Cultivate Happiness with these Simple Evidence-Based Exercises
Have you ever chased happiness consciously?
It’s like telling yourself, “This makes me happy, so I am going to do it now”. This is absolutely okay.
However, we need to be sure that we are pursuing the right happiness.
People often overestimate how happy attaining money, fame and possessions will make them. Impact bias explains this. It says people overestimate the length or the intensity of future emotional states.
So, what is the right happiness that lasts?
PERMA model is a brilliant answer.
Martin Seligman, the Father of Positive Psychology, introduced PERMA in his book ‘Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being.’
PERMA stands for Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment.
While there are techniques to increase each, Positive Emotion is the easiest starting point. Also, I find Positive Emotion to be overlapping the most with the other four elements of PERMA.
What is Positive Emotion?
Positive emotions are simply the emotions we find pleasurable to experience. It’s the feeling of joy, love, pride, contentment, interest, excitement, and more.
According to the PERMA theory, we can increase our Positive Emotions and hence our happiness. We can do so by thinking about the past, the present, and the future.
So, how to increase positive emotions about the past, the present, and the future?
Increase positive emotions about the past:
1. Cultivate Gratitude
2. Practice Forgiveness
Increase positive emotions about the present:
1. Savor physical pleasures
2. Practice mindfulness
Increase positive emotions about the future:
1. Build hope
2. Develop optimism
Increase positive emotions about the past
1. Cultivate Gratitude
Feeling grateful is a skill which doesn’t come easy for everyone. Gratitude is difficult because we notice the negative events more.
Srikumar Rao, an elite coach and author of ‘Happiness at Work: Be Resilient, Motivated and Successful — No Matter What’ states A-type people don’t ‘feel’ gratitude. They ‘think’ of gratitude. It’s a checklist activity for them.
However, anyone can learn to cultivate gratitude by maintaining a daily or weekly gratitude journal. Research has shown that cultivating gratitude increases positive emotions.
You just need to write about two events for a weekly journaling exercise:
1. What went well in your life in the last week.
2. Acknowledge the role other people played in your happiness in that period and tell them or text them. Yes, it works wonders.
One simple technique that I found to be effective for myself is using the contrast effect. I use it when I am in a peaceful state of mind. Here are the steps:
1. Think about a painful past event
2. Note how you overcame that situation
3. Think of the state just after the painful event was over
4. Compare the painful state with the situation right after the pain ended
5. Re-imagine the relief you experienced
6. If you are peaceful now, also compare the current state with the painful past event
7. Spend some time feeling it, be thankful, be grateful
2. Practice Forgiveness
Are you holding on to grudges against someone? Are you yet to forgive someone who cheated on you, harmed you, or misbehaved with you in the past? If yes, you are causing yourself more harm than good.
Buddhism recommends forgiveness to combat anger and resentment.
Forgiveness fosters positive emotions, according to research. Forgiveness has proven to help people rebuild their lives following hurt and trauma.
The Forgiveness Project is the largest project in the world that validates the positive effects of forgiveness. It collects and shares stories of those who have found resolution through forgiveness.
This is empowering because observing and modeling forgiveness in others inspires us the most. If someone else could face it, I too can. That’s the most wonderful thing about being human.
Let me now share a useful forgiveness exercise you can apply immediately. This is a specific form of forgiveness — Self-compassion.
In a tough moment, chances are that you blame yourself for what happened. If you are facing emotions, like unforgiveness or self-hatred, there is a tool designed to relax you.
It’s called The SAFE — Self-Compassion Technique, originally devised by Goldstein.
SAFE encourages you to acknowledge your emotions as they are and recognize that everybody has similar struggles.
Here is what you need to do when facing unforgiveness or self-hatred.
S: Soften into the feeling.
Take a deep breath and acknowledge the feeling. Name the emotions you are experiencing? Which part of your body is most affected by these sensations?
A: Allow the emotion to be as it is.
Inhale and exhale, consciously recognizing the feeling without attempting to resist or hold on to it. Simply allow it to exist without judgment or attachment.
F: Feel it. Observe and experience the emotion with kind attention.
Examine what beliefs about yourself arise from this emotion. Consider what this feeling requires in the present moment.
E: Expand your awareness to all people struggling with this emotion.
Recognize that this emotional experience is shared by all humans. Everyone goes through moments of suffering and makes mistakes. You are not alone in experiencing this feeling. Allow this realization to bring you comfort and solace.
Increase positive emotions about the present:
1. Savor physical pleasures
Savoring is more than mere pleasure. Savoring is about becoming aware of the experience of pleasure and appreciating the positive emotions of an experience.
Savoring a moment has proven to increase positive emotions and well-being.
A simple exercise is savoring a meal. Next time when you sit at the dining table, just pause. Pay attention to the food — its smell, color and texture. Then slowly, take the first bite, involving all your senses. Repeat this process.
I use this technique the most to savor my sweet cravings. So whenever I am having my favorite cheesecake, I take each bite slowly, relishing the taste. I try to limit the portion through sharing because, after the first few bites, the diminishing marginal utility of taste kicks in.
Of course, we can savor other activities as well, like spending a good time with your partner, strolling in nature, or hanging out with friends. In savoring, we focus on the positives of the experience.
2. Practice mindfulness
Mindfulness means paying attention to the present and observing it without judgment. It helps reduce the constant mental chatter and regain calm.
Mindfulness training programs improve concentration, thinking, emotions, and behavior. These programs contribute to our overall well-being and workplace performance in the long run.
However, different people experience varying difficulties in attaining mindfulness. Beginners often fall asleep, or feel uncomfortable. They struggle with difficult thoughts or become bored.
Further, mindfulness exercises have different effects on individuals at work. Employees whose job demands faking emotions experienced a decline in self-control and overall performance when they exhibited higher levels of mindfulness.
This happens because mindfulness brings to light unpleasant feelings that were previously ignored. Being more mindful may heighten awareness of undesirable aspects of one’s job if there is no immediate solution available.
Hence, one should choose a distraction-free time to practice mindfulness. Also, one should not have immediate project deliverables right after the practice period.
Mindfulness is also my biggest area of struggle. While I have been meditating for 5–10 minutes daily for years, I still have multi-tasking tendencies.
The relationship between multitasking and mindfulness is tricky. I like to listen to audiobooks while jogging because my mind can manage the cognitive load.
While multi-tasking saves time, it reduces efficiency. Hence, one needs to find the right balance.
My favorites for increasing my mindfulness are meditation with the ‘Om’ sound focusing on the forehead, counting my deep breaths and relaxing each body part from head to toes. Whenever I feel stressed at work, deep, mindful breathing helps me regain my calm.
Sometimes, we can stress too much about a future event, which stops us from concentrating on the present. In such scenarios, I use if-then clauses. I decide in advance, If X happens, I will do Y and so on.
It is like the popular fear-setting exercise by Tim Ferriss or the stoic method of ‘Negative Visualization’.
Try a bunch of different meditation techniques and find out what works for you.
Increase positive emotions about the future:
1. Build hope
According to psychologist Eddie Tong,
“Hopeful people tend to think that desired goals are attainable even if personal resources are exhausted.”
People with hope persist even when results may not be so favorable.
Evidence suggests that the belief that one is capable of achieving one’s goals may be more important for hope than knowing how to achieve those goals.
So, How to cultivate Hope?
Set a goal, work towards it, and monitor evidence. A stretched but achievable goal will be the best fit.
To cultivate hope, it is essential to collect evidence from personal experiences, history, and the broader world. This evidence serves as a guide for devising plans, identifying pathways, and taking necessary actions.
Hope also requires that we learn to use this data effectively to track progress.
2. Develop Optimism
Optimism is a mindset, a much broader term than hope. It’s a feeling that the future will be good and beautiful. Optimism helps us become more resilient in the face of adversity and enhances positive emotions.
An optimistic person will interpret the evidence-based techniques differently than a pessimistic person will. Interpretation will change how one acts with the same information.
However, a pessimistic person does not always stay the same. A person’s level of optimism can increase over time with practice.
If you want to boost your optimism, you can perform the Visualization exercise. Years of scientific research have proven the positive effects of this exercise.
Here is how to do the Visualization Exercise
1. Find free time: When you have at least 10 minutes or more of free time, set it aside to do this exercise.
2. Imagine a positive future: Envision yourself in a future that is the best and most achievable version of your dreams. You can choose a specific time, like 10 years from now.
3. Picture your goals achieved: In this future, imagine that you have accomplished all the goals you set for yourself. You have achieved success in your career, found a soulmate, achieved physical fitness, and have genuine friends. It should be unique to you.
4. Use your imagination: Visualize this future in as much detail as possible. Imagine what it would look like and how it would feel to experience it. Let your imagination create a vivid picture of this positive future.
I have myself moved from pessimism to optimism in my life. It took me a lot of reading, introspecting about my life experiences and practicing mindfully. I counted each evidence of my past successes and further built on it.
Here is a quick way to test your level of optimism. If I ask you, does the Universe work for you or against you, how would you respond? Yes, No, Or May be?
In reality, we have no scientific way to know, yet. However, our answer to this question influences how we think and act in this world. That’s when optimism is useful to make us act that serves us.
I am a pragmatic optimist. I like to think that the Universe continuously works for us. That doesn’t mean it serves life to me on a platter.
It just means if I keep doing the work, good things will follow. There will be obstacles, but that’s for me to learn and grow.
Conclusion
I hope you will try some exercises described here and find them useful. These techniques are part of Positive Psychology, which is dedicated to human thriving.
I have benefitted immensely from the over hundred similar exercises I completed in the last 5 years to understand myself better. Positive Psychology taught me a simple rule that states we can learn any desirable behavior.
Positive Psychology is descriptive, and not prescriptive. It means that one can choose to practice techniques that work for them and discard the rest.
You just need to find the ones that make you happier and have a personal toolkit ready for use anytime.
***
Feel free to reach out at subirroy2704@gmail.com
