So my PBS Pledge Special habit is back in full effect. Dr. Joel Fuhrman has a new one where he aggressively tells me to eat mushrooms and onions. I’m watching the Rick Steve’s Hidden Europe show every time it is on. Plus they are rerunning Dr. Denese’s skin care lecture where at the end of it, I’m convinced I need to buy glycolic acid facial wipes lest I look sixty. In the middle of all these, there’s a new show that debuted: The Happiness Advantage with Shawn Achor.
My pad of paper and I were all over it.
Shawn Achor teaches Positive Psychology at Harvard and lectures around the world on his research about happiness. Apparently, “when X, Y & Z happens, then I’ll be happy” is not the way to live your life, according to Achor. So there’s decades of that behavior I need to unlearn. Thankfully for me, he has a few Happiness Habits to change the way you experience life. Because, as he says, only 10 % of your happiness depends on external things, like the dark chocolate almond butter I got at Target. 90% is based on how your brain views the world, like how the dark chocolate almond butter wasn’t worth enduring the Target parking lot on a Saturday. It was still tasty though.
Achor’s 5 Habits To Improve Happiness:
- The 3 Gratitudes – Write or say three new things you are grateful for each day for 21 days. Be specific and no repeats. Didn’t Oprah have a Gratitude Journal? I wonder if she had any repeats like, “I’m grateful for my plentiful income” and then “My enormous vat of cash lifts my spirit”. Because that would be cheating. No repeats!
- The Doubler – For two minutes a day (for 21 days again), write down all the details of something meaningful that happened the day before. The theory is that by “reliving” the experience, you get double the joyful mojo. (Side note: I just looked up the origin of “mojo” on Wikipedia. It is derived from the name of an amulet known as a “prayer in a bag” from the hoodoo belief. Then I had to look up “hoodoo” which is an African-American folk magic, also known as conjure. It’s difficult to get out once you’ve entered the Wikipedia Rabbit Hole.)
- The Fun Fifteen – I knew it! I knew exercise had to be in there somewhere. Exercise and Omega 3 Fatty Acids are mentioned in almost every PBS Pledge Special. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rick Steves mentioned it when touring the Greek island of Hydra. Anyway, Achor suggests adding 15 mindful minutes of fun physical activity. The key word is fun. That’s what I’m still working on…
- The Ripple Effect – Consciously add three smiles a day. We apparently have mirror neurons which make us smile when we see someone else do it. Also, he says, if you put a pen in your mouth sideways, the corners of your mouth turn up and your brain thinks you smiled and releases dopamine. Which makes you feel you good even though you just manipulated your own brain. So smile away! Just don’t be creepy about it.
- Charge Your Battery – Reconnect to your social support network i.e. friends and family. For the next few days, take two minutes to write a positive note to someone in your support system. Again, don’t be creepy about it. This one might be a little difficult to do. I keep my feelings pretty close in so it might be a little strange to suddenly receive an email from me saying, “Hey! Remember when you gave me one half of your Kit Kat? That was crazy generous. And it meant a lot to me. A lot.” Actually, I think my friends will think that is hilarious.
What else did I learn from The Happiness Advantage? Happiness is neither a warm gun or a warm puppy but rather a choice. There is something Achor calls “activation energy” which is the energy that it takes to begin an activity. If it takes more than 20 seconds to begin it, then you are less likely to do that activity. He then talked about how he put his guitar in the middle of the room so that he would practice. If that’s the case, then I need to put my bass guitar in the fridge.
