Cultivating Happiness for Mental Wellbeing

In previous posts, I referenced the World Happiness Report. The data revealed the extent of happiness reported by people in various nations. The data was collected from surveys conducted with people. The research implies we should work on cultivating happiness.

But, a few questions remain. Is happiness the goal in life? Should we work on cultivating happiness for mental wellbeing? If we agree that happiness is a desirable experience in life, what can we do to experience it?

Listen to this brief video by one of my favourite neuroscience geeks, Andrew Cooper-Sansone, from his podcast, Sense of Mind, and entitled What is happiness?

Living in Happiness

We agree that, overall, people want to experience happiness in their lives. We want to live in happiness. What does that mean?

Is there a method we can follow to be happy?

Do we achieve happiness in one fell swoop? Or, is happiness a process, as much as life is a process?

Some people may ask: is there a happy pill we can take?

I work on the premise that everything is a process. I cannot become happy in an instant just as I cannot learn a new language in an instant or become proficient in playing chess in an instant. Work is required to experience happiness.

The Ingredients for Happiness in Life

Permit me this metaphor. There is a recipe for happiness in life. Like any good recipe, substitutions can be made for some of the ingredients. But, there are core ingredients which make happiness a unique dish served in my lifetime (compared to happiness in your lifetime).

Genetic predisposition is an essential ingredient on the road to happiness. If my genetic make-up reveals that members of my family are overwhelmingly prone to experience depression, my predisposition to be happy is decreased compared to the predisposition of people whose families do not carry the burden of a predisposition for depression.

A positive outlook or mindset contributes heavily towards the experience of happiness. If I have a tendency to feel negative about situations, I am less inclined to feel happy. This ingredient seems essential. The good thing is that mindset can be developed. Our mindset may evolve over time. Our mindset is not fixed. This characteristic is one we can modify. The person who has a positive mindset will espouse a happy outlook whatever befalls them.

Circumstances may contribute to a life of happiness. Circumstances are not essential ingredients for happiness. You probably have met people who are happy all of the time. Regardless of what occurs in their life, you cannot deter them from feeling happy. They transcend any obstacle and pitch a game with 100% accuracy for a happy mood.

The people who surround us in life may impact our experience of life. Their happy factor can elicit our happy inclination for a number of reasons. The obvious variable which influences my expression of feeling happy derives from our mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are the nerve cells in our brain which communicate with our facial muscles and engender different emotions, in our brain and in our body. My ability to mimic the emotions of another person is partially unconscious (related to activity in our respective mirror neurons) and reflects the emotions of the people in my environment. You smile, I smile. You cry, I am inclined to cry. You laugh, I laugh. You are tearful, I may become tearful. People around me and their emotions do affect my experience of positive and negative affects (emotional expressions).

The ability to experience emotional states directly impacts my ability to feel happy. People who cannot identify their emotional states and who cannot place a label on their emotional state may not be capable of experiencing happiness until they learn to identify their emotional states. This may be a key ingredient for experiencing a life of happiness.

Modifiable variables on the road to feeling happy include the quality of our sleep; our nutritional intake and our nutritional status; our overall physical health; our access to and involvement in a  social support network; the stressors in our life; the amount of exercise we engage in; the practices which allow us to regain energy and to nourish ourselves spiritually (mindfulness exercises); our connection to nature; the extent to which we engage in pastimes; our sense of autonomy and our exercise of self-determination; engagement in a meaningful day activity; access to communication with other people; access to resources for our basic needs (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs); our participation in creative activities; and the learning experiences of our lives.

Cultivating Happiness for Mental Wellbeing

It is possible to co-create a life of happiness by tapping into the multitude of options noted above. My label for this wealth of opportunities in our lives is the richness of life experiences. It is no guarantee that we will experience happiness, even when we have access to several ingredients. We can just as easily experience despair, sadness, defeat, and disillusionment. But, when we have access to a wealth of opportunities, we are capable of drawing on, of learning from our life experiences and perceiving our life as a composite of all of our life experiences. In the deep well of experiences, we can harvest the happiest of the experiences and live off the emotional effect of the happiest of times.

Take a listen to a TED-Ed video entitled How to increase your happiness:

Happiness As a Process

Life is a process. Happiness is a journey through life. I can follow a recipe for happiness and the resulting happy experience will be different for you and for me, because we substitute ingredients and incorporate our personal brand of mixing implements, expectations, waiting times, and lessons learnt over the course of our respective lives.

Embrace the process. Select the ingredients carefully. Anticipate success.

Then, you will be on the path to happiness. I did not say you will have achieved happiness. A happiness outcome point is illusory. Happiness grows with you. Appreciate the trajectory.

Seek treatment with a mental health professional when you find yourself unable to experience happiness. You may benefit from psychotherapy (talk therapy), psychotropic medications, or other interventions to address mental health conditions. Do not delay seeking treatment. Your life may depend on accessing treatment to prevent worsening of symptoms.

Be kind. Be hopeful. Expect and embrace opportunities. Allow surprises to expand your mind and your possibilities.

There is so much to learn on life’s road to happiness. You can cultivate happiness for your mental wellbeing.

Selected References:

Andrew Cooper-Sansone. (August 5, 2023). What is happiness? Sense of Mind. Accessed on May 31, 2024, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HFs0eCAVEg

TED-Ed. (May 2024). How to increase your happiness. TED-Ed. Accessed online on June 11, 2024, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HFs0eCAVEg

Disclaimer: The content of this post is not meant to substitute for a consultation with your healthcare team.

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