{"id":6739,"date":"2019-01-25T23:58:22","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T23:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/is-the-secret-to-happiness-at-the-top-of-this-mountain\/"},"modified":"2019-01-25T23:58:22","modified_gmt":"2019-01-25T23:58:22","slug":"is-the-secret-to-happiness-at-the-top-of-this-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/is-the-secret-to-happiness-at-the-top-of-this-mountain\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the secret to happiness at the top of this mountain?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Katie Hope at top of mountain\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/17E3E\/production\/_105345879_976whatsappimage2019-01-25at10.17.28-2.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Katie Hope made the long journey to the Rinerhorn Base Camp to &#8220;discover happiness&#8221;<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">&#8220;Everyone assumes that everyone else feels really awesome, but it&#8217;s generally not true,&#8221; says Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale University. <\/p>\n<p>Prof Santos has more insight than most into how happy people are. <\/p>\n<p>At the beginning of last year, she designed a new course called Psychology and the Good Life. It was aimed at teaching students how to lead a happier, more satisfying life in twice-weekly lectures.<\/p>\n<p>She expected about 40 students to sign up. In fact, a quarter of Yale&#8217;s undergraduates enrolled, making it the most popular course ever in Yale&#8217;s 300-year history. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It went viral,&#8221; laughs Prof Santos, who has now made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coursera.org\/learn\/the-science-of-well-being\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">the course available online for free<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>She says the fact that even students at one of the top universities in the world weren&#8217;t happy shocked everyone. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Yale University<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Prof Laurie Santos (far right) led a panel on happiness at the World Economic Forum<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But it&#8217;s not just students that aren&#8217;t happy. <\/p>\n<p>At the World Economic Forum in Davos, amid all the high-powered meetings, networking and speeches, there&#8217;s barely enough time for lunch.<\/p>\n<p>Yet when I make the long journey via coach and ski lift to the very top of the mountain, which is known as the Rinerhorn Base Camp, for a three-hour workshop on &#8220;discovering happiness&#8221;, I&#8217;m accompanied by a European royal family member and several chief executives from large multinational companies. <\/p>\n<p>Some of the people in the room earn hundreds of thousands of pounds each year, but still want to feel happier.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Three steps to happiness<\/h2>\n<p>The session starts on the journey when we are told to sit next to someone we don&#8217;t know and tell them what is going well in our life, and what we thought about when we first woke up. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    An uncomfortable beginning&#8230;<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It&#8217;s an uncomfortable exercise. <\/p>\n<p>Yet it provides three things that are meant to improve happiness:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Social interaction with people, even strangers, makes you feel happier<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Being grateful for what you have improves how we feel<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Feeling our lives have a purpose has been linked to a healthier, longer life<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Humans have always wondered about how to improve their happiness, but for a long time thought they had no control over it. <\/p>\n<p>The root stem of happiness is &#8220;happenstance&#8221; &#8211; chance, luck or fortune. <\/p>\n<p>Research shows that while genetics plays a large part, accounting for half our happiness, what we do each day accounts for 40%, with just 10% down to our life circumstances. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have the potential to acquire happiness even when we were not born happy,&#8221; says Emiliana Simon-Thomas, director of the Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley, who is running the workshop.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption body-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Tips for happiness<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Make more time for social connection even if it&#8217;s with a stranger<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Do nice things for others, even small things like making someone a coffee will improve your happiness<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Count your blessings &#8211; think about what you are grateful for<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Get enough sleep<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Stay in the moment &#8211; when our mind wanders we are less happy<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Meditate &#8211; people who meditate tend to be happier <\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Stop criticising yourself &#8211; it makes you feel worse and you will achieve less<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Don&#8217;t keep chasing more money &#8211; after you reach $75,000 (\u00a357,000), studies show earning more won&#8217;t make you any happier<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption body-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">It&#8217;s OK to feel sad<\/h2>\n<p>She thinks a big problem is that we often don&#8217;t understand what being happy means. She says it is a specific emotion, usually in reaction to something, and comes and goes. <\/p>\n<p>A general sense of wellbeing is a more realistic aim, she says. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption body-narrow-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    You don&#8217;t need to smile all the time, says Emiliana Simon-Thomas (though she did smile for this picture)<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>That means it&#8217;s OK to feel negative emotions, such as sadness or anger, but that we should have enough resilience to bounce back. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Many of us think we need to be enthusiastic and smiling all the time. We don&#8217;t have that kind of life. Things happen,&#8221; she says. <\/p>\n<p>But how do we know if we&#8217;re happy?<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Simon-Thomas says most measurements are based on self-assessment but appear to be broadly accurate. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not a perfect science, but I do kind of know if I am,&#8221; she says.<\/p>\n<p>Such measurements are being seen as increasingly important. <\/p>\n<p>New Zealand recently announced that its 2019 budget would report on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/agenda\/2019\/01\/new-zealand-s-new-well-being-budget-will-fix-broken-politics-says-jacinda-ardern\/\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">how national spending impacts on wellbeing<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is not woolly, it&#8217;s critical,&#8221; Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, arguing it was more important than GDP, the common measure of growth that countries use to measure progress.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Close your eyes and relax<\/h2>\n<p>The science also shows that wellbeing is something companies should care about, because of its impact on improving productivity.<\/p>\n<p>Tsoknyi Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist and founder of the Pundarika Foundation, also at the workshop, says happiness is something you can find within yourself.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Tsoknyi Rinpoche advises taking a break from texting and constantly checking emails<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He describes it as rediscovering the &#8220;spark&#8221; you had as a child, and advocates regular meditation. <\/p>\n<p>Being in the moment, not texting or checking emails or thinking about other things, will bring you a sense of contentment over time, he says. <\/p>\n<p>He asks us to breathe out sharply and then close our eyes and relax. <\/p>\n<p>For me it doesn&#8217;t work at all. My mind is jumping and I&#8217;m thinking about other things. Other attendees say the same.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Rinpoche says it&#8217;s worth persevering, and that like most things, the more you do it the better you will get. <\/p>\n<p>As we head back down the mountain, scrolling through our emails, it is clear it&#8217;s going to take more than one workshop to change our mindsets. <\/p>\n<p>But the more we practise all the things we feel, the happier we are likely to feel, says Prof Santos.<\/p>\n<p>And she is an inspiring example. Ironically, for someone who has been dubbed the &#8220;professor of happiness&#8221;, she describes herself as a naturally &#8220;morose person&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But I have to practise what I preach. I&#8217;ve gone up a whole point in the measurement of happiness scale in the year I&#8217;ve been teaching the class,&#8221; she says. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-47001374\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image caption Katie Hope made the long journey to the Rinerhorn Base Camp to &#8220;discover happiness&#8221; &#8220;Everyone assumes that everyone else feels really awesome, but it&#8217;s generally not true,&#8221; says Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale University. Prof Santos has more insight than most into how happy people are. At the beginning of last &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}