The Science of Well Being - A Summary

Course - The Science of Well Being (Link)
Teacher - Laurie Santos


NYTimes had this article on how a happiness course in Yale is the most popular course in campus and how it is available on coursera as well. Immediately, I was hooked. My motivation was not that I am unhappy but the following - 

• I wanted to understand what makes us happy. If there is a science behind it, I definitely wanted to know.
• If in the process of learning, I can become happier, then why not? 

With this, I immediately enrolled in the course and finished it last week. Overall, I think the course is very well structured and covers both theoretical aspects with practical activities to really make one happy. I will admit that I did not follow the practical activities (called rewirements) to the dot. However, although Dr. Santos claims that "Knowing is not half the battle", it is definitely non-zero and my attempts to get better on them continues on.  

The course is structured in two parts. Every week, we go over some of the theoretical aspects of the science. At the same time, there are exercises such as make more social connections, or meditate for 10 mins. These exercise are designed to bring us more happiness as there is enough evidence to suggest that they really do. In this post, I will summarize the theoretical aspects of this course. 

Warning - This will be a long post.

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What makes us happy? (or  Misconceptions about happiness)

This is a good question to begin this exercise. Here are some common responses and before starting the course, I would also agree to few of them 

• Good Job
• Money
• True Love
• Awesome stuff (car, big tv etc)
• Good Body
• Perfect grades (for those in school/college)

But in reality, none of the above actually makes us happy. There are studies that have shown over and over that we believe that the above make us happy but actually they do not. 

The only exception is money. Money in the initial phase does make us happy, as in, there is a threshold. If your money increases towards that threshold, it indeed gives us happiness but beyond that any increase in money does not increase in happiness.  This threshold exists to take care of our existential needs, better health care, access to clean water, air, house etc.  But once we start earning more than threshold and even if we continue to increase our earning, it makes no difference in our happiness. 

Summary - We are putting our efforts in wrong things, we are prioritizing misleading goals. We believe that such things will make us happy but they do not. 

Reference reading - The How of happiness by Sonja Lyubomomirsky

Why we prioritize wrong happiness goals? Why are our expectations so bad?

This is a very good question as we truly believed that good jobs, money, good body will bring us happiness but they do not. Why is that? The answer lies in Miswanting.

Miswanting - This act of being mistaken about what and how much you're going to like these things in the future.

(Term coined by Tim Wilson and Dan Gilbert)

To really understand miswanting, we need to understand that our mind has certain annoying features. These features distract us from prioritizing things correctly. They mislead us to what will make us happy. 

Annoying feature #1 - Mind's strongest intuitions are often totally wrong.

There are various visual illusions out there, example Muller-Lyer illusion and Shepard tables, where mind tricks us to believe that what is opposite of the real thing. We do not realize because our mind's convictions are really strong about these. 

Annoying feature #2 - Minds do not think in terms of absolutes.

This is really important as our mind always think in comparative reference point.  

• Study - A nice study shows that for every rise of a dollar in income, our mind's perception on what is required to be happy goes up by 1.4$.  
• Study - Social Media : Facebook use leads to low self esteem. 
• Another experiment, two control options
• Option 1 - You get 50K$, others get 25K$ 
• Option 2 - You get 100k$, others get 250K
• 56% prefer option 1.
• Study - TV: TV makes you assume that average wealth of people around you is higher.  More TV watching leads to more happiness.
• Study - TV: Each extra hr of TV makes you spend 4$ higher more than average. 

Our minds are always comparing our worth with other people or other reference points. TV, social media makes these comparisons very easy. 

Annoying feature #3 - Our minds are built to get used to stuff 

Also known as Perceptual Adaptation or Hedonic Adaptation.

Hedonic adaptation - The process of getting accustomed to positive and /or to negative stimuli such that over time, we get used to it.

As we get better job, higher salaries, with time, once they stick around, it becomes the new normal. Our mind adapts to it.  Hence, they no longer give us the same feeling of happiness as we thought they would give us. 

Wonderful things wanes with repetition - Dan Gilbert

Annoying feature #4 - We don't realize that our minds are built to get used to stuff.

This is really the worse one because we don't even realize this self evident truth. When we strive towards a goal, we expect that once achieved, it will have a positive impact on our happiness.  But our minds suffer from Impact Bias, namely - 

• Intensity of impact: We overestimate the overall increase in happiness once we achieve the goal.
• Duration of impact: We overestimate how long will the impact lead to increase in happiness.

In addition,  more experience of impact bias, that is same event happening again and again, does not make it any better.  That is, our minds is blind to this bias and hence there is no learning either. Example, as our salaries improve, it does not mean that we become happier.  The fact that when it increased last time did not lead to increment in happiness does not make us any wiser, we strongly believe that this next increment will make us happier. 

What leads to this impact bias? 

Focalism - When we think about the event, we only focus on that event, but not everything else. This results in the bias.

Adaptability - Our brains are very adaptable. Hence, when events happen, say bad events, we tend to cope up with them. It is a human intrinsic quality.

Reference reading - Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert

How to get out of Hedonic adaptation? What are strategies to reset our expectations?

From last section, we realize that we need to prevent the mind from tricking us into miswanting. In this section, we discuss certain ways to thwart the Hedonic adaption.

1. Savoring - The act of stepping out of an experience to review and to appreciate it. 
2. Negative visualization - Visualize the scenario of what will happen if the goal is not met. How bad will it be? Yes, you will be upset for some time but it is not really the end of this world. Is the present really that bad? This helps break the mind out of the Hedonic adaptation.
3. Make this day your last day - This is not necessarily the last day of your life but let's say the last day of the present. Example - last day of this job. 
4. Gratitude - the quality of being thankful and a tendency to show appreciation of what one has. It has shown that merely writing down 5 things that one is grateful for once a week makes people happy.

Reference Point - Reference point is a salient and often irrelevant standard against which all subsequent information is compared.

Reference point impact our happiness as our brain is comparing our state to this point to deduce happiness. We do not realize how much impact this does on our happiness. We need to constantly recalibrate this point to realize our true happiness. 

• Concretely re-experience: Try to to back to a place (physically) where you were some time ago. Example - go back to a previous job's office. Remember your state when you where there and what your expectations were at that point of time. Compare this to present and how much it meant at that point of time.
• Concretely observe: Say, you want to visit a place or get to a point. Actually go and visit that place and see if really matches with your expectation. Grass is always greener on the other side. We think that it will make us very happy once we reach a place X but in reality, it may not be true. So, actually, trying out that X for some time calibrates this expectation.
• Avoid Social comparisons: This is more important in today's world than ever. There are few techniques to realize this - 
• Stop Technique - Whenever you realize that your mind is comparing to others, just tell yourself to stop it. One has to be little vigilant for this.
• Gratitude also helps a lot in stopping social comparison. If mind is in a state of gratitude, it does less comparison.
• Get rid of social media accounts :)
• Interrupt your consumption/comparison: When one listens to a favorite song in a loop, one starts to enjoy it less with every repetition. Same goes with favorite dish. If you like something, take it intermittently, give some gap between occurrences.  
• Interesting corollary to above point is that, if you do not like something, do all of it one go instead of in piece-meals. 
• Add variety to your consumption: Variety brings new experiences. Also, vary the time between your favorite activity, say having donuts. Make things dynamic.

What stuff really increase our happiness?

Primarily, we can divide the stuff into two categories - 

1. Better Wanting - Wanting the right parts of what we already want.
2. Wanting things that we do not want - could be both known or unknown to us.

Category 1: Better Wanting

#1 Signature Strengths - Get a job that make use of your signature strengths. 

Signature strengths are strengths that (a) you are really good at and (b) Recognized by others as well.

#2 Flow - Find things/activities/jobs that give you a Flow.

Flow - The mental state in which a person performing an activity fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment.

The main features of Flow are - 

• Challenging but attainable goals.
• Strong focussed concentration.
• Activity is intrinsically rewarding.
• Feeling of serenity.
• Loss of self conscious.
• Lack of any physical needs

How to achieve flow -

Flow is achieved when we set out to accomplish voluntarily that is difficult and worthwhile. Typically, it does not distinguish between leisure and work. Since it is voluntary, it takes both one and the same. 

Intrinsic motivation - Engaging in a behavior because you enjoy the activity itself. 

Extrinsic motivation can undermine intrinsic motivation Focus on grades (external) undermines learning (intrinsic). 

Activities that has intrinsic motivation helps with in achieving flow. 

#3 Growth mindset 

Growth Mindset - The belief that intelligence can be trained, basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work.

As opposed to fixed mindset which says that intelligence and traits are fixed traits. In fixed mindset, difficult tasks do not lead to change with time. In growth mindset, performance increases over time. One can learn to get to a growth mindset. 

Category 2: Wanting the stuff that we don't realize

#1 Kindness

Opportunities to be more kind to others. Studies show that happy people are more motivated to be kind. Consequently, happy people also act more kindly towards others. 

#2 Social connection

Happy people have strong close friends, strong family ties, better romantic ties. How much time you spend alone vs with friends/family/lover. Happy people spend more time in socializing. 

Also, social connections works with strangers too. Random talks with strangers increase happiness.  In general act of being with somebody leads to happiness.

#3 Time Affluence

Time Affluence = Feeling like you have enough time for doing things that you would like to do. 

Prioritizing time over money makes people happier. We should invest in time affluence. 

#4 Mind Control

Mind rarely sticks on the task that we are working on. Known as mind wandering.  Wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Meditation helps in controlling mind wandering.  Studies show that meditation helps in making brain tissue. Meditation makes us happier.

#5 Healthy Practices

- Exercise

- Sleep

This is largely self explanatory. 

How to put strategies into practice?

How to focus our energies to increase Kindness, Social Connection, Time Affluence, Mind Control and Healthy Practices. 

Strategy - Situation Support

• Fix bad environment - Get rid of stuff that is tempting to you. Clean your workplace. Throw out the sugary stuff that you don't really need.
• Promote healthy environment - Have fruits visible and open. Have a social group to share positive things. Start a meditation group.

Strategy - Goal Setting

• Goal Specificity -  The degree of quantitative precision with which a goal is specified. Create goals that are very specific. 
• Goal Visualization - Visualize the end of the goal. Use mental contrasting. Mental contrasting = A visualization technique involving first thinking of a positive future outcome followed by thinking of obstacles. 
• Goal planning - Implementation intention = A self regulatory strategy in the form of an "if-then" plan that can lead to better goal attainment

Strategy -  WOOP = Wish Outcome Obstacle Plan 

• Wish - Think about your Wish. What is the most important wish in life for today/next 4 weeks/this year? Isolate one important wish. Search for it. What is it that I want?
• Outcome -  What is the best outcome if I fulfill my wish? Search for this best outcome. Imagine and experience this best outcome. 
• Obstacle - Potential Obstacles that can hamper your accomplishment of goal. What stops me from this experience? What is my main inner obstacle? Can be a bad habit, inner behavior etc. Imagine the obstacle, experience it
•  Plan - Your If/Then Plan.  Muscle memory actions. Once you identify the obstacle, what can I do to overcome the obstacle. Go to details of this obstacle and create a plan for this, when you get to that obstacle.

Why WOOP works - 

• Cognitive : Links the future with the obstacle. And then the obstacle with the plan to overcome the obstacle. WOOP allows to trigger these non-cognitive response. Recognizing the obstacle is very important. and plan makes the implicit obstacle to explicit, 
• Motivational : It creates motivation which drives energy. 
• Feedback : Negative feedback (when you are not able to work towards the outcome) is not a threat, it s a mechanism to identify more obstacles and then put into a plan

Do WOOP every morning - 5 minutes uninterrupted and you will start to see the difference over time. 

Reference reading - Rethinking positive thinking by Gabriele Oettingen

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The psychological triggers of happiness are very different than the materialistic aspirations that we have. The course first deconstructs these materialistic views which we believe will give us happiness but in reality it is the opposite. The soft aspects such as exercise, gratitude, meditation are the real triggers for happiness. Once told, it appears to be evident. 

The challenge lies in how we orient ourselves to optimize for these latent aspects. WOOP is one such framework for it. Fixing situations, setting right goals are all methods to achieve happiness. While knowing is not half the battle, atleast with knowing and acknowledging, one can take steps in the right direction. 

The above is a cheat sheet. I would recommend everyone to take the course and go over the process on their own. It is worth it.