The Way to Happiness (page 2 of 3)

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Dare to Laugh Out Loud

Regardless of your age or temperament, you can feel happier right this minute, claims psychologist Will Fleeson, PhD, of Wake Forest University, who says he has found a surefire strategy to boost the spirit: Do something, however small, that is energetic, adventurous, assertive or bold. When volunteers recorded their feelings throughout the day, all felt happier when active and engaged, regardless of whether they were naturally introverted or extroverted.

"The biggest surprise in this research was that you can change your behavior and make yourself feel happier readily and easily," says Fleeson, who found that almost any active behavior -- even singing or dancing to the radio -- has a positive effect on mood. "Laughing out loud is exactly the kind of adventurous, bold action that makes you feel happier."

Simply putting on a happy face, as the classic song lyric advises, can make a difference. In experiments at Clark University, psychologist James Laird, PhD, hooked volunteers up to sham electrodes and instructed them to contract and relax specific facial muscles, so they were, in effect, smiling for no reason at all. With the corners of their mouths pulled up, most of the volunteers rated cartoons funnier than did those instructed to pull their eyebrows together as if frowning.

In other studies, smiling individuals recalled happier memories than those with furled brows or neutral expressions. Whenever we smile, nerves and muscles may transmit messages that turn on happiness centers in the brain, Laird speculates. "The bottom line is that a smile doesn't cost anything and may do you good." So why not grin?

Still, not everyone is sold on the power of positive thinking. According to Bowdoin College psychologist Barbara Held, PhD, for those with a glass-half-empty view of the world, all this happy talk can be downright depressing. In her book Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching, Held wages war against the "tyranny of the positive attitude," the put-on-a-happy-face mind-set, which she believes holds too much sway in American culture. Not everyone can strike a pose of sunny optimism in the face of life's mishaps, Held says, and not everyone should. "If you try to force people to cope in ways that don't fit their nature, it can do harm."

So if you're going through a rough patch, don't feel bad about feeling bad. "When someone's in pain over the loss of a job, the end of a relationship or the death of a loved one, telling them to be more optimistic and look on the bright side just adds insult to injury," Held says. The person now feels bad for not coping more effectively, on top of everything else. Instead, having the freedom to complain to a friend, what Held calls creative kvetching, can be cathartic. Her message: The path to contentment depends on finding the coping strategy that suits you best, even if that means expressing anger or sadness along the way.

Smile Power
Whatever their disposition, Americans have plenty of reasons to smile, says Will Wilkinson, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, who recently reviewed social, economic and political perspectives on our national happiness. "We have more wealth, health and comforts than 99.9 percent of the people who have ever lived on the planet, and we feel as good as anyone ever has," he says.

Gretchen Rubin says her personal quest for happiness has infused her life with meaning: "I realized that by working hard to keep a lighter tone, by taking time to be silly, to laugh more, to sing every morning, I managed to bring about deeper changes in myself -- more loving and considerate feelings and actions. That's why it's a duty to be happy. When I put in the effort to take the steps that will make me happier, I'm far better able to make other people happier too."

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One day in artillery instruction, a colonel came to inspect our class. First up was Private O'Malley. The colonel got in his face and asked him what reading he had on his 105 mm. howitzer. "Two-nine-oh-seven, sir," was the reply.

"Soldier," said the colonel, "don't you know you never say 'oh' in the artillery? You say 'zero.' What's your name, soldier?"

"Zero Malley, sir," answered the private.

-- John Madson