The Sustainable Happiness Model: 7.5 Simple Actions to Take Today
Genes and circumstances don’t matter as much as we think.
Once upon a time, there was a happy family of mum, dad and two wonderful children. The father had a new higher position in his company so they lived in a new bigger home. Mum was home with their second baby while the older daughter enjoyed joyful days in her nursery. That was but a life, just like in a dream…
…well, not exactly. What I haven’t told you is that…
…this was my life about a year ago and it was everything but happy. The whole household work was on me and a demanding 3-year-old in the afternoons too. Our younger son was not much of a sleeper so I had to carry him for around 6 hours a day. At night he would wake me up 5 to 8 times. In the evening my husband would turn back from work at least as tired as I was. I lost weight, lost my nerve to the children, and surely lost any feeling of content and satisfaction in my life. Quarrels and fights we never had before sneaked in our long-awaited quiet evenings. Life felt miserable. And I thought to myself, this can’t get any worse…
…but it did. Yet another problem appeared to shake up the whole family. An occasion that we would never imagine.
That occasion showed me how there are circumstances in life that can exhaust us up to the point of feeling miserable and getting sick. No matter how resilient we are. Life has ups and downs and the downs unavoidably deprive our happiness.
If that’s so, can it work the other way around? Are there things you can do in any life situation to inevitably make you happier?
Research shows that 40% of the “sustainable happiness model” is under the control of our actions and thoughts. Genes and circumstances don’t have as big an influence as we believe.
There are a bunch of things that have the power to enhance our well-being. And we don’t need to change our career, find a new partner, or strive to get rich first. Coming actions make us happy anyway.
#1 Take good care of your sleep
First things first: sleep is fundamental. This is the one we have to find time for.
Let’s take a look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The higher level you reach the nearer you are to self-fulfillment, it says. Unfortunately to climb to the next level, first you have to satisfy the one you are at. Guess where sleep is? Exactly, right on the bottom next to food, water and reproduction. In other words, when sleep is lacking, you won’t even have the craving for accomplishment and self-fulfillment.
While we sleep our brain works our emotions over. So a good sleep produces a good mood. A study by Johns Hopkins University showed that people whose sleep was interrupted 8 times per night have a bad mood in the morning. The effect increases with the number of nights. Also, deprivation of sleep (only 4–5 hours per night) brings mood disturbance and other harm after only a week. On the other hand, people would concentrate on positive rather than on negative emotions after a nap of 60’ to 90’. This was demonstrated in a study by the University of California.
Learning this meant to me that sleep was like looking through rose-colored glasses. And it felt relieving to know, it wasn’t me who was losing nerve on everybody around. It was a sleepless version of myself that I could get control of.
#2 Mind social comparison
Human beings have no standardized scale to measure well-being. Instead, we have a comparison. Science has shown that we, unfortunately, have no control over what our brain takes as a comparison, to measure with. Our brain takes everything: the vacation pics of our friends showing only the happiest of moments; the perfect lives of the heroes in a happy-end movie; the luxury lifestyle of celebrities on the magazines; the social media feed of an influencer we follow… The higher the lifestyle of other people looks like, the worse we consider our life is.
Nice to know, but what to do about it? Less television and less social media are great for a start. I surely couldn’t do a lot for I neither have a TV, nor I use social media. So to tune my scale the right way I connected more with my friends and the real lives that they had.
#3 Practise Kindness
A study by Sonja Lyubomirsky showed that people given money to spend on someone else, feel happier afterward. Happier than those asked to spend it on themselves. Thus practicing kindness is like making one effort but creating a double value out of it — once for the recipient and once for the giver.
“A little fragrance always clings to the hand that gives the roses.”
― Chinese Proverb
For me kindness is about small things like smiling at the shop assistant, cleaning the public playground, or being as supportive to my friends and family as I can be. I may have missed the first 10 minutes of our last Sunday family lunch. But the elderly neighbor I spent the time listening to, needed someone to talk with bitterly.
And feeling happy about it comes from doing it and appreciating ourselves for the effort. Another study by Sony Lyubomirsky shows that even just recalling our random acts of kindness makes us happier.
#4 Work in Flow
Flow is the modern term for everything we do in such concentration, involvement and enjoyment, that we think only of it. In comparison to relationships or pleasure flow makes us happier in a way that is independent of external circumstances. There are so many activities when we can get in flow with no effort: singing, dancing, sports, doing handicrafts, painting, mowing grass, trying new recipes. We just need to surrender ourselves completely to the moment.
“Concentration is so intense that no attention is left over to think about anything irrelevant or to worry about problems. Self-consciousness disappears, and the sense of time becomes distorted.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, architect of the concept of flow
I didn’t find the switch-off button for the toddlers I had at home. I chose to meditate in the evenings. Meditation is the most efficient way to experience flow similar effects on the brain. It also takes little time and has great benefits for sleep.
#5 Exercise
“Runner’s high” is the euphoric state that intense sport causes in people due to releasing endogenous opioids (endorphins) and levels of stress hormones (cortisol). Well intense sport feels like a big effort, but it can be easier. Science has shown how an exercise of only 30’ a day, 3 times a week heals depression in 4 months better than meds do! It makes us happy afterward, reduces stress and is beneficial for the body.
I love taking short distances by bicycle, even with a toddler in a seat behind me (they get surprisingly quiet once you drive around). For me, it is a great way to do something for my body and my mind at the same time.
#6 Do more of what you love doing
If you don’t know what this could be, as I didn’t, consider the following. There is a classification of 24 character strengths in human beings by Seligman(a pioneer of positive psychology). It shows that these positive traits exist in each one of us to a different degree. Character strength is a quality that is considered appreciated by all kinds of human societies and cultures. It appears that these traits are what we people see as good in ourselves and others. Most important for each individual are the ones we have in the highest degree — the 5 core ones. Science shows that people who practice their code character strengths daily gain benefits in their overall well-being. And you can take the free test to find out yours at any given time.
My test showed that appreciation of beauty is one of my core strengths. I was surprised to learn that this is a strength at all, I’ve always felt bad about losing precious time on admiration. Now I had to try doing it more. This time more consciously. And yes, it makes me happier, especially admiring beauties like flowers in the park.
#7 See opportunities and take action
Every change is difficult. Jet it is on us to decide: is it a problem or a chance? Research has shown that resilient people see difficult periods in life as transitional, are optimistic and most important take action.
If you still wonder what bad thing happened to us a year ago, here is how the story goes on. In the last week of March 2020, a lockdown was set due to the coronavirus pandemic. I had more cooking and child care to do, for my daughter and my husband was at home now. We all had to deal with social isolation and fears. On top of that a week later I broke my right hand…
No light at the end of the tunnel would be seen soon.
I decided it was about time to light it myself.
Hence I concentrated my efforts on the chances I had: my husband was at home and had more time for us. He helped out with the children, understood and supported me.
And I won time to learn about happiness and to practice seeing things through different glasses.
#7.5 Use humor to construct happy memories
This one is so simple, that I can only call it “half an action to take”. Humor, especially self-deprecating humor, appears to help us deal with anger and therefore increases psychological well-being. It is surely worth a try. Even if it doesn’t help at least it’s fun.
“Never regret anything that made you smile”
― Mark Twain
…even something as simple as thoughts, I would add. I just had a break from writing and went out to water my flowers with no water in the can. My thoughts went on like “Weak brains make strong legs”.
When everything else goes wrong we still have the opportunity to tell ourselves the stories of our lives in a way that makes us happier. The human brain is not constructed to remember things correctly. It rather recollects as well as possible and fills the gaps to construct the memory. This way it slightly changes the memory each time it recalls. Then the brain memorizes it anew. In a few iterations, we end up with a new perspective towards the past event. I surely choose to make it a funny and happy one.
What about you?
