How to be happy during a pandemic

hAPPINESS is lower, insomnia is higher and there has been an increased incidence of mental health issues during the pandemic. This raises the question of how people can find more ways to be happy during these difficult times. We humans are often creatures of habit, slow to adjust to new circumstances, so which changes should we make?

One striking feature of the pandemic is that US personal savings rates have spiked. In April, the rate exceeded 30 percent. It has been falling, down to 19.5 percent in June, and will probably fall further yet. But it is still much higher than it was in the pre-covid era, when it ranged from 3 percent to 8 percent.

Despite these falling rates, Americans probably ought to spend even more. Savings have been so high in part because people are hoarding resources for an uncertain future. But a lot of the explanation, especially for those with higher incomes, is that planned expenditures became impossible, dangerous or inconvenient. Instead of flying to Paris and staying at a hotel on the Seine, they drove to a cabin in Maine or West Virginia. Or maybe they postponed that purchase of a new car or spent less time browsing in a bookstore. In any case, the end result is less spending and more savings, whether conscious or not.

Those may well have been prudent decisions. Still, many of us are not spending enough money having fun. We have been too slow to develop new, Covidcompatible interests.

So think how you might achieve more pleasure from spending money. Ordering more books? Spending more time at the farmer’s market? Subscribing to more online newsletters? If you wish to see the new movie “Tenet,” for example, but fear virus exposure, you and your friends may be able to rent out a whole theater for less than $200.

To some extent people are already doing such things. But it is a common result in empirical economics that consumption habits are slow to adjust to changing circumstances, especially unprecedented circumstances. It is not enough for you to develop new spending habits—you should double down on them.

You also should be giving more to charity. Remittances from the US to Mexico have risen recently, an unusual outcome in a typical recession. Part of the story is that Mexican migrants have fewer ways to spend their money in the US, due to Covid-related restrictions, and their relatives and friends in Mexico are in needier positions. So follow their lead and do more to help people around the world. It might prove more rewarding than buying more heirloom tomatoes.