What Harvard and Yale can teach you about being HAPPY

YALE University in the US is one of the most august educational institutions in the world, with 62 Nobel Prize winners to its name in fields as varied as literature, chemistry and economics.

But its most popular online course as the planet comes to terms with the coronavirus pandemic is one called ‘The Science of Wellbeing’. Originally taught on campus in spring 2018 by psychology professor Laurie Santos, it now has nearly 2.5million subscribers.

This astonishing level of interest does not surprise me. So much of modern life is built around consumerism, the belief that material wealth will make us happy. As long ago as 2005, 71 per cent of respondents in a large survey of US college students said that being well off financially was important to them. And I think we can all agree that there has been no let-up in the tide of consumerism.

In many cases, however, an obsession with material things can lead to feelings of inadequacy and misery. Indeed, most surveys of the national mood show we are slightly less happy now than we were in the 1940s.

And if ever there was a time to focus on wellbeing, then it is now, when the world is being held to ransom by Covid-19.

For those who have lost a loved one to the coronavirus, these are obviously incredibly difficult times. For others, it’s been a period of reflection and learning.

I’ve signed up for Harvard University’s online course in opera. I know nothing about the subject and it’s free, so why not!

But I’ve also become fascinated by Professor Santos’s thinking on the subject of wellbeing.

Her course reveals misconceptions about what makes us happy — and the steps we can take to live a more fulfilling life. And I’m rather chuffed to see that she recommends some of the things I’ve advised in this column over the years. For example, showing gratitude, focusing on small, everyday pleasures, and so on.

But it’s one thing to know what should be done and quite another to act upon it.

THIS issue is addressed by Professor Santos. She calls it the ‘GI Joe Fallacy’, a reference to the 1980s American action hero of a cartoon strip who signed off with the words: ‘Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.’

But if we are to change our behaviour, it’s not enough to just know what should be done, we need to enact the solutions repeatedly in order for it to become a habit.

This is something I’ve seen when working in drugs services. It’s all very well spending years doing therapy, trying to understand what led

MUCH has been made of the fact that people with serious medical conditions are delaying getting medical help, either through fear of catching Covid-19 or because they don’t want to be a burden. But let’s not forget those with severe mental health problems. I worry that some patients, so desperate that they are on the verge of suicide, think help is ‘closed’ to them and are trying to cope alone. If you are worried about your mental health, contact your GP. And if you’re already receiving treatment from a mental health service and you’re struggling, don’t hesitate to contact them. you to become an addict, but you still have to stop taking drugs and make changes in your life.

The same is true with issues relating to our mood. These can be tackled with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which helps people manage their problems by changing the way they think.

Because happiness isn’t something that just befalls us, it’s something we have to work on.

This is why I suspect the Yale course is so popular. It combines theory with what it calls ‘re-wirements’ — practical tasks aimed at changing habits.

Patients embarking on CBT often ask: can we really teach ourselves to be happy? Professor Santos addresses this by quoting research that shows about 50 per cent of our happiness is down to genetics. Our personality dictates if we are a glass half-full or glass half-empty kind of person.

Only 10 per cent of our happiness can be attributed to external life events. But 40 per cent is down to our thoughts and actions. And these are things we can change.

It’s easily said, I know, but less straightforward to carry out, for it involves challenging things we take for granted.

One of the exercises the course recommends, and it doesn’t require much effort, is to practise being kind every day for a week.

It sounds simple and yet it’s an incredibly powerful exercise. It has been shown to have a greater impact on our happiness than a pay rise or job promotion.

After all, it’s the little things like this that help us embark on a path of making ourselves happier. As GI Joe would say: ‘Now you know!’