Happy New Year. What does that mean……?
Happy New Year?
Happiness is such a vague concept. What does it really mean? We know we can’t be happy all the time, so maybe we need to be just ‘happy enough’? Will making short-term New Year resolutions help? Erm probably not…
Recent research indicates that psychological flexibility is the key to greater happiness and well-being - being open to emotional experiences and the ability to tolerate periods of discomfort allow us to move towards a richer, more meaningful existence. But what can we actually DO to help ourselves feel happier?
So, here are 11 actions for happiness to get you thinking:
1. Be kind – helping others is an excellent source of well-being, giving our brain a hormone boost and taking our minds off our own problems. As social animals, being kind to others helps us feel ‘connected’, loving and useful which is hugely important for our well-being and sense of belonging.
2. Build solid connections - building good relationships with family or friends provides love, meaning, and support, so increasing feelings of self-worth. Having a supportive social network helps our immune system, lowers the risk of heart disease, and reduces mental decline as we age. These connections take time and effort and there are few shortcuts to this one. Prioritise your tribe!
3. Mind that body – looking after ourselves physically – with exercise, rest, and healthy nourishment - impacts how we feel about ourselves and how our bodies function. Exercise is great for psychological health and managing stress as well as helping us to sleep better. It even improves brain function so to get happy, get moving!
4. Be mindful - mindfulness reduces stress, helps us manage our emotions and helps us tune into how we and others are feeling. Always thinking about yesterday and tomorrow often brings regrets and anxieties so the more we can stay in the moment, noticing the enjoyment of everyday things, the more enriching life will feel. Everyone can learn to be more mindful – consider it training for your brain.
5. Try new things - human beings have a psychological need for mastery which gives us a sense of competence as we use and develop our skills and capabilities. Exploring something new fuels our creativity, generating new brain cells and neural connections, all of which will help keep us stay passionate about life.
6. Be optimistic – a hopeful outlook means we are more likely to experience positive emotions, feel confident, and enjoy better physical and mental health. Hope and optimism contribute hugely to our resilience too, helping us cope with the inevitable tough times, supporting us to approach relationships constructively and take a more active approach to problems.
7. Set goals - finding and working towards meaningful goals is a way of connecting the present to our future which also boosts happiness. Taking future-focused practical actions enables us to feel more in control of the future. These will also help prevent too many distractions and can keep us from being led down ‘dead-end’ roads.
8. Build resilience – life is hard! Disappointment, grief and sadness are inevitable. Most of us will experience traumatic events, such as the loss of someone we love, money worries, an accident or serious illness, at some point. Being resilient means over time we can find ways to cope constructively, accept what has happened, and then move forward.
Studies from psychology and neuroscience have shown that we can learn skills that build resilience. We can nurture our internal and external resources to help us respond flexibly, recover more quickly and become wiser and more compassionate as a result. The same skills can help us manage the fear of embracing new opportunities which will make life feel rich and meaningful again.
As concentration camp survivor, Dr. Viktor Frankl, said, “Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” Active coping isn’t about ignoring our struggles but taking constructive action in spite of them. You never need to struggle alone - reaching out and asking for help when you need it is often a key factor in recovery.
9. Invite positivity - we can and often need to train our brain to look for the positive around us. This does not mean ignoring difficulty but really noticing what is right. Writing down three good things experienced in a day that you feel grateful for, however small, for seven days, will help increase well-being and can be more effective at boosting low mood than anti-depressants.
Our brains naturally focus on what's wrong rather than what’s right as they are still primed to face life-or-death situations. It was safer to interpret neutral signals as potential danger. Our brain still responds in this way, causing us to experience unpleasant emotions, dwell on things that are potentially wrong, and overlook what’s good. This is known as 'negativity bias'. We attempt to avoid difficulty through the ‘fight, flight, or freeze’ response, which is usually counterproductive.
Emotions are more than feelings. They include momentary physiological changes which influence our actions, for good or bad. Positive emotions have the power to bring in a multitude of benefits - even fleetingly pleasant emotions broaden our perceptual fields, causing us to literally see more, be more open and trusting of others, see more options and be more open to ideas. These moments add up, over time building our psychological resources and our resilience.
We may need to create these positive moments and encourage our brains to be more aware of them when they happen. Not taking pleasures for granted, however small, is a big step forward. Noticing who and what attracts these positive feelings in you and actively treasuring them will help you notice sources of happiness you may have been missing!
10 Be your own best friend - how we feel about ourselves has a big influence on how happy we are. Accepting that we all have strengths and weaknesses, we all make mistakes and sometimes fail is a key component of psychological well-being. Accepting this with self-compassion means we are more able to learn from any mistakes and move on, less likely to feel ashamed and withdraw from others.
Social media has made it easy to compare how we feel about ourselves to how we perceive other people and their lives. Yet most of us only post the best or filtered images online. Being more able to accept our whole self, to be real rather than trying to be perfect is an important foundation for a happier life.
Being your own best friend and learning to be self-compassionate will help your relationships with everyone and enable you to be ‘real’ without fear of judgment. The less we judge ourselves, the less we tend to judge others too so the happiness effect is a widespread one!
Many of us are harsher on ourselves than we are on others. Our inner critic wants the best for us but it can have the opposite effect. An overly critical inner voice activates the threat system in our primitive emotional brain, causing fear and shame, which can make us less able to improve and grow. The good news is we can train our inner voice to be more like a wise, kind and helpful friend who will help us to feel happier and more supported.
Self-compassion benefits our connections with others, making us more able to see their perspective, and more likely to forgive by helping us accept others’ limitations and mistakes too.
11. Find the meaning – finding meaning in life can feel like an impossible topic, one that philosophers and psychologists through the ages have long tried to decipher. At its core, it is a sense of being a part of something bigger beyond ourselves. We are all connected to the world around us in a myriad of ways which means there are many ways we can make a difference.
When people are asked what happiness means to them, their initial thoughts usually describe pleasures in the moment. However, soon their thoughts turn to a different type of happiness derived from friends, family, learning, creative pursuits, music or art, nature, faith – all things that give life meaning. We often hear of survivors of terrible tragedies who say that their experience has given them an appreciation of what really matters in their life. Working on these things does not always feel pleasurable at the time but brings longer-term fulfillment.
The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, described this type of happiness as more important than pleasure - ‘activities of the soul that are in accord with virtue’. These activities help us strive towards the best within us.
Your own sense of meaning will probably change over your lifetime, so time reflecting on what makes meaning for you at each stage of life is key. If there is one resolution we can all make this January to create happiness in the long term for ourselves and those around us, it would be to take the time to explore this aspect of yourself.
Imagine you are at the end of your life, looking back over it all. What is it you feel most proud of? What advice would you give to your current self about what matters most? How would you like to be remembered?
People who have a sense of meaning in life will tend to experience more positive emotions, feel more optimistic, have greater life satisfaction, more stable relationships, and be able to use their character strengths to feel better about themselves - basically a wonderful recipe for happiness.
Seek Support
If you feel you would benefit from some support in creating greater chances for happiness in 2023 and beyond, consider getting in touch. I am a Quest-trained Cognitive Hypnotherapist and Coach.
Together, we can help you create a fresh mindset and ensure you can make any positive changes needed to bring more happiness your way.
Call 07989 535527 or email ali@alisonscotthypnotherapy.co.uk
HAPPY New Year!
Happy New Year 2023!