The Science of Happiness | Kirkland Langberg | TEDxSantaClaraUniversity

have you ever wondered would you be a bit happier if you're a bit more wealthy or maybe if you're a bit more attractive or maybe you've wondered why isn't your relationship giving you the same satisfaction as it used to or maybe you're wondering why is that Gadget that you bought 3 months ago still sitting on your closet floor and it didn't give you that great happiness that you really expected from it well these are all aspects of the science of Happiness a discipline that combines neurobiology psychology communication and others to answer these questions that are really pressing for us and for happiness in total so without further Ado let's start with the hypothetical situation let's say that um you have two choices the first choice is that you win $50 million in the lottery right now pretty great choice kind of hard to turn down but you still have a second option the second option is that you get an accident and you become paraplegic so to become happier which one would you choose seems pretty obvious right and you're right because the people who chose to win the lottery or did win the lottery they became happier whereas the people who got into an accident became paraplegic their happiness fell from the Baseline happiness but in this study entitled lottery winners in accident victims we found something even more interesting that just one year later both of their happinesses returned back down to their Baseline people who were in a car accident returned back to how they were before and people who just won a lottery just one year later didn't mean as much to them so what does this mean about The Human Condition well it means that we're incredibly resilient no matter what bad happens to us we eventually bounce back from it but on the opposite side if you win the lottery or have something really good happened to you honic adaptation kicks in and you adapt to your new circumstances and eventually return back to how you were before so what does this tell us about happiness though well it tells us that external circumstances and life events such as these they only make up 10% of our overall happiness or at least what determines it so that includes wealth in winning the lottery your attractiveness as well as bad things that could happen to you as well but advertisements commercials they'll make you believe differently and I'm sure you believe so differently as well but in reality only makes up one tenth of our happiness so what makes up the other sections well the biggest section is actually your genetic set point that's your DNA that's evolutionary psychology and it's probably the reason why you made decisions and afterwards thought why in the world did I just do that so it's what I like to call the my brain made me do it section and it covers like I said evolutionary psychology and genetics and it's important to cover this because there are aspects that are embedded into our DNA and how our brain and how we act that we don't necessarily have control over but it's important to be aware of them such as the negativity bias and the honic treadmill I'll go ahead and start with the negativity bias and that's something we see every day especially in newspapers you'll see headlines all around it always focuses on death killing terrorism destruction and the media does this on purpose in fact their motto is if it bleeds it leads because they know that you'll pay attention to it and that's because the negativity bias we're naturally wired to pay more attention to the negative than the positive that's why when your significant other makes a negative comment to you but then makes up for it for 20 positive comments that negative comment still sticks with you and you remember it plenty of days later but why does this happen well it's evolutionary psychology and Dr Rick Hansen explains this best in his quote of the number one rule that our ancestors had to go through which was eat lunch today don't be lunch today and so in other words what this means is that our ancestors that were more likely to survive weren't the ones that were walking around saying how beautiful it is out today and how beautiful this tiger is they were the ones who were saying oh my God there's a tiger let's get away from it and they remembered that the tiger was there so it's very natural for you to see the negative it's what it's the reason we're here today but it's important to remember as well when you're going through day-to-day life and realize that sometimes you have to put a focused effort on noticing the positive and letting it sink in and not letting the negative stick with you the other thing about evolutionary psychology that's important is known as the honic treadmill and anyone with an iPhone probably knows it pretty well it's as soon as you buy your iPhone which you knew would bring you so much happiness cuz it's a new model well less than a year later there's a new version and all of a sudden this happiness you thought you'd get it just isn't there anymore you want the new version the better version and once again you just have to look at our Evolution to realize why this happens and it's completely natural it's because back when we were hunters and gatherers the humans who kept on Gathering more and more and we're never happy with what they had well when natural disaster struck they're the ones that survived not the ones that were happy with what they had in the moment so sure they impede on our happiness but you can work against them if you're aware of them so we know this makes up a total of 50% of your genetic set point or your genetic set point makes up 50% of your happiness but that leaves a huge chunk left what makes up the last 40% almost half of your happiness well that's up to you that is up to intentional Act activ it that you do and that's a huge section almost the same as your DNA you can control of your own happiness but exactly how does this work well Dr Rick Hansen explains it best through the concept of neuroplasticity which is through his quote neurons that fire together wired together what does this mean it means you have the power to reshape your brain to become more positive instead of focusing on the stressors and the negatives in life you can focus on the positives because when you focus on stress it starts creating neurons firing back and forth in your brain that become Pathways they ingrain in your brain so later on when a similar topic comes up your brain starts using those Pathways again and remind you of all that stress and negativity but on the opposite if you start paying attention to the positives and letting happiness Infuse your life it'll start infusing your brain as well and literally rewiring your brain to become happier now if you don't quite believe me that you can reshape your whole brain I think it's important to take a look at the 1959 study now this study took place in 1979 and it took a group of men and for weekends they were put in a camp where they could only talk as if it were still 1959 they could only read books from that era they had to pretend Eisenhower was still president they had to literally pretend that it was 20 years earlier than it actually was and before the camp they took pictures of these men and did various tests usually correlated with age on them because of course age only works in One Direction right well what they found surprised them they found that actually by tricking their brain and having the mindset that they were 20 years earlier at the end of the camp people rated their pictures as looking 3 years younger than the starting pictures they also found that their eyesight improved as well as their hand grip strength and many other meters usually associated with age all reverse course which wouldn't be naturally what we'd assume and that's because the brain rewired and literally believed that it was younger and started acting that way so what does this tell us about happiness it means that what you pay attention to literally shapes your brain and you can reshape that to your advantage so now that you know you have such control over your brain 40% of your own happiness what are ways you can become happier well there's plenty of them in the first one proposed by doct akre a Harvard happiness researcher actually found through the lever and fulam principle that was related to the 1959 study in the fact that there's two different aspects that you can use to leverage your happiness the first being the lever or the power we believe we have to make a change or the fulcrum which is the mindset with which we generate the power to change the fulcrum or the mindset was shown in the 1959 study but now let's explore the lever aspects or belief because belief has a huge impact on our overall happiness this can be best exemplified by the placebo and nobo effect one great study that showed this was when they took 13 participants that were highly allergic to poison ivy and brought them into the lab the researcher blindfolded them started rubbing a leaf on their arm and said I'm rubbing poison ivy on you unsurprisingly all 13 of them had severe allergic reactions to it but the surprising part the doctor just rubbed a regular leaf on their arm but they believed it was poison ivy and because of that their body had an actual reaction to it so what does it say about happiness this says that you have to believe that you can be become happier you have to believe that you can get the job you've always wanted because if you don't believe in yourself that's like building a wall in the front of you before race has even started you're putting a huge obstacle that will keep you from getting there so really becoming happier starts with your own belief but of course there are many other factors um in one that they found in logit longitudinal study of Harvard um graduates throughout their life found that there was one principle that stood out Above the Rest as being the long-term predictor of who would be happiest and that was your social connections and and what does this mean this means that your connections with friends family co-workers um the people that surround you the they found that the more people you had around you and the deeper the connections they were the more fulfilling you felt life was the more you enjoyed life the happy you were and even on top of all that the longer you lived the people without many social connections live the least out of this whole study so this means for you find every aspect of your life where you can increase your Social connections and increase the bond you have with other people and another huge reason why you can become happier is actually ironically money sure we said wealth only makes up 10% but there are ways you can use your own money to make yourself happier the most important of them all being to buy experiences not objects why is this as we saw before with iPhones and honic treadmill if you buy an item it'll give you a lot of happiness for a short amount of time but pretty much it'll end up in the back of your closet at one point whereas if you buy experience es you're creating memories you're creating stories and you're deepening your social connections with other people and this this lasts a long time you can always go back to your memories and restore your faith in how um much support you have from your social network so if you have an option to buy something with money whether it's a camera or a concert ticket go with the social connections through the experiences that's not all with money though as we also found that if you buy early and you savor it which means in today's world of buying with Amazon Prime and getting it within a day or less that's actually not the way to be happiest because if you buy something earlier it gives you especially up to a week it'll give you a week to think and Savor about buying that and surprisingly enough when you just think and imagine and Savor the that um purchase or that experience it uses the same neural Pathways as if you were actually experiencing it so you're literally extending your happiness by an extra week by buying it early and giving yourself that time to daydream and Savor over it there are plenty other ways to become happier as well and I'll touch on a few one is biophilia and that's our connection with nature one study done in a hospital of people recovering from surgery found that if they were placed in a room with just a brick wall versus if they were placed in a room that had a view of a garden and trees the people in the room with a garden and trees view not only did they recover quicker but they required less medication because Nature has a natural healing effect on us so the more you spend time with it whether it's hiking watching sunsets or whatever you enjoy including growing a plant it'll actually increase your happiness over time another huge point is gratitude this is important because you have to find the low hanging fruits and work against the honic treadmill this means that be thankful for the small things you have whether it's being here at this conference rather than being stuck somewhere else or at least having the clothes that you have on your back because not everyone else has that privilege and while this may sound simple it's something our brain easily skips over so the more we focus on it the happier we'll be and then a important one for relationships is novelty and variety if you find in your relationships that things are just going through cycles and the same over and over again do something new go on a new date switch up your schedule so date night is on a different week because this will Infuse dopamine into your brain which is a happiness chemical which make you find new interest in your relationship this goes beyond relationships too as well as you can use Variety in the way you get to work or go to class take a different route next time it'll change it up and Infuse a little bit more happiness in your life now while these are just a few tips and ways to become happier um it's important to realize that sure some of them do seem like isn't that common sense but Dr acre has a great point he says that common sense is not common action so you need to choose one of these or maybe two and try over and over again to start infusing them into your life because you have to make it a habit and making it a habit takes Tak 21 days in a row of consistently doing it which isn't easy but if you do that you will constantly be infusing your life with happiness and be changing your neural structures in your brain to becoming happier so remember that 40% of your happiness is dictated by things you do every day so remember happiness is a choice so make it thank you