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If you ask any parent what they most want for their children growing up, chances are they’ll answer something like, “I want them to be happy.” Which parent wouldn’t want that? So, if this is the aspiration that most parents want for their children, shouldn’t teaching children how to lead well-rounded and happy lives be a big focus for schools, too? I believe there are many reasons why the emotional well-being of our children should be central to a good education. Curbing a Mental Health Crisis The most recent evidence certainly points towards there being a mental health crisis amongst our young people. According to research shared by the mental health charity Young Minds: 1 in 10 children have a diagnosable mental health disorder. Half of all mental ill health manifests by the age of 14 and 75% by the age of 18. These statistics don’t have to be the inevitable future of our young people. Schools can put programs in place and create cultures where the emotional well-being of students and staff is placed at the center of their communities. A Path to Future Happiness A key reason why we should be investing more in our children’s wellbeing is because it is the strongest predictor of their future happiness. In his book, The Origins of Happiness, Professor Richard Layard and his colleagues have drawn from an extensive range of longitudinal data from across the globe to establish the key factors that affect human wellbeing. Richard’s team wanted to be able to answer the question, ‘In childhood, what best predicts happiness in later life?’ They concluded that, ‘If we go back to childhood…the best predictor of an enjoyable adult life…is the child’s emotional health, which…is significantly more important than all the qualifications the person ever obtains.’ It appears that investing in our children’s well-being pays dividends for the future! Schools and Teachers Make a Difference It may sound obvious that happy children grow up to be happy adults. What can anyone other than parents do about that? Well, it turns out quite a lot. In Richard’s book, his team dug down into the data and traced which schools and even which teachers some of the respondents had in childhood, along with their academic attainment. The book found that, ‘primary school teachers have more impact on the emotional health of the children than on the children’s performance in maths.’ The chapter on schooling ends with the encouraging conclusion, ‘Primary and secondary schools have major effects on the emotional well-being of their children.’ It shows that schools and teachers are crucial to developing and nurturing children’s well-being. We play a crucial role in raising healthy and happy children. A Case of Teaching Happiness Positive psychologist, Alejandro Adler, Ph.D., from the University of Pennsylvania, researched teaching a well-being curriculum to more than 700,000 students in Bhutan, Mexico and Peru. In all three studies, students in the intervention schools reported significantly higher well-being and they performed significantly better on standardized national exams at the end of a 15-month intervention. This suggests that schools can teach happiness and that, in doing so, students learn better. Schools must prioritize the happiness and well-being of their students and staff. This means having well-being on the curriculum, it means making positive relationships a key facet of children’s education, it means making physical exercise a core part of the daily routines, it means having structures and resources in place (like counseling services) for students that need extra support. Whether you believe the focus of schools should be teaching knowledge, or teaching happiness, when schools place well-being at the center of their curriculum, everyone wins.

Maintaining proper sleep health is vital to our well-being. Countless studies and years of research have determined that many health problems, both mental and physical, stem from poor sleeping habits. While the National Sleep Foundation recommends seven to nine hours of sleep per night, according to Gallup, almost half of Americans say they fall short of that goal. Gallup also found that people who did fall below the seven-hour threshold also reported significantly lower well-being. Sleep Friendly Seven to nine hours of a good slumber can benefit your physical health, improving your immune system, lowering your blood pressure and help you maintain a proper weight, but did you know it can also help your social life, too? Published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, found that people with poor sleeping habits were more likely to develop social anxiety, which can lead to social isolation. Because we are social animals, when feelings of loneliness set in, negative feelings compound and act as a “social repellant.” Getting adequate quality sleep can have the opposite effect, giving you the energy and confidence you need to be a friendlier person. What are the Odds? Getting the right kind of sleep may make you feel like a million bucks. A study from the University in Warwick reports that the quality of our sleep is just as important, if not more important than the amount of hours we log. Researchers found that the mental and physical boosts we get from better sleep are comparable to those same good feelings of someone who just on a financial jackpot. Over time, these sleep improvements led to an increase in well-being and a decrease in sleep medication. Head of the Class Sleep deficiencies aren’t just limited to adults. Poor sleeping habits and daytime drowsiness can lead to adverse health problems in children and adolescents as well. Conversely, children who practice good sleep habits and take 30 to 60 minute naps at least three times a week were found to be happier, more resilient and had fewer behavior and self-control issues, according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania. The study, published in the journal SLEEP, also shows that kids who took more naps also performed better academically by more than seven percent and had higher IQs than their sleepier counterparts. Bathtime Bliss If you spend most of your nights tossing and turning, then you may want to consider a warm bath before bed. Biomedical engineers at The University of Texas at Austin have found that bathing or showering in warm to hot water one to two hours before bed can result in better sleep quality. Their findings, published in the journal Sleep Medicine Reviews, suggest the water temperatures between 104 and 109 degrees Fahrenheit helps get the body’s circadian rhythm process in line by reducing our core heat so we can fall asleep faster and get a more restful slumber.

Imagine waking up with the sunrise one morning and spending time in solitude journaling about your goals. You then put on a favorite outfit—one you’d normally reserve for a special occasion—and head out to a new restaurant to enjoy breakfast. Afterward, you stroll into a bookstore and spend time in an unfamiliar section. Or maybe you head to a local park to marvel at nature and take photographs of whatever catches your eye. While it sounds like a lot of fun, did you realize that exercising such “everyday creativity” also increases your well-being? “Creativity isn’t just for artistic endeavors or the talented few; it’s not what we do but how we do it that matters,” says Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D., scientific director of the Imagination Institute and a researcher in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s how we approach problems and opportunities that we encounter in our daily lives. We can be creative in almost anything we do, whether at work, at play, in parenting or even in our relationships.” We can be creative in almost anything we do, whether at work, at play, in parenting or even in our relationships.” In their book Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind, Scott and journalist Carolyn Gregoire discuss creativity “as a habit, as a way of life and as a style of engaging with the world.” They identify 10 habits of highly creative people: imaginative play, passion, daydreaming, solitude, intuition, openness to experience, mindfulness, sensitivity, turning adversity into advantage and thinking differently. Then they turn to science to demystify the complex concept. Although it is often portrayed as an elusive, perhaps even magical, quality that appears to be out of our reach, everyday creativity is accessible to all of us. “It could mean looking at a problem in a new way, expressing ourselves through our own unique style or interacting with our romantic partner in a different way,” Scott says. Are Creative People Happier? While creativity may not always make us feel good, living a creative lifestyle can enhance our well-being in at least three ways: personal growth, improved health and strengthened relationships. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, Ph.D., associate research scientist for the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, found that people who engage in everyday creative acts such as concocting a new recipe, making a scrapbook and visiting museums, are more likely to experience personal growth. By broadening their experiences and challenging themselves, each grows as a whole person. They also tend to be intrinsically motivated (they create for the sake of creating, not for rewards), which is a factor also known to be associated with well-being. Creativity also has the power to heal us psychologically. It can make us more resilient and fill our lives with meaning. “Many of the greatest artistic achievements were born out of intense suffering,” Scott says. For example, Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, chronicling the author’s unimaginable experiences in a concentration camp, is considered by many to be one of the most influential books ever written with more than 10 million copies sold. “While trauma is neither necessary nor sufficient for creativity, it may inspire us to create something that makes sense of our inner turmoil in our darkest moments,” Scott says. In her pioneering research on post-traumatic growth, Marie Forgeard, Ph.D., of McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School, asked more than 300 people to describe the most stressful experiences in their lives. She found that people who perceived experiencing higher levels of distress as a result of adversity also said they experienced enhanced creativity. Those who scored high in being open to experience perceived more changes in creativity than those scoring lower in openness to experience. In a series of studies with more than 1,000 participants, Scott and his colleagues found that being open to new experiences was the single-most consistent personality trait that predicted creative achievement across the arts and sciences. “Being open consists of being intellectually curious and open to engaging with your emotions, fantasy and beauty,” he says. Marie also found that those who reported creative growth showed growth in other areas of their lives as well, such as seeing new possibilities, and reporting both positive and negative changes in interpersonal relationships. Because the meaning-making facet of creative thinking and expression appears to contribute most to growth after trauma, art therapy and expressive writing can be powerful tools for personal growth, Marie says. For instance, James (Jamie) Pennebaker, Ph.D., at the University of Texas found that writing for just 15 to 20 minutes a day about an emotionally charged topic, whether positive or negative, helps individuals better understand and express their feelings. It can also decrease stress, increase cognitive functions such as working memory and improve the immune system. Creativity may also strengthen our relationships. Ruth Richards, Ph.D., a professor at Saybrook University and researcher at Harvard Medical School who helped develop the term “everyday creativity,” asserts that creativity makes us more open, conscious, caring and collaborative. Relationship science suggests these attributes may also be associated with flourishing bonds. “While essential to creativity, being open and receptive to your partner may be essential to personal relationships as well,” Scott says. Creativity Boosters So, how can we increase our creativity in order to yield personal and relational benefits? In Wired to Create, the authors suggest we “cultivate a spirit of nonconformity, which can foster personality traits and thinking habits that are important to creative achievement.” They also suggest avoiding routines, which keeps us stuck in conventional thinking patterns and ways of doing things. Changing our routines helps us avoid what’s known in Gestalt psychology as “functional fixedness,” a cognitive bias that limits us to using an object in only its intended way and prevents us from seeking out new possibilities. “Essentially, any new and unusual experience helps us to be flexible in our thinking because it takes us out of our ordinary experience and forces us to think differently,” Scott says. For example, studying abroad has been associated with increased creativity in students. It challenges the mind to think differently and opens us up to new customs and alternate ways of doing things. Since we are wired to create, Scott recommends we “treat all of life’s meaningful moments as potential sources of inspiration. Take risks and be prepared to fail. Only through constantly practicing—and embracing—the habits of a creative lifestyle will you unleash your own ‘inner artist,’” he says.