"I Just Want to Be Happy": How to Get More of the Life You Want (and Less of the One You Don't)

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT’S YOUR HAPPINESS BASELINE?

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

- William James

CAN HAPPINESS REALLY BE INCREASED?

We all know that person with a sunny disposition no matter what and we all know that person who, if they won the lottery, would complain about the taxes that they owe. As playwright Oscar Wilde quipped, Some people cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go.

These differences may have to do with what is known as a happiness baseline, which essentially refers to the idea that we are genetically pre-disposed to be at a certain level of happiness and that nothing we do can really change that baseline for very long.

The idea of genetic determinism is accurate to an extent - studies reveal that approximately 50% of our happiness is heritable. Another 10% is thought to be determined by the circumstances or events that happen to us in life. So, while it’s true that some of how happy we feel is beyond our control, 40% is still within our control.

Working with that 40% is what this book is all about.

By actively engaging with the strategies in this book and consistently using them over time, you will start to generate more consistently happy moments in your everyday life and create new neuronal pathways. It really is entirely possible to re-wire your brain for more happiness!

Taking Stock of Your Happiness Baseline

Before starting with the specific strategies, it may be helpful to take stock of where you currently land on the happiness or life satisfaction continuum. This is an optional activity; you’ll still benefit from the strategies even if you don’t use the happiness measures. The advantage to tracking this information, though, is so that you can see your changes over time.

As you actively work with the material in the book, I suggest that you re-take these measures on a regular basis, such as every two weeks or once a month.

I have included two different measures for you to track your changes. Both are brief and shouldn’t take you more than a minute or two to complete. You will find them both in Appendix A.

The first questionnaire is called The Happiness Measures (HM), also known as the Fordyce Emotion Questionnaire. The HM was developed in 1988 by Michael Fordyce, who is considered by many to have been one of the earliest pioneers of the positive psychology movement. This measure has been referred to as the granddaddy of other happiness measures that came after it.

The second scale, the Flourishing Scale, was developed by Ed Diener and colleagues. This scale describes such important aspects of human functioning as positive relationships, having meaningful work, and feeling competent and confident. Flourishing can be thought of as a more holistic perspective than happiness taken by itself; it is a measure of overall wellbeing.

Now, it’s time to start learning about specific strategies to increase your happiness!

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN IN DOUBT, SING.

Some days, there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.

-Emory Austin

WHEN I WAS IN MY TWENTIES AND LIVING IN NEW YORK CITY, I shared an old, industrial loft space with a roommate who had an incredible singing voice. Unfortunately, she also struggled with depression. When she was feeling good, she would belt out vintage jazz tunes while in the shower, getting dressed for work, cooking dinner, or folding laundry – you name it - she was singing, and our loft was filled with her melodic, velvety voice. But when she was feeling down, the empty silence in that cold, cavernous space was palpable.

Sometimes, I’d ask her to sing one of my favorites. And she’d simply say, "No, I don’t feel like it."

Sometimes, we just don’t feel like singing.

Maybe you’ve been struggling with sadness or worry and what used to be a pleasurable activity, no longer is. Maybe you’re thinking to yourself, "I used to sing in the shower, not cry in it."

If you’ve felt like this for a long time, you may even have forgotten that there was a time when you did like to sing. Most people do enjoy singing. Research shows that over 96% of people enjoy it in at least some form. People sing as a means of self-expression, to foster interpersonal relationships, and to reduce stress or regulate mood. Some studies found that only about 3.5% of participants found no enjoyment at all in singing, while others put the rate of non-enjoyment of music at 1-5%. Scientists call this musical anhedonia and describe it as a neurological condition.

Maybe you feel that you’re part of that small percentage. And maybe you truly are. But before you conclude that, ask yourself if there was ever a time when you enjoyed singing.

Why Should I Try This?

If you used to like to sing but just haven’t felt like it lately, I encourage you to read on and challenge yourself a bit. The introductory quote for this chapter illustrates a powerful psychological intervention known as behavioral activation.

Behavioral Activation: The Just Do It Approach

If we’re struggling with depression, we often don’t feel like doing much of anything. As a result, we withdraw from or avoid things that used to be rewarding or that gave us a sense of achievement in some way. That turns out to be a vicious cycle. The less we do things that are pleasurable to us, the more we tend to isolate and withdraw. In turn, that makes our low mood even worse. For example, the more I turn down invitations to do something with friends, the more isolated and withdrawn I become, which makes me even less likely to want to accept future invitations.

Behavioral activation is simply doing the thing we don’t want to do even if we don’t feel like it. By engaging in activities that give us a sense of pleasure or mastery, we are reinforced with a sense of reward, which reinforces the likelihood that we’ll do it again.

In other words, the best way to feel like singing is to sing whether you feel like it or not.

With my therapy clients, I often draw upon the iconic Nike slogan, Just do it. By doing the activity, even if you don’t feel like it, you’ll find that you’ll start to reap those pleasure/mastery rewards and will begin to feel better.

By embracing the Just do it mentality, you can circumvent all the tedious internal dialogue about whether you feel like doing something. With behavioral activation, it doesn’t matter whether you want to work out or not. It doesn’t matter whether you don’t feel like emptying the dishwasher. We just do it whether we want to or not. And once we do it, we start to feel the benefits of having taken action.

The Mental Health Benefits of Singing

When it comes to singing, the great news from the research front is that you don’t have to be the next American Idol (or my former roommate) to gain the psychological benefits that come with it.

One study showed that singing can produce satisfying and therapeutic sensations even when the sound produced is of mediocre quality, which is just an academic way of saying that even if we can’t carry a tune in a bucket, we can still benefit from this strategy.

But what, specifically, is it about singing that helps with regulating our mood?

Although the underlying physiological mechanisms of the mental and psychological benefits of singing are still not fully understood, several possible explanations have been proposed. One possible mechanism is the release of endorphins and oxytocin, which are the neurochemicals associated with pleasurable feelings, lowered stress, and increased social bonding. Other scientists have put forth the finding that singing releases dopamine, another feel good neurotransmitter and that it reduces cortisol, a stress hormone.

Another possible mechanism is the promotion of neural plasticity. Singing requires the coordination of multiple cognitive and motor processes, including pitch perception, vocal production, and rhythmic timing. All these processes may promote the development and maintenance of neural connections and may enhance cognitive function.

Interestingly, research has shown that singing can have a therapeutic effect on various neurological conditions. For example, individuals whose speech is challenged by conditions such as Parkinson’s disease have found singing to be an effective way to bypass their speech difficulties and to regain their ability to verbally communicate. Singing activates different brain networks than speech alone, providing an alternative pathway for expression.

Singing also engages various neural networks associated with memory and emotion. The hippocampus, a brain region critical for memory formation, is involved in the learning and remembering of lyrics and melodies. Studies have shown that singing enhances our memory recall, possibly due to the combination of verbal and musical elements involved.

I can personally attest to the power of putting complex ideas or information to music. I credit music for helping me to pass several long, grueling examinations throughout graduate school. By summarizing the information into a few catchy rhymes and then singing it to a familiar tune, I was able to reliably recall the information. It’s been many years since I took my licensing boards, but I can still remember my silly little made-up tunes about the biological bases of behavior.

Singing and Mindfulness

Graham Welch, Ph.D., a researcher at the University of London, has an extensive background in studying the psychology of music. He explains that singing rids us of our blues not only by releasing endorphins but by helping us to forget about the stressors associated with our day. In this way, singing is a wonderful form of mindfulness, allowing us to focus on the present moment instead of worrying about the future or dwelling on the past.

Whenever I’m stuck in traffic, for example, I can start to feel impatient and annoyed. As I sit there stewing, I tend to either obsess over whatever didn’t go well during the workday or become anxious about something that lies ahead further in the week. But if a favorite song comes on the radio and I start singing along, my mood instantly improves. Why? Because I’m no longer focusing on things over which I have no control – namely, the traffic jam, what happened earlier in the day, or what’s to come later in the week. Singing in the car is a built-in form of mindfulness!

The rhythmic and repetitive nature of singing can induce a state of flow, where we become completely absorbed in the activity and get a break from our everyday worries and stressors. This has been called the ‘choir effect’ by researchers in Dublin who studied the effects of singing in a group on mindfulness.

Cognitive Defusion

Singing lends itself to a particularly helpful form of mindfulness for dealing with anxious thoughts. The technique is a form of cognitive distancing, also known as cognitive defusion, which was originally conceptualized by one of the fathers of cognitive behavioral therapy, Aaron Beck. Cognitive defusion allows us to step outside of our thoughts and to look at them from more of a distance.

Sometimes, we can experience irrational or unlikely worries even though we know that the thought or worry is probably not true or realistic. For these types of pesky worries, we can select a simple tune such as a children’s song and then substitute the words with our