Category: Living Your Best Life

Spend Some Time Alone

Usually, you’ll hear me tellin’ ya to spend more time with friends.

This is because the best predictor of a person’s happiness is the breadth and depth of her social connections. But alone time is important, too.

A Harvard study indicates that a bit of solitude can make us more capable of empathy towards others. Empathy is one of the foundations of happiness, in part because empathy builds the social connections that are so crucial for well-being.

Ironically, in order to best nurture our connections with others, we need to spend time alone. Share on X

So, ironically, in order to best nurture our connections with others (and our own happiness) we need to spend some time alone. In my own experience, this is especially true for mothers! I know I am warmer and more patient with my children when I’ve had some time alone.

Take Action: This week, remember that solitude is very different from loneliness, and give yourself a bit of alone time.

Join the Discussion: Do you think solitude contributes to your happiness? How do you get your alone time? Comment below.

Happiness Tip: Lower Your Expectations

My father — the most disciplined person I’ve ever known — always quips that his “only goal is to climb a low mountain.” As an over-achieving kid, I never understood this assertion. Why would you only want to climb a low mountain?!

Turns out, low expectations can be a key to happiness. Sometimes we expect too much from our spouses, our children, our jobs, and ourselves. When our expectations are unrealistic, instead of inspiring greatness with the high bar we’ve set, we’re more likely to foster disappointment, or resentment, or even hatred in ourselves.

It’s not that we shouldn’t ever have high expectations; it’s just that we need to be aware of how our expectations can sometimes make us unhappy.

Turns out, low expectations are a key to happiness. Share on X

Take Action: This week, reset an expectation: what is a more realistic and joyful goal? Then, refocus on the journey rather than the destination. What mountain can you climb that you will truly enjoy climbing, whether or not you ever make it to the top? How can you focus on the present moment — whatever you are doing right now — rather than setting big goals and high expectations for the future? And if you are itching to do more, why not get into an unambitious habit that down the road can pay big dividends?

by Christine Carter

Three Risky Ways to Fall Deeply in Love

Love feels magical and biological—something that just happens to us, something beyond our control. Research shows, however, that love is better thought of as behavioral—or even transactional. Yes, hormones play a role, but much more important is how we act with the object of our affection. We do certain things, and those actions foster the emotions we associate with being in love. According to researcher Barbara Fredrickson, author of Love 2.0, we create our feelings of love, day after day. Or we don’t create them, and love fades.

So what actions lead to love? Here are three – in honor of Valentine’s Day – all based on fostering vulnerability. Before you run for the woods, hear me out. Yes, vulnerability can be uncomfortable because it involves, by definition, emotional exposure, uncertainty, and risk. But vulnerability allows trust and intimacy to develop and deepen, creating strong feelings of connection and love.

Action #1: Take a risk together.

Researchers think we tend to unconsciously conflate the high-arousal induced by doing something risky with the high-arousal of intense attraction—the two states feel similar. This creates a similar biochemistry and physiology as when we are first falling in love.

This Valentine’s Day, go straight for that adrenaline rush by doing something risky. Venture to an unknown place that feels a little daunting. Visit a karaoke bar, and actually sing. Try a new sport, one where you risk feeling silly or uncoordinated.

Action #2: Get naked…emotionally.

What can you reveal to your partner that he or she doesn’t already know about you? Ask your date intimate questions to which you aren’t sure you know the answer. We come to like people more when we engage in escalating, gradual back-and-forth “personal self-disclosure.”

Love comes from action, not waiting to be adored. Share on X

Researchers have long been able to create profound feelings of being in love through self-disclosure (even between strangers!). Check out the 36 questions that Arthur Aron and his colleagues used to do this in the lab. And don’t forget: How you respond when your partner is making him or herself vulnerable is also important. (Hint: turn off your phone and pay attention.)

Action #3: Gaze into each other’s eyes.

Directly, for four full minutes. Set a timer. Don’t talk. Breathe. Relax.

This technique has been widely cited as a part of the experiment by Arthur Aron and pals—though I haven’t been able to find reference to it in a published study. Still, this seems like a very solid tactic for creating feelings of intimacy and love.

Stanford researcher Fred Luskin has people do this in his workshops, and it definitely creates big feelings of vulnerability. (Which is good, remember. The exposure is terrifying, but that is what we are after here.)

Take Action: Choose one or more of the three actions above to do with your Valentine and then make a plan for making it happen.

Join the Discussion: What other ideas do you have for making yourself vulnerable in the service of greater intimacy and connection?

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If you want more intimacy in your key relationships, you will love my eCourse, The Science of Finding Flow! Enroll now for $99 using the coupon code FLOW99. This is a steal, friends–that’s more than half off! Enroll here.

Photo by James Marvin Phelps

by Christine Carter

Tuesday Tip: The Best Habit To Start Now

You already know, of course, that getting into a regular exercise routine is probably the best thing you can do for yourself — whether you want to be happier, healthier, skinnier, or smarter. Even though you already know this, I’m going to remind you. Why? Because I think we sometimes forget that the hassles of exercise don’t usually outweigh the benefits. Reams of research show that:

1) Exercise boosts your energy by delivering oxygen and nutrients to your brain and muscles. It helps your cardiovascular and muscular system work more efficiently, which gives you more strength and endurance (and therefore energy). Exercise also triggers the production of insulin receptors, which means that your body is able to better utilize glucose, or blood sugar — the raw energy that your body runs on.

2) Exercise reduces stress and anxiety. While aerobic exercise has been shown to alleviate anxiety disorders, even people who don’t struggle with a disorder report feeling less anxious after exercise.
3) Physical movement makes us happier, in part by fostering the neurochemicals in your body and brain that leave you happier and more relaxed. Doctors in the UK often prescribe exercise as a first-line treatment for depression, it’s so effective!

“At every level, from the microcellular to the psychological, exercise not only wards off the ill effects of chronic stress; it can also reverse them. Studies show that if researchers exercise rats that have been chronically stressed, that activity makes the hippocampus grow back to its preshriveled state. The mechanisms by which exercise changes how we think and feel are so much more effective than donuts, medicines, and wine. When you say you feel less stressed out after you go for a swim, or even a fast walk, you are.”

― John J. Ratey, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain

4) Physical movement improves sleep — and better sleep also tends to makes us happier, healthier, and more productive during the day.

5) Exercise makes us healthier physically and helps us control our weight, so much that it increases longevity — the amount of time that we live. Physically active people have:

Reduced risk of heart attack
Lower blood cholesterol
Lower risk of Type 2 Diabetes
Lower risk of cancer
Lower blood pressure
Stronger bones, muscles, joints — and therefore lower risk of osteoporosis and risk of injury from falls.

6) It’ll improve your ability to focus, resist temptations, and make good decisions. According to John Ratey, author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, participants in an Australian study who exercised:

Reported that an entire range of behavior related to self-regulation took a turn for the better. Not only did they steadily increase their visits to the gym, they reported that they smoked less, drank less caffeine and alcohol, ate more healthy food and less junk food, curbed impulse spending and overspending, and lost their tempers less often. They procrastinate less and kept more appointments. And, they didn’t leave the dishes in the sink — at least not as often.

7) Physical activity conditions your brain for improved memory and learning. Exercise increases brain chemicals called “growth factors,” which help the brain both grow new neurons and establish new connections between existing neurons. This helps us learn, adapt to change, and move what we learn into long-term memory.

I hope, looking at this long list of benefits — which is not even exhaustive, by the way — that you are feeling more motivated to make a plan to get in a daily exercise habit! If you know you want to get in an exercise habit but aren’t sure where to begin, please let me help! Enroll in my 21 Day Exercise Mini-Course — it’s only $9.99, and you’ll get free live coaching from me as a part of it.

by Christine Carter

Happiness Tip: Take Time to Rest

This may be “the happiest time of year” for some, but if it isn’t for you, I think it’s at least in part because we get so darn tired. Let this be your friendly reminder to actually take time to rest between now and January 2nd.

I used to find it hard to rest at this time of the year because I wouldn’t take real vacation time — I’d close my office, but then still check email and keep up with people asking questions in my online classes. I’d be home, so that I can spend time with my kids who are also home from school, but I’d be working from home.

Eventually, I learned that working from home and trying to take some vacation time with the kids home is a terrible strategy for me. What would have been work in a quiet office became work in a busy holiday household of four teenagers, an active dog, and loads of visitors. If I were to accomplish anything at all, it would require Olympic-level multi-tasking and massive interruption management.

Research shows that this sort of multi-tasking tends to result in more errors, and makes us feel more exhausted. We humans need rest in order to be productive. We make better sprinters than marathoners when it comes to work; as much as we might like to be able to keep producing 24/7, our physical reality prevents this.

Take Action: This year, join me in resting more. I’ve changed; I’ll be taking well over a week of actual vacation time. I can’t wait to sit by the fire and read…and let myself fall asleep if I need to! The days are short–nature is helping us out on this one. I’ll be watching to see if this ironically helps me get more done during the week, as productivity experts would predict.

Join the Discussion: What can you cut out of your work or holiday schedule in the next week or so to make a little time for rest and relaxation? Can you clear some time to do nothing but recuperate? Share with us by commenting below!

by Christine Carter

The Simplest Way to Feel More Joyful (Right Now)

“Abundance can be had simply by consciously receiving what has already been given.” — Sufi Saying

Everywhere I go, people ask me this one question: “If you had to pick just one thing that could make me happier right now, what would it be?” I’m always tempted to make jokes about sex and yoga — or maybe a glass of wine.

Glib responses aside, I believe an authentic moment of gratitude is the simplest way to boost our happiness — especially when we’re feeling stressed or wishing for more of something…like more time, or more money.

When we aren’t seeing what we appreciate in our lives in a given moment, often it is because we are stewing about unfulfilled expectations, or because we believe that don’t have what we “should” have. We are uncomfortable in some way, and we feel entitled to our comfort. Entitlement makes us more likely to feel disappointed when we don’t get what we think we want, rather than grateful for what we already have.

We feel disappointed when we don’t get what we think we want, rather than grateful for what we already have. Share on X

Disappointment is not a happiness habit. Gratitude is. According to the Harvard Mental Health Letter,

In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.”

Gratitude studies report long laundry lists of the benefits of gratitude. For example, people who jotted down something they were grateful for online everyday for just two weeks showed higher stress resilience and greater satisfaction with life. In addition, they reported fewer headaches and a reduction in stomach pain, coughs and sore throats!

People practicing gratitude even report sleeping better and getting more exercise. “The list of potential benefits is almost endless,” wrote Liz Gullford at the University of Birmingham. Gratitude is associated with “fewer intellectual biases, more effective learning strategies, more helpfulness towards others, raised self-confidence, better work attitude, strengthened resiliency, less physical pain, improved health, and longevity.”

What if you lean more towards the grouchy or cynical rather that the grateful? I have some good news for you. Gratitude is a SKILL, like learning to speak a new language or swing a bat. It can be taught, and it needs to be practiced consciously and deliberately. Yet, unlike learning a new language, practicing gratitude can be blissfully simple: just count the things in your life that you feel thankful for. Here are three of my favorite gratitude practices:

1.) At special dinners, we appreciate each other by writing on our dinner table place cards. The kids make giant construction paper place cards for each guest, and as people arrive and mingle, we each take some time to sit down at the table and write on the inside of each place card something that we love or appreciate about them. On birthdays, we usually skip the place cards but while we eat, we go around the table and say what we love or appreciate about the person who is having the birthday.

2.) Several times a week, I take a photograph of something I find beautiful or inspiring, or something for which I feel grateful. I was inspired to do this by Hailey Bartholomew’s film. Often, I just take the photo with my phone and it lives in the gratitude app that I use.

3.) Everyday, I ask my family about three good things. They might share good things that happened to them that day, or good things they did themselves, or even something good that hasn’t happened yet that they are anticipating.

We do this practice in all different circumstances. Sometimes it’s while snuggled in bed. Often it’s at dinner time. Sometimes, when I have a speaking engagement at night, my kids will text me what they feel grateful for. Sometimes it’s over the phone if they’re at their dad’s house. But no matter the situation, their first good thing is always “right now.” This reminds me to be present and recognize that this particular “right now” is worthy of great gratitude.In addition to stirring up feelings of gratitude (while curbing a sense of entitlement), all of these practices evoke the positive emotions that make us feel deeply satisfied with our lives.

The first practice makes us feel loved and helps us express the love we have for others.
The second makes me feel awe and elevation because I’m usually photographing something beautiful in nature. I will also often also feel love if there is, say, a child in the picture. And sometimes I just feel awash in contentment and peace—or creativity and inspiration—as I take the photograph.
The third practice can evoke a full range of positive emotions: anticipation and excitement (about something coming up); kindness and compassion (for someone they did a “good thing” for); straight-up relived happiness (recounting a fun time at school or work).

All of these practices evoke the abundance that is all around us, even in these challenging times. As the Sufi saying above acknowledges, they help us receive the many gifts that are already out there.

Join the Discussion: What are your favorite gratitude practices? Inspire others in the comments below.

Are you stuck or looking to deepen your own gratitude practice — or do you just need to make it a habit, something that you do automatically?

If so, I really hope you’ll consider joining me in my brand new mini-course class designed to help you establish a lasting gratitude habit. I’m launching a new course: Establish a Gratitude Practice Mini-Course is only $9.99! Over the course of 21 days, it’ll deliver all the science you need to establish and keep a gratitude practice. The mini-course includes access to a private Facebook Group for moral support and online coaching from me, Dr. Christine Carter. Learn more or enroll now here.

by Christine Carter

Stress-Relieving Tips for the Holidays

I joined Candace Rose for an interview to discuss how we can avoid disappointment this season and stop being so hard on ourselves, the secret to saying “no”, and stress relieving tips we can use when we feel a sense of overwhelm.

Candace Rose: The holidays are often thought of as the most wonderful time of the year, but for some that might not be the case. What’s the best way to avoid being disappointed this season?

Dr. Christine Carter: “A mound of research shows that we are happiest over the holidays when we give to others, particularly when we give to people in need.

I like people to create what I call a giving trifecta by shopping at retailers that donate a portion of the proceeds to causes that are really close to your heart. For example, this year I’ll be making my gift purchases through the AmazonSmile program and then I’ll use my Chase Freedom card to do that because I get that trifecta or that triple whammy of gift giving, so everybody on my list obviously gets their present and then the AmazonSmile program gives money to the Tipping Point, which is a local charity that I chose and is really close to my heart. That Chase Freedom card allows me to donate back the rewards, so I get 5% cash back on that and I turn around and donate that money to the Tipping Point as well.

That makes my gift giving which can sometimes be disappointing, as you mentioned, or even stressful much, much more meaningful and fulfilling.”

Read the full interview I had with Candace and check out the rest of the questions she had for me by clicking here.

by Christine Carter

How to Enjoy the Holidays

My teens are obsessed with Christmas carols this year (and every year).

“It’s the holidays!” they exclaim when I suggest that perhaps we could listen to NPR instead of the Christmas carol station. This is, at least to the kids, is the most wonderful time of the year.

Many adults love the idea of the holidays more than their actual experience of them — mostly because their list of holiday-related tasks and obligations outweighs the joy of it all. So that I can actually enjoy the holidays, I’ve devised the three-part plan below.

Step One: Prioritize connection. ‘Tis the season for reconnecting. We reconnect with our friends and neighbors through a handful of annual parties. We reconnect with our more distant friends through cards and photos. And we reconnect with our extended family consistently throughout the season — our holiday rituals are what help make our family truly our family.

For example, the weekend before Christmas, my cousins always fly in from Massachusetts and Washington and Florida for a big family Christmas party, complete with a funny “white elephant” gift exchange. A few days before Christmas, my mom always makes spritz cookies with the kids, a tradition started in Germany with her mother. We light the candles of the menorah and say prayers each night during Hanukkah, something my husband’s Jewish family has been teaching me and my kids.

All of this is about renewing our sense that we are a part of something larger than ourselves. Let me not mince words here: This sense that we are connected and part of a larger whole is the single strongest predictor of happiness that we have. It is true that the holidays have become depressingly commercial in our culture, with a massive focus what each individual will get and what kids want in terms of material gifts. Soon every news report will include something about how the economy is responding to this year’s wave of massive collective consumption.

But we can choose to focus on relationships instead of individual gift lists this holiday season. Not surprisingly, people who focus on family or religion during the holidays report higher happiness than those who don’t.

Step Two: Schedule the fun, the tasks — and the necessary downtime. There is so much going on at this time of the year, I know that I have to sit down with my calendar and block out time to get a Christmas tree, shop for our Hanukkah meals, take a holiday card photo, etc.

First, I make a simple list of all the things I need and want to do in the next month. Second, I block off time on our family calendar to actually do those things — including the not-so-obvious things, like scheduling time to update my address book so that our holiday cards make it to where they’re supposed to. (Research suggests that telling your brain when you will do something reduces stress.) Third, I actually schedule downtime on my calendar, like weekend mornings when we commit to not going anywhere or doing anything.

Once I do that, I realize that I’m not going to have enough time to do everything on my list. But I can’t skip my downtime, or I won’t actually enjoy the holidays. And so I have to decide: What are the most important things for me to do and events for me to attend?

That leads me back to Step One: Where do we get the most bang for our relationship buck? Everything that doesn’t serve to connect us to each other or something larger than ourselves gets nixed.

It is never easy to stick to the plan. Inevitably, someone will call to see if we can go ice skating on a weekend morning when we’ve scheduled downtime, and we’ll all want to go. But if we can’t easily reschedule the downtime for the next day, we’ll say no.

I’ll get a lot of pushback on this decision from my family, but I’ll remind them that more is not necessarily better, and that I’m actually not that fun to be around when I’m exhausted.

Step Three: Trade in expectations for appreciation. Most of us suffer from what I think of as an abundance paradox: Because we have so much, it becomes easy to take our good fortune for granted; as a result, we are more likely to feel disappointed when we don’t get what we want than to feel grateful when we do.

This tendency can be especially pronounced during the holidays — but we can overcome it by consciously cultivating gratitude.

We can do so in three ways. First, we can create holiday gratitude traditions (see this post for ideas how). Second, we can intentionally expose ourselves to other people’s suffering, and make a real effort to help. An afternoon spent serving the homeless can make most anyone feel instantly, and deeply, grateful. Finally, we can make an effort to notice when our expectations are leading us to desire something different than what we have — a recipe for disappointment. One of the best happiness tips I know of: find something to love in the moment you are in right now.

As the holidays approach, we will likely feel stressed and exhausted, but we need not feel like victims to this time of year. Our exhaustion is not inevitable; how tired or stressed we get is often a result of the choices we make (or fail to make) ahead of time. So while I think it is too early for holiday music, it is not too early to start making the choices that will lead us to a low-stress, high-joy holiday season.

by Christine Carter

How to Buy Happiness

Even though we say we can’t buy happiness, we often behave as though we can. Why else would we spend so much time shopping? What if I told you that you actually can buy happiness, for yourself, or for someone else? Well, you can! Here’s how.

For starters, remember that there is a huge difference between real joy — or any other positive emotion, like gratitude, or love, or hope — and the gratification that can come from buying something (or receiving a gift). Positive emotions like awe and compassion have different effects on our nervous system than material rewards, like gifts, do.

Positive emotions function to reverse stress — to put the breaks on any lingering fight-or-flight response that might be making us feel anxious or unsettled. In contrast, material purchases and gifts trigger the reward center in our brain, which usually delivers a nice hit of pleasure… and then leaves us wanting more. The lingering feeling that more would be better can be blamed on a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Though dopamine does deliver that initial pleasurable feeling, its main purpose is to create desire, or craving, in the brain, which acts as a motivating force. This is why when we treat ourselves with food or a shopping trip we are often soon left wishing for more (rather than satisfied with what we already have).

So here’s how to buy happiness: Make purchases that foster real positive emotions, either in yourself or others.

Here are some ideas for your happiness gift list:

Buy experiences like a trip, concert, movie, or dinner out — especially those that foster connections between friends and family members. This gives people a chance to feel emotions like love, excitement, anticipation (and maybe awe, elevation, or inspiration, depending on the activity). The feeling of connection we get when we do something fun with people we love is one of our most powerful sources of happiness.

Don’t buy gifts from a list or registry. One of the reasons that we love opening presents so much is that people find surprises exciting. Excitement is a positive emotion. This means that a gift has the potential to bring happiness mostly through the joyful anticipation it brings…not the actual gift itself, which might be gratifying but will often leave us wanting more. If a receiver chooses a gift themselves and knows what they are getting, the joyful anticipation won’t be there.

Give something that enables the receiver to give to others. (I’m a fan of ‘Tis Best gift cards, for example.) Believe it or not, giving brings far more happiness than receiving, and so when we want to give happiness, the best thing we can do is enable someone else to be a giver. When they are able to give to people or causes they feel passionately about, gift receivers are likely to feel generosity, awe, compassion, love, gratitude, or engagement — all big and powerful positive emotions.

Looking for ways to give yourself a little pressy? Spend your money on your health. Really! Although happiness does lead tobetter health (primarily by reducing stress), health is also a major predictor of happiness — on average, healthy people are 20% happier. So buy yourself some vitamins, and those Zumba classes you love so much.

Here’s a no-brainer present for yourself: my new Establish an Exercise Habit Mini-Course, designed to teach you how to establish a lifelong exercise habit for yourself. This class is only $9.99, and I promise it will pave the way for you to be healthier AND happier in the coming year.

Happy Holidays!

by Christine Carter

Why Start Exercising, Now, Over the Holidays?

If you are anything like me, you are not inclined to join a gym, or start training for a new race, or begin an exciting new exercise plan right now, during the holidays, when you have no time. (Even if, like me, you feel like you could use a little more exercise right about now.)

Here’s why the holidays are actually the best time to start a new routine

If we want our habits to stick, we need to start really, really small. It is hard for us humans to make a major behavior change (like swapping that holiday cocktail for a jog).

Here’s the thing: It’s much better to succeed at something rather unambitious (and then build on that success) than to fail at a more impressive goal. Almost all of us can pull off a brilliant couple of days, or even weeks, of ambitious exercise. But unless we have a really big catalyst for our change, like a very scary health diagnosis or other crisis-level event that provides us with immutable (and long-term) motivation, we’ll usually crash and burn soon after takeoff. We’ll have a couple of good weeks, but then we’ll have a bad day and skip our planned exercise. The next day we’ll decide that the whole routine is too hard and we’ll skip it again, resolving to make revisions tomorrow. The day after that we’ll hardly think of it at all. We’ll be back at square one.

The alternative to being super-ambitious when we create new habits is to build slowly. And because most of us have very little free time over the holidays, we feel better about doing something small — we can more easily see that something is better than nothing. So we are more willing to be shockingly unambitious in our exercise goals than we are are willing to be come January. And that is the very thing that will help us succeed!

When I first started going for regular walks in the late afternoon, my goal was just to put the leash on the dog and walk to the end of the block. Why? I ALWAYS have time for that, because it takes less than five minutes. (Yes, I really did this a lot at first, and I still occasionally do. Usually I walk longer, but not always.)

You, too, can do something ridiculously unambitious like this, and when you do, you’ll be carving a neural pathway in your brain that will eventually become an unshakable habit.

Join the Discussion: What’s stopping you from starting a new exercise routine? Will you make time this holiday season? Share your thoughts below.

Do you need support starting (or sticking to) an exercise habit? If so, you aren’t alone, and I really hope you’ll consider joining me in my brand new online class designed to get you into an exercise habit for the rest of your life. Here’s what’s best about it: It’s SUPER FUN, and you can do it even if you don’t have enough time to go to the gym. My new Establish an Exercise Habit Mini-Course is only $4.99 through Monday, November 29 at midnight (use the coupon code CCBlackFriday). Over the course of 21 days, it’ll deliver all the science you need to establish and keep an exercise habit. The mini-course includes access to a private Facebook Group for moral support and online coaching from me, Dr. Christine Carter. Learn more or enroll now here.