Lessons in Finding Happiness During Hard Times

The good news is, we can all reach for it. After a crisis, it's estimated that up to two-thirds of adults actually experience an increase in well-being that the American Psychological Association calls post-traumatic growth.

Getting to these constructive emotional states begins with acknowledging the bad, Sirois says. “I could binge-watch Netflix for seven hours a day, but that won't sustain me spiritually or emotionally or in my relationships,” she says. “Let yourself feel what you're really feeling.”

Then think about what's important to you right now.

"What's in line with your values? That could be more kindness, spirituality, appreciating life in all its big and small moments, using your own strengths more in the world,” Sirois says. Finally, act on these goals. Go slowly. Take small steps. “When you pay attention to how you shape your life right now, you won't feel victimized by what's going on,” she says. “Resilient people know they have this choice. Happiness doesn't come from the outside.”

Lesson 2: Give up wrong ideas about happiness

Laurie Santos knows a lot about unhappy people. Witnessing the stress and joylessness of her students at Yale, the psychology professor developed a course in 2018 titled Psychology and the Good Life that revealed the physical and emotional underpinnings of happiness, and what could be done to increase them. The course became an instant campus phenomenon — and then a worldwide sensation. Nearly a million people of all ages signed up for a free online version in the first three months of this year.

The 10-session online class romps through all of the science-backed strategies for happiness you've probably heard about, like eating well, sleeping well, exercising and managing stress. But Santos also makes a big point of dispelling misconceptions that block true well-being.

Turns out, we're terrible at predicting what will actually make us happy, so we go after the wrong things (money, status) and overlook the unique, everyday stuff that truly jazzes us. To start, we compare ourselves to others, rather than pursuing our own bliss. “Comparing yourself to other people is a great way to feel less happy,” Santos says. Case in point: In studies of Olympic medalists, bronze medalists looked genuinely happier with their third-place win than silver medalists. “It's easy to beat yourself up because you didn't get the gold medal,” Santos says, “and forget about the amazing experience you're having."

We also get so used to the good stuff in our lives that we forget to immerse ourselves in it. And we undervalue the simple stuff because it just seems so … simple. Bottom line: “Our minds suck at happiness,” Santos says. “They're naturally wired for survival. We pay more attention to trouble. You have to work at happiness.”

Three strategies from her course, and from other experts, have been proved to increase happiness.

Connect

Human connection is the classic recipe, the chicken soup for happiness, underscored by some of the most credible experts in the field. Among them is Robert Waldinger, M.D., director of the 83-year-old Harvard Study of Adult Development, considered the world's longest-running study of well-being.

”The clearest message we get from our study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier, period,” he says. A sense of joy seems to reach into our cells, reducing corrosive forces like inflammation and stress that “break down multiple body systems over time like your joints, your cardiovascular system, your brain,” Waldinger notes.

Another key finding: “It's not the number of friends you have or whether you're in a committed relationship. It's the quality of your relationships that matters,” Waldinger says. “That's something we can work on at any age.”

Move … and breathe

Physical activity can boost your happiness by reducing stress and releasing feel-good brain chemicals. Yoga is a good choice.

“The combination of simple postures with deep breathing can make you feel happier,” says Amy Weintraub, an instructor and author of Yoga for Depression. “It brings more oxygen to your brain, stimulates your vagus nerve, which calms the anxious mind and, over time, can create beneficial brain changes, too.”

Take a moment to savor

Pausing to soak in a wonderful moment — a sunrise, the morning's birdsong, the joy of our pets — is a great way to learn how to savor. Or you can recall a cherished memory, play music linked to a special moment or linger over some old photos. “A regular savoring habit can increase happiness for longer periods of time,” says Jennifer Smith, director of research at Mather Institute in Evanston, Illinois.

Lesson 3: Work with your happiness biology

Here's some optimistic news: As we move through our later years, the typical person grows steadily happier. “There really is a U-curve of happiness,” says Dartmouth College economist David Blanchflower, who published two headline-grabbing papers on the subject in January. Put simply, people in general hit high levels of happiness in their early 20s, low levels in middle age (around age 47, Blanchflower says) and then start seeing a steady increase in joy from that point on.

We're not talking about a cultural quirk of Americans; the study involved people from 132 countries. “The U-curve occurred in places where wages are high and where they're low, in countries at the top and the bottom of life expectancy,” he says.

What explains this curve? “Maybe it's genes,” Blanchflower says. “Maybe it's coming to terms with our limitations. Whatever the reason, it's ingrained in us."

Frank Infurna, an Arizona State University psychologist, has his own theory. He has just finished studying 360 midlife women and men and was struck by how much more stress they were under than he ever realized.

“We found that midlife has become a time of crisis,” Infurna says. “But it's not the kind of crisis that exists in popular imagination” — the foolhardy quest to regain the glory days of youth. “The midlife crisis experienced by most people is subtler, more nuanced.” It's a “big squeeze” in which adults face tough choices about how to split their resources — time, emotions, money, skills — between themselves, work, kids and aging parents.

But there's an upside to these challenges. Decades of life experience combine with brain rewiring to create a new kind of happiness for people in their 50s and beyond, says Dilip Jeste, M.D., a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego. These later-life brain changes are as significant as the circuitry upgrades that turn teenagers into adults or that promote good parenting after a first baby.

“In older people who keep themselves physically, mentally and socially active, we see the growth of what we call the neurobiology of wisdom,” Jeste says. “You don't get as upset when things go wrong. You focus on the positive and on people and connections. You feel great when you have a sense of purpose."

In her Emotion & Cognition Lab at the University of Southern California, neuroscientist Mara Mather finds signs of these changes deep in the human brain. She's tracing how the brain reacts to information at different ages. Among her findings: Older people remember and pay attention to positive images (cute babies, happy couples, joyous families) better than negative images. They also remember more positive experiences from their past.

Meanwhile, happiness is turning up in our DNA, too. Meike Bartels is a leading expert on the genetics of joy. Since 2016 the research professor and her team at Vrije University in Amsterdam have discovered 304 “happy” genes. She suspects that more than a thousand genes may be related to emotional well-being. “We've found that 35 to 40 percent of the difference between people's happiness levels is genetic,” she says.

Bartels believes we have to respect the unique things that make each of us happy. They're wired in us. “Some people get a real mood lift from exercise. But others don't. Spending time in nature may increase your happiness but not someone else's,” she says. “People's likes, dislikes and preferences are a deep part of who we are — part of our own unique DNA.”

Few people know how “Here Comes the Sun” came about, but the story captures what Bartels and others have been saying. The song was composed when all seemed to be going wrong within the Beatles. George Harrison just couldn't face yet another stress-filled business meeting with bandmates and accountants, so he played hooky instead and went to the house of his friend Eric Clapton. There he borrowed a guitar and came up with the melody walking around a garden.

At recording time, John Lennon was recovering from a car crash, so he never contributed to the song. The day of the song's mixing was the last time the four Beatles were ever together in a recording studio. From such tension was born one of the happiest songs of our lives.