. We need to understand what is causing our unease and make informed and conscious choices about how we can lean into the situation and learn what is happening.” Journal your thoughts Journaling can be a highly cathartic process as it heightens your awareness of both your thoughts and feelings. When you journal, you connect with yourself and express emotions—two emotionally healthy practices for getting you out of a dark or anxious place. Read more: Write Your Way to Insight Reach out Whether you reach out to a good friend, your network or a licensed psychologist, give yourself permission to seek help. It’s brave to face darkness head on and be self-aware enough to know when you need help. Take care of your own needs Many of us are great at meeting everyone’s needs except our own. Moms, for example, rule at this. The only problem is, if your needs are always coming last, they are probably not being met at all. No one can operate positively—including taking care of others—when his or her own physical and emotional needs are taking a backseat. Activate your own needs. For example, if you start taking time to exercise, you invest in your own physical and mental health and you increase your energy. Or, if you carve out space to read a good book or do an activity you love, your outlook is more positive because you are taking time to recharge with your own interests. Read more: Why Self-Care Isn't Selfish Recognize your strengths To build your resilience, recognize your strengths by making a list and give yourself credit for everything that you do, Judith Beck suggests. Consider making a list of wins. Don’t seek escape Many of us try to ignore negative feelings or distract ourselves with alcohol, food or other self-destructive tendencies. Instead, Michelle McQuaid recommends, lean into your unease. “This may mean gently challenging the stories you’re telling yourself about what is happening or what might happen … and choose the story that serves you best. Engage your strengths to take constructive action,” she says. Avoidance of pain or discomfort leaves no room for learning or growth. Shake up the status quo Take time to deeply reflect on your life. Sometimes a major life event can cause this kind of introspection, other times all it takes is a question. Increased self-awareness can lead to a happier and more fulfilling path. Use these questions to start. Exercise Hello, endorphins, there you are. Make sure your workout is sweat-inducing because that’s when you really experience the physiological and mental benefits. Read more: 8 Great Happiness Perks You Get From Exercise Make positive choices Every choice you make from dawn to dusk impacts how you feel about yourself. Even tiny decisions matter. Become conscious of how each decision you make has the ability to uplift or the ability to detract from how you feel. Catch yourself speaking nicely about someone when that person isn’t even in the room. Follow through on a commitment you made to someone. Smile at a stranger walking by. Share dessert. Stop comparing yourself to others Ah, the comparison game. Facebook and Instagram make the comparisons of life’s highlight reels easy to do. Instead of making yourself feel badly because you think others have it better than you, realize you are idealizing people. Everyone has something they are struggling with but the challenges and personal struggles often don’t often make it into your newsfeeds. Choose to be happy for people and their good news while keeping a foot in reality. Everyone has something they are shouldering. As Judith says, “Work to see the best in yourself, others and in your future.” Read more: Nothing Compares to You Give up the disease to please If you set your outlook or self-worth on whether others like you, your mood will go up and down like a rollercoaster ride. Instead, accept that not everyone is going to like you and it isn’t your job to see that they do. Listen to your gut and give your own opinions more value. Count blessings rather than dwell on the negative You always have a choice. The next time a negative thought tries to settle in, start listing all the things in your life you feel thankful for and happy about instead. The best way to feel mentally strong and ready to fight for your own happiness is to see yourself as a work in progress and build up your emotional toolkit with what you’ve learned from your experiences. David Burns says there’s only one person who can ever make you happy, and that person is you. Listen to our podcast with Dr. Joshua Smith on How Expressive Writing Can Improve Your Happiness Sandra Bienkowski is a regular contributor to Live Happy and the founder and CEO of TheMediaConcierge.net.

Podcast

How to Create a Gratitude Playlist with Paula Felps

'Tis the season for giving thanks! We say it time and again that gratitude is one of the most powerful ways to share happiness and feel authentic happiness. We sit down with Live Happy science editor Paula Felps to talk about how to create the perfect gratitude playlist. What you'll learn in this podcast: How the arrangement of a playlist affects you The power of music to become more mindful How to appreciate the little things Listen to the entire playlist we created on the episode:

relationships

Gretchen Rubin’s Strategies for the Holidays

The holidays can be a joyous time,but for some of us, they can alsoherald the coming of a series ofchallenges that can distract us fromjoyfully engaging with our loved ones. Here are a few strategies for easingsome of the holiday stress at family gatherings: 1. Try not to ruffle feathers You maybe intending to show polite interest,but questions such as, “When are yougetting married and starting a family?”can rub a person the wrong way.Instead, show your interest with moreopen-ended questions like, “What areyou up to these days?” 2. Avoid strife If you know Uncle Bobby’s political views drive you crazy,don’t bring them up! And if he bringsup the subject, don’t engage him. Makea joke of it, and say something like,“Let’s not talk about that, and givethe rest of the family something to bethankful for.” 3. Don't drink too much Whileit makes some people merry, alcoholcan make others combative, self-pityingand even destructive, so avoid imbibingtoo much for your own sake. Also, ifyou notice people trying to curb theirdrinking, don’t make a fuss of it or urgethem to indulge. 4. Play your part in traditions Chances are, traditionsare important for some of your familymembers. Though your brother’sinsistence on having exactly the samefood every Thanksgiving may irritate you, try to stay patient. 5. Don't strive for perfection As my mother told me, “The thingsthat go wrong often make the bestmemories.” 6. Watch what you eat Feelingbad about eating too much can makeyou irritable and angry, which can thennegatively affect your interactions.And, similar to drinking, if you noticesomeone skimping on dessert, don’tcomment or make it harder for himor her. 7. Find fun If the time with yourrelatives is meant to be fun, spend atleast some of it doing something that’s fun for you. 8. Think of reasons to be grateful Be thankful that you get tocook (or that you don’t have to cook). Bethankful that you get to travel (or thatyou don’t have to travel). Be thankfulfor your family or your friends. In theprocess, you’ll give your happiness aboost and crowd out resentment andannoyance. 9. Adjust your behavior Ifyou encounter difficult relatives, youcan’t do anything to change them;you can only change yourself. And inmany situations, people behave in adifficult way as a reaction to somethingor someone else. So, if you behavedifferently, they may, too. This year, make this holiday seasonone where you focus on spendingquality time with the people whomatter most to you and creatingmemories. After all, that’s what theholidays are really about. Gretchen Rubin is the bestselling author ofThe Happiness Project Happier at Home, and Better than Before. Read about Gretchen's adventures atGretchenRubin.com.

Woman volunteering in a garden with a group of people.

Giving

17 Ways to Give Back According to Your Strengths

Use your gifts. You’ve probably heard this advice before. Identifying your unique skills, character traits and innate talents can help guide you to a career you love, where you get to use those strengths every day. Your strengths also can be guideposts for how to give back and make the world a better place. Using your strengths—those things you are good at and enjoy—gives you energy and boosts your sense of well-being. And you can get the same benefits from helping others. According to Harvard Health Publications, people who volunteer their time and talents feel more socially connected (which can ward off loneliness and depression) and may experience better physical health, including lower blood pressure and a longer lifespan. When you combine your skills with giving back, you’ve got a powerful combination to make a difference to the community at large. This year, on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, we celebrate "Giving Tuesday," a global movement and day that celebrates and encourages giving back. Unlike Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which emphasize material gifts or discount purchases, Giving Tuesday celebrates philanthropy and kicks off the charitable season. Giving Tuesday is a great reminder to write a check to your favorite nonprofit organization. But beyond money, when it comes to planning where and how you will spend your time and energy, let your strengths guide you to the most impactful ways you can help the people and community around you. And keep in mind that giving to a friend, neighbor or family member can be just as significant as giving to an organization; you are still making a difference in someone’s life. Discover your strengths The first step is to identify your strengths. “Don’t go looking for them,” says Michael Mantell, Ph.D., a transformational behavior coach. “Your strengths are within you, not to be looked for or searched for, rather, to be revealed.” If you aren’t clear on what those strengths are, tune in to the compliments people give you. “Sometimes, it’s someone else who sees something inside of us that reveals our strength,” Michael says. If you are still unsure, look for what you are doing when you don’t notice time passing. Or, pick up clues by remembering what you loved to do as a child. Or you can take VIA’s free 10-minute survey to reveal your character strengths. Writing a check or volunteering your time with your favorite nonprofit organization is always a great idea. But we’ve pulled together a list of 18 creative ways for you to put your strengths to work when giving back this year. Ways to give back Are you a savvy businessperson or entrepreneur? Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, came up with a twist on tithing: Instead of giving away 10 percent of your money, he suggests giving 10 percent of your fantastic business ideas to nonprofits. Are you an animal whisperer? Consider fostering some furry friends from your local animal shelter. Expert swimmer? Volunteer to teach children how to swim at your local gym or YMCA. If you are an Eagle Scout, volunteer to work with Boy Scouts or a similar organization. You can work with kids or help the organization with its fundraising efforts. If you’re an avid reader, pass on a bookthat could change someone’s life. The right book could help someone start a business, improve a relationship or provide a confidence boost. Love fitness? Sign up for a charitable walk or run and give to a cause you care about. Or, ask someone to work out with you and be a fitness mentor. Is your thumb green? Lead a community garden project or teach kids how to care for flowers and plants. Are you a talented teacher or an expert in a specific subject such as writing or math? Talk to a local school about volunteering to be a tutor. If you have skills as an event planner, you can donate your time and talents to a fundraising event for a worthy organization. Well connected? How could you use your network to help someone else? The right introduction could lead to a job prospect, an increase in revenue or a new friendship. Are you great with children? Volunteer to watch your friend’s kids for an evening or host a slumber party for your kids and their friends. If you are highly empathetic? Use this powerful emotional tool to lend an ear to someone in need. Look into organizations that work with at-risk youth or with teens who have gone through the juvenile detention system. Have a little extra cash in your wallet? Think about buying something for a stranger. Pick up the tab for the person behind you at the coffee shop or at the tollbooth on the bridge. Do you have a knack for photography? Offer to photograph a friend’s wedding, a home someone is putting up for sale or the birthday party of one of your friend’s kids. Are you a good mentor? If you’re in the position to do so, hire an intern who is interested in doing what you do and show him or her the ropes. Do you have the eagle eye of a copy editor? Volunteer to review and polish a resume for someone in need—or better yet, volunteer your services to a deserving nonprofit. Love to cook or bake? Volunteer your talents at a local soup kitchen. Stay true to yourself by giving in the realms that make you the happiest. When you give back with your own talents, it doesn’t feel like work—it feels like an expression of who you are.

Lifestyle

Cohousing Communities Are Built for Connection

On a warm summer evening, some two dozen people are gathered for a potluck dinner in the garden of the two-block Los Angeles Eco-Village, which sits on the edge of the city’s Koreatown district. Enjoying salads, grilled veggies and pasta, along with wine and homemade fruit punch, they perch on folding chairs in a clearing between a fig bush and a magnolia tree, not far from the outdoor solar oven, chicken coop and trellises that are heavy with tomatoes. From the range of ages—3 to 79—and the ease of the chatter, this has the feeling of a family get-together. But the mix of ethnicities and accents make it clear that the ties that bind this eclectic group aren’t all familial. Instead, the members of this lively party all belong to a new kind of neighborhood. The Los Angeles Eco-Village is a cohousing community and home to 55 people. According to the Cohousing Association of the United States, it’s one of 162 so far with another 126 in the planning stages. A form of collaborative living, cohousing offers a nurturing alternative to suburban isolation or urban anonymity. The residents run the community collectively, sharing responsibilities and chores and making decisions by consensus. “The human species is tribal in nature, but through generations of culture change, we’ve lost that tribal instinct,” says Lois Arkin, who founded the neighborhood more than 20 years ago. “Cohousing communities restore the human connections that we all crave.” Community + privacy These custom neighborhoods are far from communes. Each household has its own private home, complete with kitchen. But residents also share a large common house, which is the heart of the community. It typically includes a big kitchen and dining room, guest rooms, a children’s playroom, and areas for workshops and meetings. Opportunities for engagement abound, from working in the garden to cooking community meals or taking part in resident-led workshops in sewing, woodworking, yoga or even how to home-brew small batches of craft beer. Most of all, there’s a feeling that your neighbors have your back and are there when you need them. Jessica Ruvalcaba, an early-education schoolteacher, lives here with her husband and their 5-month-old son, Eli. “When Eli was born, people brought me home-cooked meals for two weeks,” she says, “and my neighbor Carol did my laundry. I love that Eli has an extended community of siblings, and I have a group of parents I can lean on.” Cohousing communities can be urban, like the Los Angeles Eco-Village or Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, D.C., where 90 people—from newborn to 90 years old—live in 43 townhouses and apartments that are clustered around a central piazza. Many are in suburbs or small towns, such as Delaware Street Commons in Lawrence, Kansas. Here 45 homes are linked by pedestrian walkways and each home has a front porch that faces the common area. A few cohousing communities are in rural areas. The 29-home community of Nubanusit Neighborhood & Farm in Peterborough, New Hampshire, sits on 113 acres of farmland, fields and woodlands with trails, a pond and nearly a mile of riverfront. Using less to live more Living sustainably is a core value of cohousing communities. They’re typically built with energy-efficient materials and devote much of their acreage to green space. Cars are banished to the periphery of the property and alternative forms of getting around—biking, walking or public transportation—are encouraged. Lowering reliance on cars is key to keeping the members of these micro-neighborhoods connected. Alice Alexander is the director of the nonprofit Cohousing Association of the United States. She and her husband are members of the Durham Central Park Cohousing Community, a four-story building in downtown Durham, North Carolina, where 39 residents live in 24 condominiums. “I spent most of my life living in Northern Virginia suburbs where I didn’t know my neighbors,” Alice says. “You drove into your carport, went into your house and you never saw anyone.” The hallways at Alice’s building are wide and airy, with benches and libraries tucked into nooks and crannies. It’s a design that encourages people to linger and chat. Planning for chance encounters Relationships aren’t forged only through chance encounters. Like other communities, Durham Central Park maintains a digital bulletin board where people can post anything from an invitation to take a stroll to the Saturday farmers market to a request for a heating pad after a bicycle spill or a lift to the airport. “I’m always amazed that when I have a 6 a.m. flight, there’s someone who wants to take me to the airport,” Alice says. “But this is a caring and sharing community. We can count on each other.” There are weekly movie nights and group dinners, and every evening at least a half-dozen residents gather for happy hour on the roof. Residents seem to flourish amid all this support and sociability. In a survey conducted by the Cohousing Research Network, 96 percent of 528 respondents across 80 cohousing communities said their lives had improved since becoming cohousing residents and three out of four felt their physical health was better than others their age. None of this would surprise community psychologist William Berkowitz, Ph.D., professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, who believes that close-knit neighborhoods fulfill a vital human function. “The need for connection with other people and for community is wired into our biology,” he says. “We evolved from animals that lived and roamed in clans, sought food together and protected each other. There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that when people have strong social networks their sense of well-being and their physical health improves; cross-cultural research even shows that people live longer.” Cohousing's Danish roots In the early 1980s, Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durrett—Katie and Chuck to their friends—were young married architects beginning to think about starting a family. Already they found themselves coming home from busy workdays exhausted. Their relatives lived across the country and their friends across town. Just getting together with a friend for coffee was a challenge. How would they be able to raise kids? They remembered a type of development called a bofællesskab (living community) that they had visited when they were studying architecture in Copenhagen, Denmark. Since the 1960s, a mix of young families and empty nesters, singles and single parents had been forming these self-reliant neighborhoods that allowed people to support each other through the challenges of every stage of life, from childcare to eldercare. “What we saw in Denmark made so much sense,” Katie says. “These communities reminded me of the neighborhoods where I grew up in Denver, where kids were always outside playing, everybody knew each other and there was a real social life in the streets.” The first cohousing community in America Katie and Chuck returned to Copenhagen in 1984 and spent a year studying bofællesskab. In 1988, they published their first book, Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves. While they were writing the volume, they were also designing Muir Commons in Davis, California. In 1991, it was the first built-from-the-ground-up cohousing community in the U.S. Muir Commons is still going strong today, with 45 adults and 35 children living in 26 homes that sit on just under three acres. The homes, with private kitchens and private yards, range in size from 808 to 1,381 square feet. That size is pretty typical of cohousing communities and goes against the trend of homes in the U.S. getting significantly larger each decade. According to Census Bureau figures, the average size of homes being built in America rose from 1,725 square feet in 1983 to 2,095 in 1993 and, a decade later, to 2,330 square feet. In 2013, the most recent year of data collection, homes averaged just under 2,600 square feet. House size isn’t linked to happiness, according to Elizabeth Dunn, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and co-author of Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending. What really matters, she says, is the extent to which our houses facilitate positive social interactions. Living in a place where you naturally bump into your neighbors provides a happiness boost. Also heightening well-being, as stacks of studies found, is exposure to nature. A recent large Canadian study, for example, showed that having 10 or more trees on a block confers a health boost that’s the equivalent of being seven years younger. And so the design of the typical cohousing community, where most of the acreage is devoted to shared green space while pathways and front porches encourage socializing, can be a blueprint for happiness. Katie and Chuck, who have a now 25-year-old daughter, live in Nevada City Cohousing, which is an hour north of California’s capital city of Sacramento. It’s one of more than 50 cohousing communities, or “intentional neighborhoods,” as Katie likes to say, that the couple have designed or consulted on. Nevada City has 34 townhouses on 10 acres, six of which are devoted to open space. There’s an organic veggie garden and chickens, a swimming pool and hot tub. Footpaths lead to the nearby historic town. Residents have community dinners six nights a week. People are free to join or to skip, but everybody has a responsibility to cook a meal once every five weeks. Katie and Chuck usually take part in these group dinners three or four times a week. “Cohousing is a really good life,” Katie says. “What it addresses is that while we’re living closer and closer together, we’ve become a very isolated society. There’s a sense of security and safety, emotionally and physically, that comes from being part of something larger than yourself. You’re surrounded by people you can call on in a time of need. And, there’s much more spontaneity in day-to-day life. You run into people and say, hey, do you want to go hiking on Sunday? It doesn’t take 10 emails and texts.” Living collaboratively in Boulder, Colorado In 2000, Bryan Bowen was part of a team of architects working to design Wild Sage, a cohousing community of 34 townhouses in Boulder, Colorado. Developing a cohousing community takes several years and requires active and collaborative decision-making among its members. “Everybody has a voice and feels heard,” Bryan says. “And, as they’re accomplishing something really cool, the group develops very strong decision-making and conflict-resolution skills that they can use in creating a community once they move in.” By the time Wild Sage was completed 12 years ago, Bryan and his wife, Dale Deegan, then pregnant with their first son, Eli, were among the residents moving in. Eli’s younger brother, Jesse, was actually born in the living room of their home, with the aid of a midwife who’s a member of the community and has helped deliver a half dozen other Wild Sage babies. “I can’t imagine leaving Wild Sage,” Bryan says. “I can’t imagine raising my kids any other way. It’s hard enough as it is. Having the support of an interdependent community makes parenthood so much more interesting and rich.” And it makes for a secure childhood, too. Bryan remembers renting a home in Florida for a family beach vacation when Eli was 3 years old. After they pulled up to the house and unloaded the car, Eli ran outside, saying he was going to explore. He made a loop around the big grassy front yard, then came back inside. “He looks totally confused,” Bryan recalls. “He says, ‘Daddy, where are all the friends?’ That was a moment of epiphany for me. I realized that my kids were growing up with the expectation that wherever you go, there should be a whole bunch of fun, interesting people right outside the door. That’s how the world is for them.” A vertical community in Seattle Grace Kim and her husband, Mike Mariano, are founders and architects of Capitol Hill Urban Cohousing. It’s a compact cohousing community in a dense Seattle neighborhood; there are nine homes and a 1,600-square foot rooftop farm in a newly built five-story building. Grace and Mike, along with their 8-year-old daughter Ella are among the 28 residents—17 adults and 11 kids—who moved in just a few months ago. Like Katie and Chuck, Grace and Mike spent time in Copenhagen studying cohousing communities, thanks to a fellowship Kim received in 2004 from the University of Washington. For Kim, who is Korean-American, the intergenerational bofællesskab was familiar and comforting. “In Korean culture,” she says, “it’s common to have grandparents living with you. They’re an important part of the family. That’s very different from Western culture, where kids don’t have a lot of elders in their lives.” In the cohousing communities that Grace and Mike visited in both Copenhagen and later in the United States, she saw a vibrant alternative. “A 5-year-old would be happy to crawl up into anyone’s lap, whatever their age,” she says. “And there were meaningful relationships among unrelated people across generations. Teenagers were often lingering after dinner, wanting to engage in conversation with us. That’s so unheard of in American society. It really struck me as a healthier way to live through all stages of life. From raising your kids to growing old, the community takes care of a lot of needs without having to turn to outside interventions.” Prolonged group therapy In these first months at Capitol Hill, there have been some conflicts, like the prolonged dispute over what should be served at the thrice-weekly community meals. Residents took positions from demanding meals be vegan to diehard carnivores who wanted to slaughter their own game. In the end, after many sessions that were guided by a consensus-building facilitator, Grace says, “we all recognize that the meals are a big part of building community and we are committed to making meals for each other that are nutritious and delicious.” In practical terms, that means meat can be offered as an additive to a meal but not as the main ingredient. A great deal of energy has been devoted to making these types of group decisions. “Someone once said that cohousing is the most expensive self-help workshop you’ll ever take,” Grace says with a laugh. Still, Capitol Hill’s mix of residents—physicists and computer scientists, a magazine executive, a librarian, husband-and-wife retired teachers who love going for long-distance rides on their tandem bicycle—“have all remarked how living here is better than we could have imagined,” Grace says. “The ease and joy with which gatherings take place is remarkable. I never want to live anywhere else.” Read more: Find Your Tribe Read more: 10 Ways to Build Community Read more: Living on Less to Give More Shelley Levitt, editor at large for Live Happy magazine, is a freelance writer living in Southern California.

Giving

Let’s Talk Turkey

Let's face it, the Thanksgiving meal has a reputation as a gorge fest—a day to let go of all pretenses of diet and nutrition as we binge on unhealthy foods. Yes, Aunt Myrna's yams with marshmallows were probably made with a pound each of butter and sugar, but turkey—on the other hand—is a healthy eater’s dream. The Thanksgiving bird is low in calories and fat and high in protein. It can be full of flavor, too, if you focus on the dark meat. Turkey contains tryptophan, which gets a lot of conflicting press. “Tryptophan is one of the nine essential amino acids,” explains Dallas-based registered dietitian Jennifer Neily. “All animal proteins contain these amino acids; chicken is actually higher in tryptophan than turkey, but you don’t hear about people needing a nap after eating a chicken breast.” The most likely culprit for the post-Thanksgiving stupor is overeating and drinking and not any one pesky nutrient. The dietary supplement L-tryptophan has also been in the news lately: It is used to treat insomnia, depression, PMS and other ailments. Says Jennifer, “Studies show possible effectiveness for smoking cessation and PMS, but insufficient research for anything else.” And as with sleepiness, the amount of tryptophan you get from turkey is not enough to alter your mood. So eat turkey for its lean protein and good taste, and keep the holiday snooze and blues at bay with a brisk walk after dinner instead. Read more: 9 Ways to Make the Most of Thanksgiving This Year Emily Wise Miller is the web editor at Live Happy.

Phil and Joann Gulley have embraced a simpler life.

Giving

Living on Less to Give More

The SUV turning into Phil Gulley’s Danville, Indiana, driveway was huge. Bright, shiny and fresh off the assembly line in neighboring Oakville, the SUV—with Phil’s friend Jerry at the wheel—could haul an entire indoor under-10 girls soccer team to the school gym, seven guys to shoot hoops at the town hall, or Phil, his wife, and two sets of in-laws over the river and through the snow to a community Christmas gathering. What’s more, the SUV was safe as a tank and could haul both neighbors and bean dip to a church potluck anywhere in four counties—not an insignificant factor since Phil is a Quaker pastor. “We should get one,” he announced to his wife, Joann, after Jerry had left. “They’re only $40,000.” Joann’s reaction—“That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard!” as Phil recalls her saying—was direct and to the point. Their little Toyota had only 120,000 miles on it. And what about the commitment they’d made to one another to live on less so they’d have more to share with those who needed a helping hand? Years ago, Phil and Joann chose a lifestyle that would allow them to do it. And it wasn’t because, as a pastor, Phil had to walk the talk. It was because sharing what they had was who they were. It made them happy. Not that either one had recognized that right off. “When we first got married, we never had much extra,” Phil explains. But then he began to write books based on the small-town antics of a Quaker church’s members and the faithful pastor who tried to keep them all out of trouble, and things changed. Book reviewers raved about his work, the books became best-sellers, and Phil and Joann were stunned when the first royalty check arrived in the mail from his publisher. Unfortunately, neither Phil nor Joann were accustomed to handling much money. “When that first check came, we just kind of blew through it,” Phil admits ruefully. “Three months later, we looked at each other and were just sick about it. We felt like we’d eaten too much junk food.” They quickly realized that they’d stumbled onto the wrong path. So they took a step back, returned to a simpler lifestyle, vowed to one another that they’d stick to it, and were amazed to find that sharing the money from Phil’s royalties with others made them happier than spending it on a brand new computer that did everything but make coffee. “We found that generosity gives us joy,” Phil says. An emerging trend We Americans are a generous lot: Individuals gave more than $264 billion to charity last year alone. It’s a mind-boggling sum, particularly when you realize that it’s not easy for a lot of us to find even an extra $10 for those who need help. But as Phil points out, “Philanthropy and generosity are not the purview of the wealthy. Even the poorest among us are given opportunities to be generous.” How do we manage to give so much? At least part of the answer is that Phil and Joann are not the only two people on the planet who are driving secondhand cars so they can save a few extra dollars to share with others. In fact, they may actually be on the leading edge of an emerging trend, says Keith Curtis, who chairs Giving USA, the nonprofit research group that tracks charitable giving in the United States and gives donors, nonprofits and professional fundraisers the hard data they need to function. “There’s no data yet, but we see it every day,” Keith says. “Once they’ve taken care of their kids, people want to give back and make their community a better place. They know people have needs and they want to help. They want to make a difference.” Shawn Landres, Ph.D., co-founder of Jumpstart, a Los Angeles think tank known for its research into charitable giving, says that Keith’s comments resonate. “We don’t have the data,” agrees Shawn, “but we do know that there are people with resources who are now choosing to give to a charity rather than buy that extra boat or that $5,000 case of Champagne. “There’s also a generational style that has people choosing to live more intentionally,” he adds. “They’re no longer doing the pledged giving that our parents did.” Instead, Shawn says, they’re doing things like crowd-funding or forming a “giving circle,” in which one person will, instead of writing a single check for $100, bring together a group of friends, neighbors, co-workers and the like to collectively write a check for $1,000. Hardwired to give One of the things that encourages us to reach into our pockets to help others is that we are hardwired to give. Northwestern University professor Jordan Grafman, Ph.D., was one of the first researchers to investigate the relationship between the brain and giving. In a study that appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006, Jordan conducted brain imaging studies that demonstrated that giving activates parts of the brain rich with receptors for the feel-good neuropeptide oxytocin—the same chemical that’s associated with the warm glow of happiness we get from food and sex. But there is one caveat. “Context matters,” Jordan says. If you give simply to get something back—increase your social status, look good to your friends or impress your boss, for example—then imaging studies show that you’re just going to feel a flicker of that warm, happy glow rather than a full blast of over-the-top joy. Individuals make up the lion’s share of charitable contributions,” says Una Osili, Ph.D., director of research at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy in Indianapolis. “They account for 71 percent of all giving.” If giving causes you to have to sacrifice something, however, whether it’s the ability to buy a latte every morning on the way to work or the opportunity to see a new film with friends, then brain studies show that you’ll get the full blast. Now chief of neuroscience at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Jordan explains that, “When you give something at a cost to yourself, that’s when you really get a big effect.” A landmark study at the University of Oregon, published in 2007 in Science magazine, backs Jordan up. Researchers there gave 19 students $100 each and told them that any money left over at the end of the study was theirs to keep. The students were then wired up to an fMRI imaging machine as they watched a computer program. The program told them about a food bank that needed money, and then randomly did a number of things with the cash in the students’ online “accounts.” Some students watched as their money was given to the food bank. Others were given the opportunity to donate to the food bank—the choice was theirs. Still others saw extra money suddenly appear in their accounts. The brain scans’ results were astounding. The givers—whether or not they had donated their money voluntarily—were happier than those who received the gifts of cash. The “pleasure zones” in the charitable students’ brains “lit up,” as the Science article explained. But how much giving does it take to get that happy buzz? To find out, for a study published in a 2008 article in Science, researcher Lara Aknin, Ph.D., from the University of British Columbia (she is now at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia) cruised the city streets of Vancouver with a box of envelopes. She approached people at random and asked them to be part of an experiment. If they agreed, she asked them to rate their happiness that day, then got their phone numbers and gave them one of the envelopes. In the envelope was either a $5 or $20 bill, plus a note. For some of the study participants, the note said, “Please spend this [amount] today before 5 p.m. on a gift for yourself or for any of your expenses.” For others in the study, the note said: “Please spend this [amount] today before 5 p.m. on a gift for someone else or a donation to charity.” That evening Lara contacted each person who had accepted an envelope, asked them how happy they were and how they’d spent their money. The result? Not only did those who had spent their money on others feel far happier than those who had spent it on themselves, but it really didn’t matter whether someone had spent $5 or $20. Those who gave away $5 were just as happy as those who gave away $20. The benefits of a giving life Aside from the sheer joy of giving in the moment, making a commitment to living on less to give more as a daily practice in your life can extend that joy—and bring a few unexpected benefits. Steve Cleaver, a yoga instructor and the school coordinator at Richmond Friends School in Richmond, Indiana, knows this firsthand. Steve grew up as one of five kids on a farm, then went to college and grad school. But as he went from a house to school to an apartment, to another house, he began to feel as though his life was cluttered up by stuff. According to Giving USA's Annual Report on Philanthropy for 2015 (the most recent data available): $264.58 billion in charitable contributions comes from individuals, $58.46 billion from foundations, $31.76 billion from bequests and $18.45 billion from corporations.” So when he took a job at a yoga retreat center, he also took it as an opportunity to give things away that he didn’t use. And that was an eye-opener. “I began to look at what I had and what I bought in a new way,” he explains. “I’d grown up without a lot, and I struggled for a long time with the idea that having things was the way to go. I just felt I had to buy, buy, buy. “When I began to give it all away, however, I found that if I can live on less, I worry about less. I don’t have to worry about getting stuff, and I don’t have to worry about maintaining it. I also found that living on less gave me a sense of security,” he adds. “It’s like backpacking. You know you have everything you really need right on your back.” Now, instead of focusing on what he’s going to buy, Steve focuses on what he’s going to give—primarily to local artists, dancers, musicians, writers, filmmakers and designers through the online crowd-funding sites Kickstarter and Indiegogo. “I found that I’d rather invest in people than in things I don’t really need,” Steve explains. “That’s what makes me happy.” That kind of giving is something that resonates with Philadelphia conference planner Susan Lee Barton. Susan Lee has had a lifelong love of nonprofit organizations that actively lift people up and try to make the world a better place. Some of the groups she’s supported over the years share conflict management skills in Africa, develop reconciliation initiatives in Indonesia and offer workshops on alternatives to violence in Colombia. But finding the money to support these groups wasn’t always easy. “For a big part of my life I had been trying to increase what I gave to nonprofit organizations like these, but I was having trouble doing it,” Susan Lee says. Fortunately, while she was working at Right Sharing of World Resources, an organization that lends small amounts of money to women in Kenya, Sierra Leone and south India so they can launch small businesses that fit the markets available in their local economy, she had a conversation with co-worker Bob Barnes. “Bob challenged me to think about my possessions, how they affected me, and how they affected my relationship with God,” recalls Susan Lee, who takes her faith seriously. She did as Bob suggested, and was eventually led to make two serious changes in how she lived. The first was to give up her car, the cost of which had put her into debt. And the second was to move from an apartment into an interfaith community that shared a house in Philadelphia. Those two decisions single-handedly erased her debt and enabled her to increase her donations to the nonprofits whose work she so loves. But they also had a couple of unexpected benefits: All the walking she does without a car have made her a healthier woman, and living in community with others—a community in which people gather for morning worship, shared dinners, workshops, work parties and celebrations—has brought her unexpected joy. Joy, health, freedom, a simpler life, a sense of security and a loving community—living on less to give more to others may actually be the gift you give yourself.

Two people warming their feet in front of a cozy fire.

Lifestyle

3 Happiness Hacks to Savor the Holiday Season

Buy the groceries! Prep the turkey! Set the table! In the midst of the scurry to get ready for Thanksgiving, sometimes it can be difficult to just enjoy the moment with friends and family. It might be time to try something different this year (and no, I’m not talking about a new cranberry recipe). Start the Thanksgiving season with an intention to savor even the little moments—a practice that boosts your happiness levels, reduces stress and helps you navigate negative emotions that might surface when your family gathers together. 1. Develop a taste for savoring The Latin root of the word savor literally means “to taste,” so Thanksgiving is the perfect time to try out this positive habit. In the same way that you might enjoy your favorite smoked turkey dish or sweet potato casserole covered in toasted marshmallows (mmmm…), savoring involves pausing to appreciate the sights, sounds, smells and feelings around you. Do you feel crispness in the air as leaves fall to the sidewalk? Do you hear laughter ringing in the background as you step into the kitchen? What was the funniest thing someone said at the dinner table? What memories does the hum of a football game evoke in you? Practice the art of savoring now, so that you can train your brain to savor even in the midst of stressful, hectic or challenging times. Read more: The Science of Savoring 2. Find connection amid distraction Savoring is about being present and conscious in the moment, which we all know can be a challenge amid the numerous distractions in our lives. For many families, Thanksgiving is a special time of year when multiple generations gather around a table for a communal experience. However, all too often, technology eclipses these moments of connection. Yes, teens struggle with tech addiction, but so do many adults. We use tech as a buffer for awkward conversation or even an escape from unsavory obligations (anyone want to wash dishes?). 3. Use technology wisely Over the last year, I’ve spent a significant amount of time researching and interviewing people for my book The Future of Happiness (coming in April 2017) to glean the best strategies for tackling tech addiction and the modern digital divide. I surmised that the happiest individuals would be those who completely unplugged and instead spent hours meditating by candlelight. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Rather, the people who experienced the greatest levels of well-being in the digital era were those who were most conscious and thoughtful about when, where, why and how they use technology. In fact, many times they used technology to fuel their happiness and boost their ability to savor experiences. Read more: 3 Secrets to Happiness This Holiday Season Consider these practical ideas for using technology to help you savor the holiday season: Look through old family photos together, either in scrapbooks or by going through pictures on Shutterfly, Google Photos or Instagram. Read through your gratitude journal from the past year, or start a new journal on the Gratitude Journal app. Lead your family in a one-minute (or longer!) meditation before dinner using the Headspace or another meditation app. Use the Remindfulness app to get gentle reminders in your day to stay mindful amid the hustle and bustle. Write down a list of memorable phrases from dinner on Evernote and send an automatic reminder to yourself for next year to relive the memory. While your food is settling after dinner, engage your family in a hilarious game of charades using Ellen Degeneres’ app HeadsUp, which is fun for all ages. Amy Blankson, aka the ‘Happy Tech Girl,’ is on a quest to find strategies to help individuals balance productivity and well-being in the digital era. Amy, with her brother Shawn Achor, co-founded GoodThink, which brings the principles of positive psychology to life and works with organizations such as Google, NASA and the US Army. Her upcoming book is called The Future of Happiness: 5 Modern Strategies for Balancing Productivity and Well-being in the Digital Era (April 2017).

relationships

Born to Love

Humans are social creatures. Sure, some of us like a little solitude now and then, but even introverts need to feel connected, cared for and understood. Our DNA compels us to seek relationships that satisfy those needs. From the most basic viewpoint, the biological need for connection may stem from the survival instinct; propagation and protection of the human species depend on the bonds of our relationships. But love and connection provide much deeper benefits than a simple response to the instinct to survive. Positive relationships contribute to better physical and mental health, longevity and, yes, happiness. Although your closest relationships, those with your partner, children and inner circle of friends, are most essential to your well-being and life fulfillment, feeling connected at work or in your community also contributes to happiness. You may not define your work or social connections as love, but when nurtured, they can stimulate a physical and emotional response that mirrors the benefits of close personal relationships. In his book Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, UCLA neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman presents evidence that social connection is as important to our survival as food and shelter. In fact, positive relationships are one of the strongest predictors of life satisfaction. In a Harvard study of nearly 300 men over the course of 75 years, having meaningful relationships is identified as the only thing that truly matters in life. George Vaillant, one of the principal researchers, noted in his book Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study that even when the men had money, health and good careers, they weren’t happy unless they had strong, positive relationships. And it isn’t just emotional wellness that love and connection confer. In a recent meta-analysis of 148 smaller studies, researchers at Brigham Young University showed that loneliness and social isolation are just as deadly as obesity, smoking and other extremely negative factors. John Cacioppo, Ph.D., is the director of the University of Chicago’s Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience and has studied the causes and effects of loneliness for many years; he is also the author of Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection. When a person feels socially isolated, John has found, his or her body produces more of the stress hormone cortisol. As time goes on, too much cortisol in the system leads to organ wear and tear, which in turn can lead to a variety of maladies from depression to high blood pressure to major strokes. But if loneliness hurts, love and companionship heal, boosting both our health and our happiness. The biology of love “Just as your body was designed to extract oxygen from the Earth’s atmosphere and nutrients from the foods you ingest, your body was designed to love,” says Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph.D., director of the Positive Emotions & Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a leading researcher on the benefits of connection and the author of Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection. “Love—like taking a deep breath, or eating an orange when you’re depleted and thirsty—not only feels great but is also life-giving, an indispensable source of energy, sustenance and health,” Barbara says. When you feel loving, kind and trusting toward someone, Barbara says, your brain releases oxytocin into your body. Oxytocin is the calming and connecting hormone. What’s more, when your body releases oxytocin, it can stimulate a release of oxytocin in the other person, Barbara says. That’s why a crying child can often be calmed by a loving parent’s touch. It’s also how mutual trust is fostered in relationships. Besides producing oxytocin when we have warm and trusting feelings for another person, our bodies quell production of the stress hormone cortisol. This tandem event—a boost in oxytocin and a tamping down of cortisol—allows us to handle stressful situations, such as a conflict with a spouse or business person, more easily. Just as important as oxytocin’s role in our ability to connect with others is that of our vagus nerve, which links our brains to our hearts and other organs. The vagus nerve regulates the heartbeat and, working with oxytocin, stimulates the “calm and connect” response, Barbara says. “It stimulates tiny facial muscles that better enable you to make eye contact and synchronize your facial expressions with another person,” she says, adding that it even allows our ears to better distinguish another person’s voice against background noise. Finally, we are built not just to connect and love, but also to share those loving, good vibes. A 20-year study of 4,739 people known as the Framingham Heart Study concluded that happiness is contagious, spreading from person to person. Love is all you need Relationships compose one of the largest pillars upon which our happiness is built. So take time out for the people who matter to you. Deepen your existing relationships and be open to forming new connections. The three stories shared here show how, by nurturing the positive in a variety of relationships—with a spouse, family or one’s co-workers—life becomes rich in the truest sense of the word. Because when considering the famous question, “What’s love got to do with it?” the answer, as far as your happiness is concerned, is everything. Shawn Achor and Michell Gielan: When happiness experts fall in love A former TV reporter and anchor Michelle Gielan had shifted her career path to pursue a master’s in positive psychology. As part of her coursework, Michelle had read—and loved—Shawn Achor’s book The Happiness Advantage. So when she needed a mentor in her new field, she e-mailed the Harvard-trained happiness expert and asked to set up a meeting. It wasn’t the only reason she was looking forward to meeting him. “I had definitely looked at the back flap of the book and seen his picture,” Michelle laughs. A few short months after that first meeting, the two began dating and today they are married and have a toddler son, Leo. Shawn and Michelle knew that having healthy relationships is one of the greatest predictors of long-term happiness. In their own relationship, they’ve learned first-hand that by being intentional every day about the way they interact with each other, they can strengthen their marriage and add to each other’s happiness. “When we see each other for the first time after we’ve been away on a trip or for just a few hours, we always make sure to start our interaction by sharing something positive that’s happening,” Michelle says. Making the initial encounter a positive one sets the tone for the rest of the day. They also help each other recognize less-than-positive attitudes and behaviors so they can be stopped or adjusted. “We call each other out when one of us is going down an unproductive thought path,” Shawn says, “and suddenly you realize that the negativity isn’t going anywhere—it’s just spinning you around on an emotional cycle.” By the same token, when either party is stressed by work, travel or parenthood, the other asks for three good things that are happening at that instant. “So if she asks me to do that, suddenly I’ll realize, yeah, I’m traveling to give a talk on happiness that will help people,” Shawn says. “Or we’re on our way to the airport for a great, fun vacation. Or I’m with the people I love.” During disagreements, Michelle explains that the first thing to consider is that the other person is coming from a place of love. “I know that he’s got my back. So when we have a disagreement, we’re disagreeing about the thing, the event, not the other person fundamentally. And we’re also very big on communicating along the way, talking issues through as they pop up, so that they stay small things and don’t become big things.” Gary and Vicki Flenniken: More to love For 14 years, Gary and Vicki Flenniken lived full, mostly happy lives as a DINK couple (double income, no kids). But they felt that something was missing. They tried for years to have children and finally went through fertility testing. But just three days after Vicki began treatments, Gary’s old friend called in the midst of a family crisis. She told Gary that Child Protective Services (CPS) had removed her sister’s two children—one of whom was an infant—from her home and they were now in the friend’s care. The friend was panicked: She already had four children and felt overwhelmed. Gary and Vicki immediately offered to care for the baby. Suddenly, they were parents. “We brought her into our home with zero preparation. We didn’t have bottles, a bedroom for a baby, diapers; we didn’t have anything,” Gary says. Anything, that is, except love to share in abundance. During the next two years, the Flennikens waded through the long process of adoption and continued to love the little girl, whom they knew could be taken away from them at any moment. “It was an incredibly stressful time that taught us how to pray. We understand lamentations,” he says. “The joy, the relief that finally came when the judge said she was legally ours was overwhelming.” Ten years after welcoming their daughter, Sydney, into their lives, a phone call expanded their family once again. “We got a call from a friend who said her daughter was pregnant and in jail. She asked if we could be of any help finding a place for the baby,” Gary says. After hanging up, he turned to his wife and asked, “Are you ready for a baby?” Months later, Gary and Vicki watched their new adoptive son come into the world. The hospital even prepared a room for them and had Vicki snuggle the newborn on her bare chest to encourage bonding. Concerned that the baby may have been exposed to harmful drugs while still in the womb, doctors kept the baby, Zach, in the hospital for five days to watch for withdrawal symptoms. Because of that concern, hospital staff also contacted CPS to check on the woman’s other three children. A few months later, a caseworker told the Flennikens they needed a home for Zach’s two older brothers, ages 2 and 3. And a few short months after that, their older sister, Kylah, who had been living with her grandmother, joined the family. In less than a year, their family grew from three to seven members. “I wouldn’t trade any of it,” Gary says. For the first time in our life, we’re looking for places where kids eat free on Tuesday nights.” They laugh a lot, but sometimes there are tears, too. “The 2-year-old had been burned in hot water and was just traumatized when we put him in the bathtub the first time,” Vicki recalls. While his older brother splashed and played in the water, the little one screamed, “Hot, hot! Burn, burn!” “For 14 days, he just screamed at bath time, and it broke my heart. The first time he took a bath and didn’t cry, it was amazing,” Vicki says. “It took 14 days for him to trust me. God makes these little people so trusting. We need to learn from that. You can start over, and life can be good again. Now when we say, ‘Hey, it’s bath time,’ he’s the first one running up the stairs.” Gary and Vicki expect there to be ups and downs as the children grow and bond with them, but, says Gary, “We are blessed beyond belief, and we want people to know that adopting is a way to bring joy not just to the child, but to the entire family. We couldn’t be happier.” Jenn Lim and Ton Hsieh: Happy at work A 2013 Gallup report, State of the American Workplace, shows that happy workers are good for business: They’re more productive, more loyal and make the office a more enjoyable place to work. Jenn Lim, chief happiness officer of the Zappos spinoff consulting group Delivering Happiness, can attest to that: She was instrumental in helping Zappos founder Tony Hsieh create an environment where employees feel respected, cared for and connected. In 2003, the company was growing and its customer service was unparalleled, but the culture needed some work. Tony suggested that Zappos should hire people whom existing employees might “also enjoy hanging out with after work,” he recalls in his book Delivering Happiness. A movement was born, starting with the development of 10 core values based on input from everyone in the company. Two of those values include “Build open and honest relationships with communication” and “Build a positive team and family spirit.” Living up to these core values is part of an employee’s job description. One of the most enduring aspects of Zappos’ culture—one that has defined it from the start—is its sense of connectedness. “We are more than just a team—we are a family,” Tony explains in Delivering Happiness, where he tells how this quality is driven home by Robin P., an employee who lost her husband very suddenly. Robin’s first phone call conveying the news was not to a relative, but to her employer, Zappos. “That one action made me realize the strong connection I felt with my co-workers and the Zappos culture. It was essentially my home away from home.” Zappos gave her the time she needed, volunteered to cater the funeral service, offered her a shoulder to cry on and was her “refuge” and “healing place.” “We watch out for each other,” Tony says in Delivering Happiness, “care for each other, and go above and beyond for each other, because we believe in each other and we trust each other. We work together, but we also play together. Our bonds go far beyond the typical co-worker relationships found at most companies.” Jenn echoes this sentiment. “A sense of connectedness, that is, meaningful relationships, is one of the most sustainable forms of happiness. Relationships matter because people don’t show up to work because they have to—but because they want to be with their friends, their tribe. And they matter because people tend to go above and beyond when they share mutual respect and trust.” This excerpt is from the book Live Happy: 10 Practices for Choosing Joy, available online and at bookstores near you. Deborah K. Heisz is the CEO and Editorial Director of Live Happy.

Happy 40-something woman lifting weights in the park.

Self-Care

Top 5 Fitness Tips for People Over 40

Exercise just may be the magical key that unlocks happiness. Science tells us that exercise improves mood, fights depression, enhances quality of sleep, reduces stress and prevents disease. And according to a study published in Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise, regular exercise can actually slow the aging process. If you are north of 40, keep your body strong and your energy up with our best exercise advice. 1. Choose something you love If you see exercise as a chore, you are less likely to experience its benefits because you probably won’t stick with it in the long-term. Find an exercise you love and you don’t have to go in search of your motivation. No one has to drag you out of bed to do something you love. Experiment until you find a type of exercise that makes you happy. The feel-good emotions can also help you stick with exercise long-term. In his book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and theBrain, Dr. John Ratey, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard, writes, “When we begin exercising, we almost immediately begin releasing dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin. Those are all neurotransmitters that deal with feelings of reward, alertness, contentment and feelings of wellbeing.” What to do: What exercise did you love as a child? Use your answer as inspiration to find an exercise you love as an adult. Ride a bike. Go for a hike. Swim laps or try water aerobics. Take up Pilates or the newest class at your gym. 2. Strength train If making yourself exercise is a tall order, you might be immediately dismissive of strength training. However, “doing some form of strength training is mandatory as we age,” says national fitness trainer and founder of GetHealthyU Chris Freytag. “You can use dumbbells, resistance bands or your bodyweight, but muscle is the best way to rev up your metabolism as you age, and it’s something you have control over,” Chris says. “Muscle tissue can burn three to five times more calories than fat does. So the more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn, even while sitting,” Chris explains. Strength training also slows bone and muscle loss as you age and keeps your body strong for everyday activities like taking the stairs and gardening. “As people age, there needs to be a stronger emphasis on functional movement and activities that are performed in daily life, such as squatting and pushing doors open,” says Mary Edwards, MS, director of fitness and a professional fitness trainer at Cooper Fitness Center. “Strength training helps increase muscle strength in the limbs and core, which are most important as people age. American College of Sports Medicine recommends strength training, especially for those ages 56 and up as important for maintaining functional movement, balance and power.” You don’t need to invest much time with strength training to see results. What to do: “Working with weights or your body weight for as little as 20 minutes for two to three days a week can crank up your resting metabolic rate over time,” Chris says. If you are using your body weight, try pushups, squats, lunges and planks. 3. Mix it up If you love to jog or love to run, you might just want to stick to your favorite workout day in and day out, but your body needs a mix of cardio (for your cardiovascular health) and weight training (for your body’s strength). Founder and chairman at Cooper Aerobics Center and practicing preventative physician, Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper prescribes the following ratio of aerobic training vs. strength training for maximum health benefits as we age: If you’re 40 years old or younger, devote 80 percent of your workout time to aerobic training and 20 percent to strength training. If you’re 41 to 50 years old, shift to 70 percent aerobic and 30 percent strength work. If you’re 51 to 60, do 60 percent aerobic exercise and 40 percent strength training. After you pass 60, divide your workout time more evenly between the two strategies – while still giving an edge to aerobic exercise, which provides the most health benefits: 55 percent aerobic work and 45 percent strength work. What to do: Sometimes people are intimidated by the weight rooms or weight machines at gyms. You can strength train using your own body weight by holding planks, doing pushups and situps, wall-sits, lunges and squats. Or buy some hand weights and do some workouts at home. There are lots of online workouts both free and subscription-based. 4. Set a goal and track your progress Write down the workouts you do on a calendar you see daily. Seeing your efforts in writing (or on your phone) gives you a boost and a sense of accomplishment. As happiness expert Shawn Achor says, “Happiness is the joy you feel striving toward your potential.” Use what you’ve done to fuel your motivation to do more. A goal can be a powerful reminder to exercise consistently. What to do: Set a goal that holds you accountable. Maybe it’s signing up for a race, a desire to see muscle tone in the mirror, or working out a certain number of times per week. Keep going until you reach that goal. 5. Stretch “After age 30, we start losing elasticity in our tendons and ligaments, making them tight,” Mary says. “As we age, stretching helps us maintain a good range of motion in the muscles, allowing joints to operate at normal functionality so they’re not limited.” What to do: Make it a practice to stretch regularly when your body is already warmed up. American College of Sports Medicine recommends stretching muscles surrounding major joints two to three times per week, while holding each stretch for 60 seconds. The best advice from all the experts? Keep moving. “As people age, the body changes and injury can occur, so dysfunction can creep in, Mary says. “Focus on what you can do, not what your limitations are.” Sandra Bienkowski is a regular contributor to Live Happy and the founder and CEO ofTheMediaConcierge.net.

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