What makes us happy? Is it heritage, environment, or other factors? Professor Michael Dahlen has researched the topic — here you get his best advice on how to find more happiness in your own life.
How happy are you on a scale of 1 to 10?
Yes, most of us are sometimes at the top of that scale, but extreme happiness has a best-before date. It lasts for 3 months!
Whether you have moved to the Caribbean, met the big love, or got the dream job — you will go down to your normal level of happiness after a few months. This is how you learn in “A little book about happiness” by Michael Dahlen, the author, professor of economics at the Stockholm School of Economics, and happiness researcher.
Purely scientifically, happiness is measured in heart rate, blood pressure, cortisol levels, and hormones, and neurotransmitters, but also in our own assessments of how happy we are. And happiness offers many benefits — we become more creative, succeed better in both sports, love, and career. And live a little longer and get a little less cold.
Professor Dahlen himself has a flower tattooed on his right hand as a reminder that it blooms by finding the sun wherever it has its roots. For, as he himself writes in the new book, he has “never been particularly good at being happy himself, nor had a penchant for melancholy.” And that’s exactly why he keeps coming back to research what makes us happy. Below you will find 8 of the happiness researcher’s best advice.
1. Choose the right parents
Are you a basic happy person who typically wakes up every day in a good mood? Then there is a pretty good chance that you have inherited the happiness genes of your parents. Either the 5-HTT gene that controls the transport of serotonin in the brain or the gene with the strange name FAHH rs324420, which controls the pain and stress threshold.
How happy we are is controlled 50 percent of our genes, the researchers have come to that by studying identical twins who have grown up separately — they were mainly at the same “happiness level” regardless of environment.
But what do we do who are not so lucky to have radiant, rays of sunshine from some parents? Is it too late for us? No, absolutely not.
First, we will comfort ourselves with the fact that happiness looks different to different people, and then find out what our very own happiness looks like and then cultivate it. It may be just a little low-key or discreet.
Then we should think that there is a large proportion left of our “happiness quota” — which is not affected by our genes at all. And 25 percent depends on the people we surround ourselves with daily. So start by gathering a “family of friends” of confident, laughable, harmonious people.
2. Believe in something
Research shows that people who have faith are a little happier. It does not have to be a spiritual belief, you can believe in science or love or anything else. A belief makes you partly feel a greater meaning in life and partly feel a community with others who believe in the same thing.
3. Take the victory in advance
If you grew up hearing: “You should not sell the skin until the bear has been shot”, you may think that it is wrong. It is very good to enjoy your own victories in advance. Even if you do not win, you have enjoyed it beforehand and your brain has had a great time when you have imagined coming to the finish line under Inga-låmi in a super time or fantasizing about how nice it will be when you paint the guest room.
4. Celebrate me
A sure trick to experience a little more everyday happiness is to start recording all the good that is actually happening around you on a regular day. Test it by writing down (or taking a mental note) all the progress and all the cool things you are involved in. The bus was on schedule, the coffee was good, your colleague said something funny, your child has had a great time… It may feel a little small to count things to be grateful for. But blow in it, count, and celebrate!
5. Take the victory in arrears as well
Nostalgic people are happier than others, says the research. Quite simply because they relive happy events. The somewhat melancholy happiness researcher Michael Dahlin says that he has gone back to his not so simple childhood and found and seen things that he had not noticed as a child, but which he now as an adult can see the value of — and that makes him happy. So go on a treasure hunt in the past! The fact that you actually increase your own feeling of happiness by thinking about nice things you have experienced can also explain why older people generally say they were happier when they were younger. They have somehow had time to replenish their “happiness account” and can walk around reminiscing with a smile.
6. Move
Many studies say the same thing — those who move become a little happier. and you will be happiest if you move so that you get warm in the body. What causes it? Well, on the one hand, physical activity releases hormones such as endorphins and dopamine that give an increased feeling of joy and well-being. On the one hand, serotonin is secreted which makes you sleep better — and who does not get happier from a good night’s sleep?
6. Find your «flow»
Something that really makes us happy is when we are doing something we are completely engrossed in when time stops and we just feel that we are good at this. Do more of what you enjoy doing: drawing, carpentry, loose integral calculations (Professor Dahlen’s own “flow” thing!), Knitting or baking. And a tip! You have to practice what gives you a ‘flow’ because you have to know it so well that you do not have to consciously think about what you are doing. And when you are “in the zone”, then happiness can float to the surface like a cork.
7. Please
When you do something kind, you are filled with something that can be compared to “a warm inner glow”. It does not have to be so advanced — to let someone in a hurry slip by, laugh and say thank you, or take other people’s children when you are still driving your own to train. This also has a long-term effect as well, because when you are kind, others are happy and are friendlier to you than they might otherwise be.
8. Be together
In South Korea, where many people live alone, “eating movies” are trending on YouTube (search for “making”) — here you can hang out and eat with a virtual friend if you feel lonely. But for a Scandinavian, it will probably be too much slurping and slapping, I think. But associating with others is a way to increase one’s own “happiness quota.” Just meeting other people’s eyes is an easy way to feel community and become a little happier.
