Our friendships and close relationships–both how many we have, and how positive they are–are one of the best predictors of our happiness. But in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, our friends often get short-shrift.

Take Action: Make time to call a friend just to catch up. Better yet, schedule time to do this regularly, preferably at the same time on the same day each week. Odds are that you’ll feel happier when you get off the phone, and you’ll be shoring up your friendships for the long-haul.

Are you always saying “yes” to everyone around you, but never making time for yourself? Saying no takes practice for most people, but it is a necessary life-skill in today’s world.

Take Action:
Say “no” to several requests this week, but when you do, schedule the time you would have taken–on that extra informational interview, for example, or bringing cupcakes to the classroom–to do something for yourself.  Perhaps you can go to bed an hour earlier tonight, to catch up on much needed sleep.  Or maybe now you’ll have time to eat a peaceful lunch without also having to catch up on emails at the same time.

We don’t have to wait for Valentine’s Day to generous with our hugs! Dacher Keltner’s studies show that touch is the primary language of compassion, love, and gratitude–all positive emotions. Read all about the way that hugs make us feel better in Keltner’s terrific book, Born to Be Good, and in this essay.

Take Action: Hug someone you wouldn’t normally every day this week. (I don’t really need to say this but…please make sure it will be appreciated, first!). If you’ve no one to hug at the moment, watch this “Free Hugs” video.

 

We parents are probably more squeezed for time than at any other time in history. And no time can mean lots of stress.  Here are three tips for getting things done–without also feeling so stressed out:

1. Stop multi-tasking. Multi-tasking exhausts more energy and time than single-tasking does. Take it from productivity experts Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy:
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   Distractions are costly: A temporary shift in attention from one task to another–stopping to answer an email or take a phone call, for instance–increased the amount of time necessary to finish the primary task by as much as 25 percent, a phenomenon known as ‘switching time.’ “

2. Build positivity. We need to consciously practice doing things that make us happy, especially during times when we are trying to accomplish something (this goes just as much for helping kids with homework or potty training as it does for finishing that big report at work). As psychologist Shawn Achor writes, “Positive brains have a biological advantage over brains that are neutral or negative.”
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3. Feeling anxious or agitated by how much you need to get done? Don’t let those negative emotions lead you into the downward spiral of a full fight-or-flight response, which is basically like being on a hamster-wheel. You might feel like you are working furiously, but the work is low-quality.
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4. Stopping to do something that makes us laugh, or feel grateful or inspired, can renew our energy and get us back on a more productive, less stressed track.Simply taking a moment to write down what you are grateful for–or better yet, express it to someone else–can do the trick.
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5. Practice “discontinuous productivity.”In other words, rest between periods of productivity. We can’t gun-it for eight hours straight; our brains just don’t work that way. After 90 to 120 minutes of high output, we need a period of recovery–or negativity starts to build, and productivity starts to decline.
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6. Productivity experts recommend periods of focus followed by high-quality periods of rest. Rest periods needn’t be long (10-15 minutes will do) if you truly take a break: Go for a walk outside, chat with a coworker or neighbor about a new movie, eat your lunch outside or near a sunny window.
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7. One of these productivity experts, Bob Pozen, even says he closes his office door after lunch and naps for 30 minutes. Pozen has worked as a top mutual fund executive, an attorney, a government official, a law school professor, a business school professor and a prolific author–often doing several jobs at once. If he can nap midday, for crying out loud, so can the rest of us.
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Take Action: Increase your productivity today by taking a break.  A real one. Maybe even a nap!

This is an excerpt from my Greater Good blog.

Did you make a New Year’s Resolution to counter holiday over-indulgence by cutting calories? (Or cutting out an entire food-group, like carbs?)

If so, go ahead and quit that diet now, before it makes you miserable.

I’m not saying you don’t need to lose weight, or that you are perfectly healthy just the way you are.  Maybe you aren’t. Many of us stand to become healthier–and even happier–by becoming more fit and less over-weight.

But why start the New Year devoting your energy toward something that in all likelihood won’t get you long-term results?  More than that, why do something that puts your children at risk?

First, here’s what I mean by diet. I’ve taken this definition verbatim from Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, a professor of public health at the University of Minnesota:

“Dieting for weight loss: An eating plan that includes rigid rules about what to eat, how much, in what combinations, or at what times, that is usually followed for a specified period, for the purpose of weight loss.”

Here is why you can quit your diet, and feel happy with that choice:

(1)  Diets don’t work.  Depriving the body of food doesn’t tend to produce long-term weight loss. There is a multi-billion dollar diet industry out there that doesn’t want you to know this, but it is true.

(2)  Dieting can make you unhappy, or even depressed. People who diet are at higher risk for depression and anxiety problems, especially when they’ve experienced a depression before.

(3)  Parental dieting can be bad for kids. There is a strong association between dieting (particularly extreme diets and calorie counting) and similar behaviors in teens.  For example, 72% of girls whose mothers “diet a lot” engage in unhealthy weight control behaviors, such as skipping meals and binge eating.

One landmark study showed that teen dieters tend to experience fatigue, anxiety, loss of interest in life, and mental sluggishness.  Another study showed that dieting could predict the onset of depression in teens four years later.

All of this is not to say that we shouldn’t become healthier and more physically fit: we can be physically active, healthy eaters; just not “dieters.”

Take Action: Quit your “diet,” if you’re on one, and make a resolution to eat more healthfully instead.  What will that mean for you?

This is an excerpt from my Greater Good blog.  Read the full post here.

Oh, how I love New Year’s resolutions. Something about the blank slate, the possibility for growth.

Like most people, I can’t dive headlong into a major change without a fair bit of contemplation and preparation. This year, I’m going to take stock a little differently; I’ve learned a lot in 2011 about how to live life more fully in 2012. I plan to:

(1) Reflect less on 2011, and more on what I’d do if 2012 was the last year of my life. This really puts things into perspective! This post gives some more context and instructions for this practice.

(2) Make New Year’s resolutions that bring more happiness into my life, that reflect my top priorities, and that are attainable. Resolutions that reduce stress — or more than that, my sense that I am racing through life, working, providing, and consuming without enjoying — will be at the top of my list. For example, I will not be resolving to go on a diet. But I will resolve to eat lunch mindfully, without also reading or checking email.

(3) Make a realistic plan to keep my resolutions. This is key: It is one thing to make a New Year’s resolution, but quite another to know how to fulfill it. Fortunately, I know a lot about how to create a new habit. For me, the science around making changes works.

Take Action: Make a New Year’s resolution that you’d make if you knew you only had this next year to live — a resolution that will make you happier. Now make a realistic plan to keep your resolution!

(If you need help making or keeping your New Year’s resolutions, I hope you’ll take one of my online classes.  They start January 9th, and I guarantee that they will make you and your family happier in 2012. Literally: I’ll give you your money back if the class you take doesn’t.)

Wishing you much joy in the New Year!

PS: As I’m taking stock here at the end of the year, I want to be sure that you know this: I am so grateful for you. Thank you to all who read this weekly email and pass it on to friends; to all who are enrolled in my classes; to all who’ve taken a pledge to be happier, to make the world a happier place.  Your enthusiasm and support makes my life meaningful and, yes, happy! Thank you!

Feeling overwhelmed is not a happiness habit, but many of us start to go into holiday over-drive right about now. Here are two things we can do to increase our happiness and decrease our stress this week:

1) Take the Center for a New American Dream “Simplify the Holidays” challenge. It is jam-packed with ways to de-stress the holidays.

2) Practice gratitude instead of materialism. Check out all the suggestions from readers for how to do this in the comment section of this post. People have come up with some very fun ideas! The photo above is our family’s holiday gratitude garland, inspired by a Raising Happiness reader Margaux O’Malley. (Thank you, Margaux!)

I’m simplifying as a way to participate in the Occupy Movement. That way, I can participate in Occupy without feeling like I’ve taken on a whole new task list. See this post and this one for more about that.

Take One Small Action: The key here is to not become overwhelmed by your attempts to simplify. Maybe just sign the pledge today; tomorrow, implement only one of the Center for a New American Dream’s suggestions for simplifying the holidays. Make changes one day at a time, in small steps.

A buddy recently stopped by for tea to tell me all about his new love — a whirlwind 50-something romance, a second great love after the death of his beloved wife of 25 years. This is someone who has written books about relationships, a guy who has actually figured out how to make a marriage great. He said something that really struck me.

“I text her three things every day:
“I love you.
“You are beautiful.
“And thank you.”

(A side confession: After I heard this, my go-to reaction was an envious wish that my guy would send me texts like this throughout the day, NOT that I could start texting him. So much easier to wish others would change than to take action ourselves.)

Anyhoo, the happiness tip here is that my friend is actually increasing HIS OWN feelings of being in love.

When my friend texts his wife, he is cultivating his own feelings of gratitude, as well as expressing them. Research suggests that when we cultivate feelings of gratitude towards our sweethearts, we feel more satisfied with our relationship, and our partners feel more connected to us and more satisfied with the relationship, too.

Expressing gratitude (rather than just fostering the feeling) to a romantic partner can also make us feel more satisfied with the relationship and increase our sense of responsibility for our partner’s well-being.

Take Action: Reflect on what you are grateful for in your honey right now. (And maybe even send a text!)

This happiness tip is excerpted from my Greater Good blog. Check out the full post!

If we want to be happy we need to practice gratitude. Deliberately and consistently — or we’ll end up feeling entitled rather than satisfied.

Here are my three favorite gratitude practices:

(1)   On Thanksgiving, 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.

(2)   Several times a week, I take a photograph of something I find beautiful or inspiring, or something I feel grateful for. Sometimes I post them here.

(3)   Everyday, I ask my kids 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.

Take Action: If you don’t already have one, pick a gratitude practice to start this week. Make a plan to make your gratitude practice a habit (don’t skip this part). What will remind you to practice?

How do you foster gratitude in your life? Inspire others by leaving a comment below. 

This happiness tip is excerpted from my Greater Good blog. Read more about these practices here.