When you offer a university course that makes students happier, everyone wants to know what the secret is. What are your tips? What are your top 10 recommendations? These are the questions most often asked, as if there is a quick and sure path to happiness.
The problem is that most of the work has already been talked about, so there are no life-changing discoveries. Social connections, mindfulness, letters of gratitude, acts of kindness, walks in nature, sleep hygiene, and limiting social media use.These are some of the approximately 80 psychological intervention These have been shown to work (more or less) to improve our well-being.
But if we already know so much about what works, why are we still fielding requests for the best happiness tips?
Data shows that today’s students and young people are increasingly unhappy, with national surveys finding young people to be the least happy. in uk and the usa compared to other age groups.
That’s why we started teaching the Science of Happiness course at the University of Bristol in 2019, to counter this worrying downward trend. The course teaches the following lessons: positive psychology Create opportunities for students to practice these lessons.
Learn the science of happiness
We award credit based on engagement (an important component of getting the most out of life, not just education) rather than graded grades. After talking about issues with performance anxiety and student perfectionism, it would be ironic to give students the following results: grade test.
Would you like to earn course credit without an exam? You might say it’s a no-brainer. However, for many students, attending more than 80% of their lectures and tutorials on time, filling out a weekly diary, and submitting a final group project can be more difficult than expected. It turns out.
Approximately 5% of students each year fail to meet course requirements and are required to complete a reassessment in the summer. Developing consistent positive habits in the face of all the other demands of life is not an easy request.
Nevertheless, the Science of Happiness course is very popular. This also seems to be effective. Each year, we find that measures of student mental health at the end of the course are approximately 10-15% higher than at the end of the course. waiting list control group.
However, we recently published the following findings. the study The study followed students one to two years after taking the Science of Happiness course and before they graduated. Looking at the overall trend, students’ happiness scores, which had initially increased, have almost returned to their original levels.
But we weren’t discouraged. One of the mechanisms taught in this course is hedonic adaptation: We get used to both good and bad things. Because the human brain is hardwired to pay extra. pay attention to problemsit’s not surprising that the initial boost in well-being the course created disappeared as students returned to focusing on life’s hassles.
However, it was observed that not all students followed this pattern. About half of the cohort reported that they continued to practice some of what they learned, such as gratitude and mindfulness, on a regular basis for months or even years after completing the course.
Students who stopped engaging in the activities returned to their baseline levels of well-being, but on average, students who continued with at least some of the recommended activities did not experience such a decline. They maintained a high level of happiness until her second year.
In many ways, mental health is no different than physical health. Few people expect to continue gaining muscle over a long period of time after going to the gym once. Most of the time, we grudgingly accept that there are no shortcuts if we want to stay healthy. You have to stick to the program.
new habits
The same applies to our well-being. If we don’t keep working, the improvements will be temporary. Indeed, if we had to focus on just one important tip, it might be to learn how to utilize lessons from psychology. build better habits We need lasting change. For example, aim for small incremental changes rather than an unsustainable total life overhaul.
One of the things we wonder about is whether the self-care industry is sending people the wrong message that happiness is about feeling good about yourself. One of us, Bruce Hood, wrote: in his new bookto become a happier person in the long run, focusing on others is far more important than focusing on yourself.
Self-care may have short-term benefits, but enriching the lives of others can have well-being effects that become less adaptive over time.
Ultimately, no matter what methods or activities we choose to improve our well-being, it’s good to remember that happiness is always a work in progress.
sarah gelbertlecturer in psychology, University of Bristol and bruce hoodProfessor of Developmental Psychology in Society, University of Bristol
This article is republished from conversation Under Creative Commons License.read Original work.
