In this day and age where we are constantly struggling to keep our heads above water and stressing about deadlines, it`s even more important to have a structure to our day. Here is a great but simple article about getting more done everyday by Chad Halvorson:-
"Don't confuse being busy with getting things accomplished. It's possible to work an absurd number of hours without actually making much progress. Unfortunately, being busy is much easier than being productive. So here are 20 tips for making sure you're actually getting the work done.
1. Know where you are and where you want to be.
You need to know both where you are and what you want to accomplish every day. This is not that bulky business plan you never look at. This is about knowing what should happen every single day and which of these tasks will move the needle most for your business.
2. Get enough sleep.
This cannot be overstated. If you're exhausted, you won't get as much done and you'll make more mistakes. Whether you choose to rise early or work late and sleep in, make sure you get enough rest.
3. Get fit.
Getting fit can make a big difference in your productivity and perspective. Making simple, small changes in regards to your physical activity can improve your business and your life, as well as help you get more done and ultimately reach your goals.
4. Take steps toward a deadline.
When you're moving your projects toward completion, you're doing real, important work. If you spend an hour organizing your inbox, what have you accomplished?
5. Use a prioritized checklist.
By having a list of all that needs to be done, with the most important projects first, you'll set yourself up for success. Checking off tasks is satisfying, and you'll ensure the key ones aren't forgotten.
6. Don't overcommit.
This is a great tip from Lifehack. Not only should you not overcommit in a single day, but you should also carefully monitor your overall workload. Don't be afraid to say no sometimes.
7. Close social media.
Close Facebook, Twitter, and anything else that distracts you. If you want to get work done, you'll need to cut off the avenues you use to procrastinate.
8. Forget multitasking.
Multiple studies, including one using MRI images from the University of Michigan, show that effective multitasking is a myth. The brain switches tasks quickly, but too much switching decreases concentration and increases mistakes.
9. Use the Pareto Principle.
Listen to Tim Ferriss and put your focus on the 20 percent of your tasks that give you 80 percent of your results.
10. Focus on service.
When you spend time each day serving others, you'll find yourself feeling so empowered and motivated that tackling your own tasks is a no-brainer.
11. Use time blocks.
Rather than bouncing around from task to task, set blocks of uninterrupted time to work on specific items. Make sure your employees know these are "no-talking times." Focused work will let you get more done quickly.
12. Use a timer.
When working through your tasks, estimate how long they will take and then try to beat the clock. It can make even dull tasks into a fun game, and you'll surprise yourself with how fast you can be.
13. Create routines.
Habits are one of life's strongest forces. The more tasks you can make into habitual routines, the more energy you'll have left for bigger tasks. As the Harvard Business Review notes, we have a limited amount of willpower. Be sure you're circumventing the amount you need to use by implementing good routines.
14. Change your environment.
Doing the same things, in the same place, day after day can cause burnout. Try a change of pace and do your work in a different location.
15. Work out midday.
Exercise has proven benefits when it comes to energy and feeling great. By taking a midday workout break, you can come back to your work refreshed and more productive.
16. Capture fleeting thoughts.
Nothing uses up brainpower like trying not to forget something. By writing it down immediately, you'll free up your mind to focus on other, more productive tasks.
17. Replace "I can't" with "How?"
When it comes to being productive and overcoming burnout, you can't accomplish what you think is impossible. By asking how to accomplish something instead, you'll frame your work as achievable and get more done.
18. If you're struggling, take a break.
Odd as it seems, sometimes the way forward is to stop. Regular breaks will give you a fresh start on your tasks.
19. Handle paper and email once.
By forcing yourself to take action on papers or emails right away, you'll avoid having them pile up into an overwhelming mass. Make it a goal to handle them only once.
20. Eat healthy snacks.
What you eat has a big impact on how you feel. Rather than eating something that will give you a sugar rush and then a crash, focus on healthy foods like nuts or carrots.
Having a focused, productive day isn't always easy. However, by following these tips you should be well on your way to getting all of your truly important tasks done each day. In the end, you'll find yourself truly productive--not just busy."
If you`ve ever broken a resolution and found yourself backtracking on promises you`ve made this article by Mandy Francis will give you hope that you can learn to resist temptation and increase your will power. Here she describes a brand new book that shows you how to do it.
"Ever caved in and eaten a packet of biscuits on a Monday night, despite managing to stick to your diet all weekend? Or splashed out on that must-have pair of shoes, even though you promised yourself you wouldn’t overspend that month?
Then you’re certainly not alone. Despite our very best intentions, keeping control of our impulses, actions and emotions can sometimes feel impossible and demoralising.
So how on Earth do some people seemingly exercise an impossible amount of willpower, while others fail at sticking to even the most basic of tasks?
In The Marshmallow Test — named after an extraordinary psychological experiment — renowned American psychologist Professor Walter Mischel explains how anyone can learn self-restraint.
This could have incredible benefits: recent research from the University of Chicago shows that people with self-discipline have higher self-esteem, are less likely to binge on alcohol or food and even have better relationships.
In The Marshmallow Test American psychologist Professor Walter Mischel explains how anyone can learn self-restraint
Tests have also shown those with self-control tend to be happier day-to-day and more satisfied with their lives. Here, in this exclusive adaptation, with some additional tips and a quiz, we show how Professor Mischel’s findings can help you be happier and more productive than ever before . . .
TEST THAT PROVES THE VALUE OF WILLPOWER
To try to understand the value of willpower, Professor Mischel set up a beautifully simple experiment in the Sixties to test children’s self-control.
The Marshmallow Test, as it became known, and subsequent studies, led to fascinating observations on how willpower can impact our adult lives.
Over seven years, more than 550 children aged four to six were asked to sit alone in a room empty of distractions, except a table with a single marshmallow for each child on it.
The children were told that, if they could resist eating the treat for 15 minutes, they would be rewarded with two marshmallows. But, if they chose to eat the marshmallow before the time was up, that was all they would get.
TEST YOUR WILLPOWER
To discover how much self-control you have, Answer A or B to the following questions:
1 Do you sometimes go shopping, buy chocolate, or go for a drink to relieve stress and anxiety?
A) No B) Yes
2 Do you know exactly where to find your passport, birth certificate and driving licence papers at home?
A) Yes B) No
3 Do you find it hard to keep your opinions to yourself?
A) No B) Yes
4 Do you often buy things — only to find you have one or more in the back of a cupboard at home?
A) No B) Yes
5 Do people — even those you have little in common with — say you are easy to talk to?
A) Yes B) No
6 Do you get distracted easily?
A) No B) Yes
7 Do you often say or do things that feel good in the moment, but regret them later on?
A) Yes B) No
8 Do you have a hard time breaking bad habits?
A) No B) Yes
If most of your answers were As, you have good self-control most of the time — but you’ll undoubtedly find some useful advice here.
If half of your answers were Bs, self-control is a struggle for you. See the tips and tricks, top right, that will help put you firmly in the driving seat.
Some children couldn’t wait, and ate the marshmallow within seconds of being left alone with it. Those with more willpower, however, used various techniques to stop themselves from eating it — turning their back on the treat, swinging their legs and singing songs in a bid to resist temptation.
Of the 550 children who took part in the experiment, a minority ate the marshmallow immediately. Of those who attempted to delay, a third deferred gratification long enough to get the second treat.
The experiment didn’t stop there, however. Decades later, when the researchers went back to these children, it transpired that those who waited longest for the marshmallows in the original test — the ones who demonstrated the most self-control — went on to have higher exam scores than the children who couldn’t wait.
As the children became adults, those who had exhibited the most self-control were also shown to have a healthier body weight, earned more advanced degrees, used fewer recreational drugs and coped better with stress.
WHY DO SOME HAVE MORE SELF-CONTROL THAN OTHERS?
It’s clear self-control can help you succeed in all areas of your life, but if you are naturally impulsive, does that mean you’re destined to struggle with weight, achieve less and crumble under stress?
Not necessarily, according to Professor Mischel. While some people are lucky enough to be born with innate self-control, it can be learned. Our individual levels of self-control stem from two warring parts of our brains.
We have a so-called ‘hot’ part, also known as the limbic system, which regulates basic drives and emotions essential for survival, from fear and anger to hunger and sex. When we use this part of the brain, we tend to make impulsive decisions — deciding to shout and gesticulate at a motorist who has annoyed us, for example, or drink more than we know we should at a party.
The ‘cool’ part of the brain is found in a part called the prefrontal cortex. It is complex, reflective and slower to activate. This cool, controlled system in the brain is crucial for considering the future.
When we use the ‘cool’ part of our brains to make choices, we weigh up the pros and cons carefully, and feel more in control of our decisions. We employ the cool part when we decide to choose a healthy snack despite having a chocolate craving, or bite our tongue when our best friend starts talking about something we disagree with.
Both sides of the brain have their advantages and disadvantages. The ‘hot’ limbic system can be useful in fight or flight situations, but is not so handy if you’re offered a cigarette when you are trying to give up smoking. The ‘cool’ prefrontal cortex can help us weigh up decisions, but can stop us taking risks and being spontaneous.
To try to understand the value of willpower, Professor Mischel set up a beautifully simple experiment in the Sixties to test children’s self-control
Both hot and cool parts of the brain continuously interact in a reciprocal relationship. As one becomes more active, the other takes a back seat.
Some people — whether by nature or nurture — appear to be ruled by their ‘cool’ prefrontal cortex and sail through life making careful, sensible decisions.
However, for most of us, the ‘hot’ limbic system overrides the ‘cool’ part of our brain, dashing any self-control we thought we might have and driving us to make rash decisions. Stress and tiredness can also make this more likely.
The good news is that with practice and a few simple tricks, Professor Mischel says you can train your brain to cool its responses to temptation and put yourself back in the driving seat of your self-control.
TRICKS TO BEAT TEMPTATION
Distract yourself
In the Marshmallow Test, the children who managed to avoid eating the treat for longest did so by distracting themselves. As adults, to master self-control in everyday life, Professor Mischel says we need to do exactly the same thing. If you struggle to control your bad habits at home, keep your mind busy with replacement activities.
Make a list of small tasks that need doing around the home and consult it every time you feel your willpower weakening.
Clear out your cutlery drawer, ring a friend, file your old photographs, or go for a walk the next time you feel tempted to raid the fridge, bite your nails or open a bottle of wine.
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If you struggle to control your bad habits at home, keep your mind busy with replacement activities. Make a list of small tasks that need doing around the home and consult it every time you feel your willpower weakening (stock picture)
Take up a hobby that requires a lot of concentration and that you can pick up whenever you feel willpower waning. Teach yourself to knit, fill in crosswords, Google homemade Christmas gifts, or start a DIY project.
When you’re out and about, keep a short list of the reasons you need to exert self-control in your pocket or on your phone and refer to it every time you’re faced with temptation.
Play I-spy in your head next time the tea trolley goes past, or you’re tempted to waste time on social media. Challenge yourself to find ten things in your environment that start with a certain letter.
Keeping your mind otherwise occupied in the face of a ‘hot’ challenge will switch it to the cool part of your brain and help you to start exerting control over it.
Out of sight, out of mind
QUICK TIPS TO KEEP YOU ON TRACK
Believe that you can increase your powers of self-control. Willpower may be an inborn personality trait, but it’s also a skill that can be learned.
Set concrete goals. ‘Stop getting distracted’ and ‘eat more healthily’ are too vague. But ‘I am only allowed to check social media for ten minutes at lunchtime and then after 5pm’, or ‘I will have a portion of fruit or veg with every meal’, are specific goals by which you can take action and measure success.
Avoid temptation, where possible. Don’t keep biscuits in the house if you find them irresistible, and don’t hang out with smokers if you want to stop.
Think ahead and don’t let temptation take you by surprise. Rehearse what you will say and do in testing circumstances. It will buy you the time to get your willpower in gear.
Out of sight really is out of mind when it comes to temptation. In 2006, a study at Cornell University found workers ate more sweets when the container was clear, rather than opaque — and on their desk, rather than 6ft away.
No matter how strong you think your resolve is, there will be times when stress, distractions, or even a devil-may-care mood will put your self-control on the back foot. In these situations, you need to remove temptation altogether.
It can be as simple as asking for a bread basket to be taken off the table when you’re on a diet, or putting your credit card in a bowl of water and freezing it if you know you can’t be trusted with it.
If you know that quick, after-work drink always turns into five, work out a graceful escape plan beforehand, and leave before things get messy.
Use your imagination
According to Professor Mischel, if you can change the way you imagine a craving, you can quickly escape its grip. When the children in Professor Mischel’s test groups were told about the marshmallows in downbeat terms, they were far more likely to sit the test out patiently.
Those who had been given mouth-watering, poetic descriptions of the confectionery were desperate to tuck in straight away.
Professor Mischel, a one-time heavy smoker, says a combination of visualising an upsetting image of a man he had seen in hospital suffering from lung cancer and sniffing a tin full of stale cigarette butts every time he wanted a cigarette helped him kick the habit very quickly.
Think about it: the ‘hot’ decision to try the tempting chocolate cake on the dessert trolley loses its allure if you ‘cool’ it down by imagining a cockroach has just crawled over it.
The impulsive, emotional limbic side of the brain is disarmed by the negative image, allowing the more thoughtful prefrontal cortex to come into play. It’s enough to put you off large slices of cake for life. But then, that’s the idea.
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Professor Mischel, a one-time heavy smoker, says a combination of visualising an upsetting image of a man he had seen in hospital suffering from lung cancer and sniffing a tin full of stale cigarette butts every time he wanted a cigarette helped him kick the habit very quickly (stock picture)
Think ahead
Another powerful way to resist temptation is to learn to replace the brain’s automatic ‘go!’ response to a temptation with a ‘no!’
It’s a trick you need to be able to pull out of the bag quickly and automatically — even when under stress. The way to do this, Professor Mischel suggests, is to formulate what is known by psychologists as an ‘If-Then’ plan.
This means that before you are actually faced with a hard-to-resist temptation, or an ingrained habit, you need to come up with, and practise, a well-thought-out and controlled response.
The more time you give yourself to come up with a plan and the more times you are able to practise it, the better.
For example, ‘IF my partner does something that irritates me — THEN I will count to ten before I fly off the handle’, or ‘IF my friend offers me a drink, THEN I will tell her I want a lime and soda.’ It sounds simple, and it is.
DID YOU KNOW?
Those with poor self-control are far more likely to have a criminal conviction, a 32-year study in New Zealand concluded
But the key is to practise and imagine the new response over and over in your head, before you find yourself in temptation’s way. By forming and practising these plans in your head, you can quite quickly make the hot part of your brain reflexively trigger the response you want whenever the cue occurs.
It might not change a bad habit immediately (experts estimate that can take a minimum of two months’ practice) but it will, at least, buy you a few seconds to consider your options more rationally.
With time, a new, positive, controlled association or habit will be formed to replace the old, knee-jerk reaction.
Be a fly on the wall
You can also use willpower to overcome difficult or painful emotions by ending the cycle of replaying upsetting incidents in your head.
Professor Mischel and his team decided to see if the distraction techniques used in the Marshmallow Test could be applied to these feelings.
They enlisted students who had experienced a problem that left them with ‘overwhelming feelings of anger and hostility’, split them into two groups and asked them to reflect on their experiences in one of two ways.
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Put your credit card in a bowl of water and freeze it if you know you can’t be trusted with it
Half of the students were asked to relive and visualise the experience through their own eyes — without taking anyone else’s point of view into consideration.
The other half were asked to distance themselves from their situation and take stock of their experience from the perspective of a fly on the wall — and examine their feelings from this more controlled, detached perspective.
The results were striking. The group that appraised their situation from their own perspective recounted the details as if they were reliving the entire episode and reactivated the negative emotions they attached to the experience.
In contrast, the fly-on-the-wall group began to reappraise what had happened, and started to see it in a more thoughtful and less emotional way, allowing them to explain what had happened and gain self-control and closure.
Further research showed that taking the fly-on-the-wall approach to emotional upsets had a positive effect on blood pressure, too."
While researching my soon to be published book, "How to die Happy!" I came across this excellent article by Jeff Hayden. If you feel the need to for some help on your path to happiness here are 10 strategies that are proven to really work:-
It`s easy to think of happiness as a result, but happiness is also adriver.
One example: While I'm definitely into finding ways to improve personal productivity (whether a one-day burst, or a lifetime, or things you should not do every day), probably the best way to be more productive is to just be happier. Happy people accomplish more.
Easier said than done though, right?
Actually, many changes are easy. Here are 10 science-based ways to be happier from Belle Beth Cooper, Content Crafter at Buffer, the social media management tool that lets you schedule, automate, and analyze social media updates.
Here's Beth:
1. Exercise: 7 Minutes Could Be Enough
Think exercise is something you don't have time for? Think again. Check out the 7 minute workout mentioned in The New York Times. That's a workout any of us can fit into our schedules.
Exercise has such a profound effect on our happiness and well-being that it is an effective strategy for overcoming depression. In a study cited in Shawn Achor's book The Happiness Advantage, three groups of patients treated their depression with medication, exercise, or a combination of the two. The results of this study are surprising: Although all three groups experienced similar improvements in their happiness levels early on, the follow-up assessments proved to be radically different:
The groups were then tested six months later to assess their relapse rate. Of those who had taken the medication alone, 38 percent had slipped back into depression. Those in the combination group were doing only slightly better, with a 31 percent relapse rate. The biggest shock, though, came from the exercise group: Their relapse rate was only 9 percent.
You don't have to be depressed to benefit from exercise, though. Exercise can help you relax, increase your brain power, and even improve your body image, even if you don't lose any weight.
We've explored exercise in depth before, and looked at what it does to our brains, such as releasing proteins and endorphins that make us feel happier.
Body weight, shape and body image were assessed in 16 males and 18 females before and after both 6 × 40 minutes exercising and 6 × 40 minutes reading. Over both conditions, body weight and shape did not change. Various aspects of body image, however, improved after exercise compared to before.
Yep: Even if your actual appearance doesn't change, how you feel about your body does change.
2. Sleep More: You'll Be Less Sensitive to Negative Emotions
In NutureShock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman explain how sleep affects positivity:
Negative stimuli get processed by the amygdala; positive or neutral memories gets processed by the hippocampus. Sleep deprivation hits the hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories yet recall gloomy memories just fine.
In one experiment by Walker, sleep-deprived college students tried to memorize a list of words. They could remember 81% of the words with a negative connotation, like "cancer." But they could remember only 31% of the words with a positive or neutral connotation, like "sunshine" or "basket."
The BPS Research Digest explores another study that proves sleep affects our sensitivity to negative emotions. Using a facial recognition task throughout the course of a day, researchers studied how sensitive participants were to positive and negative emotions. Those who worked through the afternoon without taking a nap became more sensitive to negative emotions like fear and anger.
Using a face recognition task, here we demonstrate an amplified reactivity to anger and fear emotions across the day, without sleep. However, an intervening nap blocked and even reversed this negative emotional reactivity to anger and fear while conversely enhancing ratings of positive (happy) expressions.
Of course, how well (and how long) you sleep will probably affect how you feel when you wake up, which can make a difference to your whole day.
Another study tested how employees' moods when they started work in the morning affected their entire work day.
Researchers found that employees' moods when they clocked in tended to affect how they felt the rest of the day. Early mood was linked to their perceptions of customers and to how they reacted to customers' moods.
And most importantly to managers, employee mood had a clear impact on performance, including both how much work employees did and how well they did it.
3. Spend More Time With Friends/Family: Money Can't Buy You Happiness
If you want more evidence that time with friends is beneficial for you, research proves it can make you happier right now, too.
Social time is highly valuable when it comes to improving our happiness, even for introverts. Several studies have found that time spent with friends and family makes a big difference to how happy we feel.
We are happy when we have family, we are happy when we have friends and almost all the other things we think make us happy are actually just ways of getting more family and friends.
George Vaillant is the director of a 72-year study of the lives of 268 men.
In an interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant was asked, "What have you learned from the Grant Study men?" Vaillant's response: "That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people."
He shared insights of the study with Joshua Wolf Shenk atThe Atlanticon how men's social connections made a difference to their overall happiness:
Men's relationships at age 47, he found, predicted late-life adjustment better than any other variable. Good sibling relationships seem especially powerful: 93 percent of the men who were thriving at age 65 had been close to a brother or sister when younger.
In fact, a study published in the Journal of Socio-Economics states than your relationships are worth more than $100,000:
Using the British Household Panel Survey, I find that an increase in the level of social involvements is worth up to an extra £85,000 a year in terms of life satisfaction. Actual changes in income, on the other hand, buy very little happiness.
I think that last line is especially fascinating: Actual changes in income, on the other hand, buy very little happiness. So we could increase our annual income by hundreds of thousands of dollars and still not be as happy as we would if we increased the strength of our social relationships.
The Terman study, covered in The Longevity Project, found that relationships and how we help others were important factors in living long, happy lives:
We figured that if a Terman participant sincerely felt that he or she had friends and relatives to count on when having a hard time then that person would be healthier. Those who felt very loved and cared for, we predicted, would live the longest.
Surprise: our prediction was wrong... Beyond social network size, the clearest benefit of social relationships came from helping others. Those who helped their friends and neighbors, advising and caring for others, tended to live to old age.
4. Get Outside More: Happiness is Maximized at 57°
In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor recommends spending time in the fresh air to improve your happiness:
Making time to go outside on a nice day also delivers a huge advantage; one study found that spending 20 minutes outside in good weather not only boosted positive mood, but broadened thinking and improved working memory...
This is pretty good news for those of us who are worried about fitting new habits into our already-busy schedules. Twenty minutes is a short enough time to spend outside that you could fit it into your commute or even your lunch break.
A UK study from the University of Sussex also found that being outdoors made people happier:
Being outdoors, near the sea, on a warm, sunny weekend afternoon is the perfect spot for most. In fact, participants were found to be substantially happier outdoors in all natural environments than they were in urban environments.
The American Meteorological Society published research in 2011 that found current temperature has a bigger effect on our happiness than variables like wind speed and humidity, or even the average temperature over the course of a day. It also found that happiness is maximized at 57 degrees (13.9°C), so keep an eye on the weather forecast before heading outside for your 20 minutes of fresh air.
5. Help Others: 100 Hours a Year is the Magic Number
One of the most counterintuitive pieces of advice I found is that to make yourself feel happier, you should help others. In fact, 100 hours per year (or two hours per week) is the optimal time we should dedicate to helping others in order to enrich our lives.
If we go back to Shawn Achor's book again, he says this about helping others:
...when researchers interviewed more than 150 people about their recent purchases, they found that money spent on activities--such as concerts and group dinners out--brought far more pleasure than material purchases like shoes, televisions, or expensive watches. Spending money on other people, called "prosocial spending," also boosts happiness.
The Journal of Happiness Studies published a study that explored this very topic:
Participants recalled a previous purchase made for either themselves or someone else and then reported their happiness. Afterward, participants chose whether to spend a monetary windfall on themselves or someone else. Participants assigned to recall a purchase made for someone else reported feeling significantly happier immediately after this recollection; most importantly, the happier participants felt, the more likely they were to choose to spend a windfall on someone else in the near future.
So spending money on other people makes us happier than buying stuff for ourselves. But what about spending our time on other people?
A study of volunteering in Germany explored how volunteers were affected when their opportunities to help others were taken away:
Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall but before the German reunion, the first wave of data of the GSOEP was collected in East Germany. Volunteering was still widespread. Due to the shock of the reunion, a large portion of the infrastructure of volunteering (e.g. sports clubs associated with firms) collapsed and people randomly lost their opportunities for volunteering. Based on a comparison of the change in subjective well-being of these people and of people from the control group who had no change in their volunteer status, the hypothesis is supported that volunteering is rewarding in terms of higher life satisfaction.
...we scientists have found that doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we have tested.
6. Practice Smiling: Reduce Pain, Improve Mood, Think Better
Smiling can make us feel better, but it's more effective when we back it up with positive thoughts, according to this study:
A new study led by a Michigan State University business scholar suggests customer-service workers who fake smile throughout the day worsen their mood and withdraw from work, affecting productivity. But workers who smile as a result of cultivating positive thoughts--such as a tropical vacation or a child's recital--improve their mood and withdraw less.
Of course it's important to practice "real smiles" where you use your eye sockets. (You've seen fake smiles that don't reach the person's eyes. Try it. Smile with just your mouth. Then smile naturally; your eyes narrow. There's a huge difference in a fake smile and a genuine smile.)
According to PsyBlog, smiling can improve our attention and help us perform better on cognitive tasks:
Smiling makes us feel good which also increases our attentional flexibility and our ability to think holistically. When this idea was tested by Johnson et al. (2010), the results showed that participants who smiled performed better on attentional tasks which required seeing the whole forest rather than just the trees.
A smile is also a good way to reduce some of the pain we feel in troubling circumstances:
Smiling is one way to reduce the distress caused by an upsetting situation. Psychologists call this the facial feedback hypothesis. Even forcing a smile when we don't feel like it is enough to lift our mood slightly (this is one example of embodied cognition).
7. Plan a Trip: It Helps Even if You Don't Actually Take One
As opposed to actually taking a holiday, simply planning a vacation or break from work can improve our happiness. A study published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Lifeshowed that the highest spike in happiness came during the planning stage of a vacation as people enjoy the sense of anticipation:
In the study, the effect of vacation anticipation boosted happiness for eight weeks. After the vacation, happiness quickly dropped back to baseline levels for most people.
Shawn Achor has some info for us on this point, as well:
One study found that people who just thought about watching their favorite movie actually raised their endorphin levels by 27 percent.
If you can't take the time for a vacation right now, or even a night out with friends, put something on the calendar--even if it's a month or a year down the road. Then, whenever you need a boost of happiness, remind yourself about it.
8. Meditate: Rewire Your Brain for Happiness
Meditation is often touted as an important habit for improving focus, clarity, and attention span, as well as helping to keep you calm. It turns out it's also useful for improving your happiness:
In one study, a research team from Massachusetts General Hospital looked at the brain scans of 16 people before and after they participated in an eight-week course in mindfulness meditation. The study, published in the January issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, concluded that after completing the course, parts of the participants' brains associated with compassion and self-awareness grew, and parts associated with stress shrank.
Meditation literally clears your mind and calms you down, it's been often proven to be the single most effective way to live a happier life. According to Achor, meditation can actually make you happier long-term:
Studies show that in the minutes right after meditating, we experience feelings of calm and contentment, as well as heightened awareness and empathy. And, research even shows that regular meditation can permanently rewire the brain to raise levels of happiness.
The fact that we can actually alter our brain structure through mediation is most surprising to me and somewhat reassuring that however we feel and think today isn't permanent.
9. Move Closer to Work: A Short Commute is Worth More Than a Big House
Our commute to work can have a surprisingly powerful impact on our happiness. The fact that we tend to commute twice a day at least five days a week makes it unsurprising that the effect would build up over time and make us less and less happy.
According to The Art of Manliness, having a long commute is something we often fail to realize will affect us so dramatically:
... while many voluntary conditions don't affect our happiness in the long term because we acclimate to them, people never get accustomed to their daily slog to work because sometimes the traffic is awful and sometimes it's not.
Or as Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert put it, "Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day."
We tend to try to compensate for this by having a bigger house or a better job, but these compensations just don't work:
Two Swiss economists who studied the effect of commuting on happiness found that such factors could not make up for the misery created by a long commute.
10. Practice Gratitude: Increase Happiness and Satisfaction
This is a seemingly simple strategy but I've personally found it to make a huge difference to my outlook. There are lots of ways to practice gratitude, from keeping a journal of things you're grateful for, sharing three good things that happen each day with a friend or your partner, and going out of your way to show gratitude when others help you.
In an experiment where participants took note of things they were grateful for each day, their moods were improved just from this simple practice:
The gratitude-outlook groups exhibited heightened well-being across several, though not all, of the outcome measures across the three studies, relative to the comparison groups. The effect on positive affect appeared to be the most robust finding. Results suggest that a conscious focus on blessings may have emotional and interpersonal benefits.
The Journal of Happiness studies published a study that used letters of gratitude to test how being grateful can affect our levels of happiness:
Participants included 219 men and women who wrote three letters of gratitude over a 3 week period. Results indicated that writing letters of gratitude increased participants' happiness and life satisfaction while decreasing depressive symptoms.
Quick Final Fact: Getting Older Will Actually Make You Happier
As we get older, particularly past middle age, we tend to naturally grow happier. There's still some debate over why this happens, but scientists have a few ideas:
Researchers, including the authors, have found that older people shown pictures of faces or situations tend to focus on and remember the happier ones more and the negative ones less.
Other studies have discovered that as people age, they seek out situations that will lift their moods--for instance, pruning social circles of friends or acquaintances who might bring them down. Still other work finds that older adults learn to let go of loss and disappointment over unachieved goals, and focus their goals on greater well being.
So if you thought getting old will make you miserable, it's likely you'll develop a more positive outlook than you probably have now.
