How to make yourself happier in just a few seconds | Hacker News Reader

How to make yourself happier in just a few seconds

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

75 pointsbumbledraven41 comments

I thought this article would be about hookers and blow... nevermind.

Basically: When imagining about a happy event it is better to imagine what would have been if you didn't have something you have right now (eg. gf/bf, school education, good job, food on the table, nice pad), rather then thinking about "what if x" happened, where x is something that you wish it happens to you; like winning the lottery, getting a gf., a job, whatever.

So, I guess this study plays on two things: 1. You have to have something nice in your life that you cherish about. 2. The "loss aversion" feelings in humans, makes you think it would really suck if you lost it, and you are happy to have that thing (as it puts a larger value to something you already have).

Works for some people I guess. If your life really sucks, then you could say "well, it could get worse, look at those kids in haiti. I should be happy for what I have, and hey, my life doesn't suck that much in comparison. "

If I'm reading it correctly, it looks like it also makes a difference how you approach the things you do have. They found that thinking about what it'd be like if you'd never met your significant other, for example, made you more happy than reminiscing about how you did meet him/her.

> If your life really sucks, then you could say "well, it could get worse, look at those kids in haiti. I should be happy for what I have, and hey, my life doesn't suck that much in comparison. "

You're saying it like that's a bad thing ... I know people that have everything they ever wanted, and are still unhappy (including my parents).

Actual headline: It’s a Wonderful Life: Mentally Subtracting Positive Events Improves People’s Affective States, Contrary to Their Affective Forecasts

The study results certainly seem to point to the neurological reasons for the success of Frank Capra's classic referenced in the headline.

The original headline was a bit opaque. Rewriting journal article titles to read more like newspaper article titles sounds like a good practice to me.

What's weird is that you can think back and realize how random almost everything in your life is. For example, if I had gotten the job I applied for at Arby's when I was 16, in 1982, I would very likely never have met my wife, though I didn't meet her until I was 21.

My entire career came about because the Australian Government banned Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. It was finally released in 2000 - I was a journalism student at the time, and the university cinema was playing it. In the time between my final class and the film beginning, I was killing time in the student union building.

They had a jobs board in the building, and I read one asking for a 'casual sales administrator' ('saturday girl') in a real estate office. Figuring real estate was a practical life skill to learn through a part time uni job, I noted the details and applied.

Being brilliant, I got the job, fell in love with the property industry and on graduation decide to pursue it rather than journalism. That led to a few promotions, and directly into the field of training business owners in the real estate industry, which then led me to my current career (business coaching).

If it weren't for the ban and subsequent delayed release, I might be a working journalist! And to think I've been railing against the Australian government's draconian view of censorship.

Edit: Feeling happier already.

Perhaps we are in a multiverse and in many other universes you did get that job and you didn't meet her.

I thought this article was going to make me happy within a few seconds of clicking this link. It didn't :)

That's because you didn't think about how much worse your life would have been if you hadn't clicked the link.

Just think about how your life would have been if you hadn't read that link!

10 minutes longer!

Try this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bmhjf0rKe8

By applying the concepts of the main article to this video I can certainly say that the thought of my day without having seen this video makes me much happier than simply recalling that I have seen it. Thanks!

I see that Daniel Gilbert is one of the authors of this study, author of http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp/... .

If you have yet to read it and have any interest in the psychology of happiness (and I can't imagine a sentient human who wouldn't have such an interest), do so post-haste.

Personally, I just go for something containing sugar and caffeine.

I completely gave up caffeine two weeks ago, I have never felt better. I was one of those guys who relied on coffee everyday, a day without coffee was unimaginable. But it also used to make me cranky, lazy (when the caffeine wore off), screw up my sleep pattern; high anxiety and sometimes depressed.

I figured if I could stop drinking coffee and try to find alternatives of the benefits of coffee (alertness), I could get rid of the disadvantages. The first few days were tough, I had intense headaches without coffee. But after I fixed my sleep pattern, started doing more workouts and replaced coffee with mint (decafienated) tea in the morning to help me wake up. I felt more alert and overall my mood has been better. I can say that I am happier because I stopped drinking coffee. :)

YMMV.

I'm curious to how you got into the using coffee for energy (especially in the early mornings) it seems that this has become the norm in peoples lives: waking up to two or three cups of coffee and then drinking even more at work.

I like coffee enough to have it regularly once a week on Saturday mornings but the rest of my caffeine consumption is sitting down to a cup of tea at around 5 o'clock which seems to make me happy more than energizing me. But the headaches because you did not have your coffee seem rather scary that it had gotten to that point.

I don't remember how I got started in to coffee drinking business to help me wake up. But I have been doing it for far too long. I had to have coffee in the morning for me to begin to do something. 3-4 large cups a day (at least) was normal for me.

I don't think a lot of people realize but caffeine addiction is not very different from other forms of addiction (as to how addictions in generally work, not necessarily how much damage they do to you). So my headaches for not having coffee was symptoms of withdrawal from caffeine. I have learned from others who also tried to quit drinking coffee they had to deal with really bad headaches.

My main reason for trying to quit caffeine (as mentioned before) is anxiety. I think I have recovered 90% from my anxiety just by quitting coffee. I am also taking supplements like st. John's wort, which I believe helped me a lot too, along with heavy exercise.

Oh! And I forgot about the dreams! :) This might sound as an exaggeration, but I don't think I have dreamed for the last ten years or so. Or at least dreams I can consciously remember. The week after I stopped drinking coffee, every night I have been having the most vivid dreams you could imagine. Its amazing! :)

After dropping out of college, this might be the second best decision I ever made. I am so excited I can't stop writing about it. :)

Interesting, I can understand the relation to anxiety as when I have had more than a couple cups of coffee on a given day I really do start to become shaky and irritable by things that normally wouldn't phase me and have seen similar things in heavy coffee drinkers.

The dreams may actually have appeared because of your sleep habits being fixed as you were waking up with coffee and not naturally waking where your brain actually starts to change from a dream state to a conscious state (which could explain why you now remember them).

I think you are right about the dreams being related to better sleep cycle.

You don't have to have a lot of caffeine to get a caffeine withdrawal headache. Variation in caffeine intake is a common cause of people's apparently random headaches.

I forget the name of it but I believe that a few decades back here in Australia there was a brand of over the counter pain killers that had caffeine in them. It perks you up and can reduce the severity of migraines.

You have a headache so you take one but when it wears off you get a caffeine withdrawal headache so you have another one... Repeat until your kidneys fail (or the government finally bans them).

Mixing caffeine with painkillers is pretty common; caffeine improves the effectiveness. I this this is mostly a legal workaround -- codeine would be more effective, but they give you a caffeine + acetaminophen + asprin cocktail that's almost as good because that's legal to sell over the counter. As an occasional headache sufferer, I've found it to be pretty effective. Codeine is better, though.

Pretty sure you're not allowed to put caffeine in painkillers at all in Australia. I've certainly never seen it that I can recall. It sounds like an inherently dangerous idea to combine stimulants and depressants.

Also, you can get codeine over the counter here. You need a prescription for the higher strength stuff but you can get strong enough codeine without one. The pharmacist will ask you a few questions about why you want it but I've never been refused it. Costs 7 or 8 bucks for 20 tablets of the name brand stuff from memory.

Acetaminophen and NSAIDs are not depressants.

Excedrin is probably the most popular example in the US--it contains 60mg of caffeine.

Coffee is not bad for you, as long as it is consumed in moderation. I have one cup a day, usually mid-morning, and experience no adverse symptoms. Granted, consuming any caffeine after 3-4PM can disrupt your sleep cycle (even if you easily fall asleep, it can cause you not to sleep well), but there is nothing harmful about 1-3 cups a day in the AM. There are several studies indicating coffee is even a preventative for a few diseases (diabetes and heart disease, among others), and it is a well-known fact coffee contains high levels of antioxidants.

For me it wasn't like that, I used to drink coffee to wake up, after the caffeine wore off (usually after 4-5 hours) I would feel very tired and sleepy, so I have to drink more coffee to help me stay awake. And its a cycle. If I could just drink one cup in the morning, I would.

I know quite a few people who relates to this pattern and some don't. So I think its safe to say that it differs from person to person and not everyone deals with caffeine the same way.

One of my main reason to drink coffee is the caffeine I need to stay awake, so if I can replace that (which I did), there is really very little point of drinking coffee.

I know about the benefits of coffee, but its not the only source of high level of antioxidants.

Maybe you weren't getting enough sleep? I drink a pretty good amount of coffee, but I am not tired if I don't have any. Sleep; it's good for you...

Timing and quantity matter. I get the best results (better then no caffeine at all) with a cup of black tea at my lowest point of the day, which for me is around mid-afternoon.

I do the same, but at the highest point of the day. This results in higher peaks, and lower lows (when I can actually fall asleep).

Think about what would happen if you didn't have the sugar and caffeine for an extra boost :)

This seems close to Solution Focused Brief Therapy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solution_focused_brief_therapy). It's interesting though.

I'm sitting here eating my oatmeal and honey, thinking "Imagine a world without oatmeal and honey!" Seems to be working.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.-- Leo Tolstoy

Imagine there's no Youtube.

Oh god! it burns! I'd have to work! =P

Obligatory TL;DR - "Count your blessings."

Really, the article conclusion seems that simple. (Though I'm not one to talk; I'm the brooding type.)

The article's conclusion is not that simple. It compares a simple "count your blessings" approach to a "think about not having your blessings" approach. Their research shows the latter method works much better than the former.

Simply put: Happy Thanksgiving

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