HAPPINESS

Happiness can be elusive. We examine what creates a happy state and how to increase and maintain your own contentedness.

“PEOPLE THINK ‘IF I HAVE MOR E MONEY, I’LL BE HAPPY’.” ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DELYSE HUTCHINSON

In an ideal world, we’d all like to be happy, but what does ‘happiness’ mean? Is it the same for everyone? Is it actually achievable? Or even desirable? And is happiness the same as wellbeing? We examine how to understand what creates a happy state and how to increase and maintain your own level of contentedness.

It’s been 10 years since the General Assembly called on United Nations Member States to adopt happiness as a priority. The resolution stated that “the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal”. Annual International Day of Happiness and the World Happiness Report followed, with New Zealand ranking 9th and Australia ranking 12th happiest country in the world in the 2021 report. “I believe that the very purpose of our life is happiness,’’ said the Dalai Lama, speaking via video link at the Happiness and its Causes Conference 2018, held annually in Australia. It’s official: the pressure is on to be happy.

Over the past decade, an abundance of research on happiness has spawned a glut of apps, podcasts, books, TED talks, services, technology and even festivals promising to optimise our happiness. Companies employ happiness officers and can track employee happiness levels.

Individuals can procure happiness consultants. According to the Global Wellness Institute, the global wellness economy is worth US$4.5 trillion, with the mental wellness sector worth $121 billion. So now, after a decade dedicated to the global pursuit of happiness, do we know more about how to be happy than ever before?

MEASURING HAPPINESS

The study and measurement of happiness has turned what many considered a subjective feeling into the quantifiable. The rankings in the World Happiness Report 2021 that placed New Zealand 9th and Australia 12th out of 95 countries used data from Gallup World Poll surveys 2018-2020.

They are based on answers to the main life evaluation question asked in the poll called the Cantril ladder – which asks respondents to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale.

The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index has been undertaking annual surveys on the life satisfaction of Australians for two decades. The survey asks people about their satisfaction with seven key areas of their life, which have been proven to influence overall life satisfaction. The top three of these areas are referred to as the ‘golden triangle of happiness’. These are the ones we find have the biggest role in impacting overall wellbeing. First is your relationships with people around you – family, friends, significant others and work colleagues, and the quality of those relationships. Second is the standard of living – having enough money to be comfortable and afford to live and do the things you enjoy.

The third is achieving or having a purpose or meaning in life – having something in your life that you do that carries some significance to you.

“Having that sense of purpose is very important to wellbeing,’’ says Associate Professor Delyse Hutchinson, School of Psychology, Deakin University and Lead Researcher of the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index. The remaining four include physical and mental health, connectedness to your community, sense of future security, and sense of personal safety.

HAPPINESS VS WELLBEING

The waters have been muddied with the overuse of these terms, which have become interchangeable, but ‘happiness’ and ‘wellbeing’ have significant differences. “Happiness refers more to a state or mood, an idea that in the moment you can feel really happy and excited about something, but in the next moment you can be really angry or frustrated about something,’’ says Hutchinson. “Happiness, the way we define it in psychology, is often that it is a more transient state of mood that jumps around a bit depending on what is happening. Wellbeing is more stable; a satisfaction or contentment with one’s life. That is how, from our perspective, they fundamentally differ, but of course they are interrelated – of course if you are feeling happy in a moment that can influence your wellbeing.”

According to the popularised Happiness Pie Chart first published by researchers Lyubomirsky, Sheldon and

Schkade in 2005, approximately 50 per cent of a person’s happiness is down to their genes, 10 per cent is due to life circumstances, and the remaining 40% is dependent on your daily activities.

A number of studies have made connections between genetics and happiness. A 2011 study on the serotonin transporter gene that affects processing of positive and negative emotional stimuli showed that those with a more efficient serotonin transporter gene reported significantly higher levels of life satisfaction. Another 2011 study showed that the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) is related to psychological resources, including optimism, mastery and self-esteem, which are proven to buffer the negative effects of stress. Oxytocin is a hormone that contributes to positive emotion and social bonding.

Optimism has been tied to resilience in a number of longitudinal studies, says Hutchinson.

“We see resilience as the ability to bounce back from adversity and get through it without it impacting your life too greatly. You might momentarily be pulled down but you bounce back. There is no doubt that having a more positive, optimistic outlook is associated with a capacity to bounce back better.’’

Where optimism is defined as hopefulness and confidence about the future or success of something, positivity is the day-to-day practice of being upbeat in attitude. With a whopping 40 per cent slice of the happiness pie attributed to our daily activities, there are a number of daily practices that can be utilised with the aim of increasing our happiness.

RICHES VS RELATIONSHIPS

Hutchinson says her role in communicating the findings found in the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index is an important aspect, educating people about what wellbeing is so they understand what will and what won’t make them happy. “If you understand what makes up a person’s wellbeing, you can perhaps focus on those areas. For example, people think ‘If I have more money I’ll be happier’. Up to a certain point that is true as it can have a big impact on your life. But after a certain point that is no longer true, that more money doesn’t buy you more happiness, relatively speaking. Our research shows you’re much better off investing time in things like the quality of your relationships and trying to improve or build those, in terms of improving your overall wellbeing,’’ she says.

Meredith Yardley, happiness specialist and laughter coach, says understanding that happiness – like all emotions – is transient is a good starting point. “’Even when you’re having the best day of your life, that is not going to go on forever, you can just enjoy it now. Live in the moment. When you are having a really awful day, you know it’s going to pass and you accept the things you can learn from that,’’ says Yardley. She teaches laughter yoga and breathwork and is a staunch believer in those practices having great effects on improving a person’s happiness.

“If you can laugh for 30 seconds in the morning, you can change your whole day. You actually change the state you’re living in to a more positive state because when you laugh, your body releases a chemical cocktail of endorphins that make you feel good such as serotonin, oxytocin and dopamine,’’ says Yardley. Laughing stops people taking shallow breaths and forces them to take deeper inhalations, which relaxes our bodies.

“It’s also about the breath because as adults, we become very lazy with our breathing. We tend to just breathe from the top part of our body, which triggers a stress response in your body which releases stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline and can cause health problems,’’ says Yardley. Meditation can also be used to calm and deepen your breath.

The Greater Good Science Center, University of California Berkeley offers a ‘Science of Happiness’ course where participants explore the roots of a happy, meaningful life by applying the findings of research into positive psychology to their own lives. Participants who have completed the course have reported significant increases in their happiness and decreases in their levels of stress and loneliness. Participants are encouraged to put into practice ways of improving their human connections through kindness, forgiveness and spending money on others instead of themselves. Topics covered include mindfulness, compassion and gratitude. A 2018 White Paper entitled ‘The Science of Gratitude’ produced by Berkeley University shows that writing down things you’re grateful for can actually strengthen your immune system and improve your sleep.

THE LITTLE THINGS

Many New Zealanders and Australians have felt gratitude during the pandemic for living in countries that have been less impacted compared with others. Lockdowns have made people appreciate and reflect upon the importance of the little things in life that we take for granted, like sitting in a coffee shop, meeting with friends and having the ability to travel, some even missing aspects of being in the office and doing the school run.

The last Australian Unity Wellbeing Survey was undertaken during the tail end of the first lockdown in April-May 2020. A dip was expected, but surprising positives were found that seemed to buffer people’s resilience, producing results that were on a par with previous surveys. “People reported feeling greater gratitude, greater empathy for others, reflecting on the quality of life we have here, commenting on spending more time with family, greater work-life balance, not having the commute. ‘Life not being as busy’ was another thing people talked about,’’ says Hutchinson.

She believes one of the most important aspects – earning its rightful place as a pillar in the golden triangle of happiness – is having good relationships, especially in challenging times. “When you feel down and out, having people that care about you, that you can turn to for support and friendship whom you love, is a huge factor in helping people recover from adversity. And don’t forget to enjoy the everyday moments of joy and meaning in life – simple as they may be, they are the building blocks of happiness.”