What is Happiness and How does it work?

Happiness Encyclopedia II from the Happiness PhD Project...

Happiness is a lot like cake.

Happiness, like cake, is evidence of something else. It is a result of certain causes and conditions. It is a result of a certain recipe: with certain actions and ingredients.

Happiness is no different. In fact, everything follows this basic law of causality. As Carl Sagan said, “if you want to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first create a universe.”

Think about it. It applies to all experiences and phenomena: when the causes and conditions are right, the result, the feeling, the thing manifests. When you have water, soil, sun, and seed you get a tree. When you have a tongue and teeth and a hungry belly interacting with a piece of steak you get a delicious experience, etc. Everything – literally – is a constellation of causation, manifesting moment after moment.

So it goes with happiness. When the causes and conditions for happiness are present, happiness manifests. This is true in the context of a given moment or over life as a whole.

In terms of what exactly constitutes happiness, I’m not overly tied to a philosophical debate or definition. I almost feel like the old saying about a judge who tried to establish a legal definition for pornography. He said something like, “I don’t know how to define it, but I know it when I see it.”

Happiness is a bit like that. But for the sake of our discussion of what happiness is, consider this:

When you are satisfied with your life (past-oriented), experiencing positive emotion in your life (present-oriented), and feeling good about your life to come (future-oriented) – you have “Happiness with a capital H.”

That’s what this book is concerned with: how do you move towards a balance of experience where you have more happiness across the past, present, and future?

We’ll go deeper into how to do this in other entries. But to give a sense, each of these “dimensions” of happiness depends upon certain causes, conditions, and skills.

Before we go any further, we need to round out this claim about how happiness comes from causes and conditions. This is a big deal because naturally then it follows that if one were to identify the causes and conditions for happiness. And then cultivate those causes and conditions. Then happiness would emerge. That is, in fact, the case.

Happiness is learned.

I very creatively call this perspective on happiness the learned happiness model (LHM). If you study and practice, you learn happiness. You study: acquire knowledge of the causes of happiness. And then you practice: you cultivate the causes of happiness.

And in doing so you learn happiness (or, perhaps better said, to be happier).

This perspective comes from contemplative and wisdom traditions. Buddhism, for example, emphasizes mental training: sometimes called conditioning. Matthieu Ricard in his TED talk on “The Habits of Happiness” explains this perspective.

Think of an Olympic athlete. Over and over again, they practice certain physical capacities. And with thousands of hours they transform their bodies. A monk, in this case, is sort of an olympic athlete of mind training. Having spent thousands of hours cultivating awareness of the present moment, peace of mind, and positive mental traits like compassion and equanimity – they transform their minds.

If you are a farmer baling hay every day your arms get stronger. If you spend an hour per day meditating on loving kindness your capacity for those emotions increases.

This perspective is confirmed by modern science. In that same talk, Matthieu shares brain scans of himself and other monks in comparison to those of normal people. In brain states associated with things like love, kindness, and peace – their brains were many standard deviations beyond the norm.

But this isn’t limited to monks. We see taxi cab drivers having more activation and density in the areas of the brain associated with spatial recognition and navigation. And piano players have more neural circuitry for fine motor skills.

One of the most important explanations comes from psychologist Richie Davidson in his work on “the plasticity of wellbeing.” Wellbeing itself is pliable: easily shaped and molded. He explains that if you acquire knowledge of the causes and skills of happiness / wellbeing and you cultivate those causes and skills then happiness / wellbeing flourish.

In the neuroscience literature this is called “declarative” and “performative” learning. You have to acquire knowledge (declarative): you read a book, take a course, have a coach, etc. Then you have to practice (performative): you do the thing again and again. And in doing this you learn.

From golf to driving to basic maths to your job duties – it all follows this same pattern of learning. Happiness is no different!

More evidence to the power of this perspective is what scientists have discovered with respect to neuroplasticity. The brain and nervous system actually change based on how they are used. So again – at the risk of sounding woo-woo – as we study and practice happiness we can literally rewire ourselves towards being happier.

Here are several examples…

Take the “piano study” from Harvard. One group practices the piano for 2 hours a day for 5 days. And interestingly the physical structure of the brain changed. But what’s fascinating here is there was a second group that just thought about playing the piano: they played the song in their head and imagined how they’d move their fingers. And the region of the motor cortex that controls the piano-playing fingers also changed and expanded just as it had for those who actually played. This speaks to the power of thought alone and mental training to transform us. (1)

Scientists have found this pattern exists for many qualities associated with happiness: compassion and kindness meditation change the brain; mindfulness practice changes the brain, and gratitude exercises change the brain.Training in each of these areas can rewire us. (2)

So again, it seems art and science, contemplative and scholar, ancient wisdom and modern research, arrive at a converging truth. Happiness is learned.

So what do we study and what do we practice?

Earlier I mentioned happiness is like cake: it depends upon certain ingredients. So don’t focus on happiness. Focus on the ingredients for happiness: study and practice those!

Dr. Lahnna Catalino has conducted interesting research on this. She finds people who really care a lot about happiness often end up with worse mental health. It’s because they get stressed about how happy they are. On the other hand people who do what she calls “prioritizing positivity” which means prioritizing spending time and attention on sources of happiness, end up happier.

Do you see the subtle, but important, nuance? Striving for the pursuit of happiness is not the way. Instead prioritize investing in the inputs that lead to happiness.

So – I bet you didn’t think I’d write this – happiness is a waste of time. Don’t worry about happiness – worry about the ingredients for it. Don’t pursue happiness, pursue the ingredients.

And there are pretty much three of them if we want to keep it simple: B-P-R.

Think of it as a checklist: biology, psychology, and relationships. If you have physical health, mental health, and social health you almost can’t help but be happy!

These come down to exercise, sleep, and nutrition (biology); positive thoughts and emotions (psychology); and love and social connection (relationships).

Of course, these three ingredients are not distinct. Exercise improves your mental health. Your thoughts and emotions influence your relationships. Your relationships influence your physical health (surprising but true, loneliness is as bad for your longevity as smoking or obesity).

Furthermore, there are some resource and circumstantial factors that impact happiness and shouldn’t be overlooked. If you live in a warzone under a dictator or you’re living in immense poverty stuck in a job you hate then you will face obstacles to happiness.

But for now we can say in short that BPR represent the ingredients for happiness. When we pair that up with the Learned Happiness Model we are on our way. Study and practice healthy biology, positive psychology, and strong relationships.

This is where it largely becomes up to you. What will it look like to become a student of happiness and pursue your ingredients for happiness?

At this point, it’s worth noting the construct of “person-activity fit”—that is, for any happiness or well-being intervention, the effectiveness depends on the person and their context.

For some people, gratitude journaling works; for others, meditation is better; and for others, it’s going to church. I don’t have an exact prescription aside from this: study and practice BPR and you will learn to be happier.

1. Research reported in TIME magazine: “How the Brain Rewires Itself”

2. See research reported in… Stanford.edu Study Shows Compassion Meditation Changes the Brain Dian Land; Brain Cognition 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction induces brain changes similar to traditional long-term meditation practice - A systematic review.; Greater Good Science Center How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain