Why Care About Your Wellbeing?
An extensive research analysis in 2005, which combined all of the studies about the benefits of being happy (Lyubomirsky, King et al., 2005), showed happy people have a better life. Wellbeing is associated with greater health, increased attention, and life satisfaction. When wellbeing increases, so does energy, motivation, and creativity levels. Happy people have enhanced learning ability and increased productivity. Furthermore, a brain scan of a happy person is very different from that of an unhappy person. A happy brain functions better and is more effective. Besides the brain differences, happy people make more money, get promoted more often, have better relationships, and generally live 7 years longer (Lyubomirsky, King et al., 2005).?
Everything's Better When You Are Happy
If people are given the choice between being happy or being unhappy, people will choose to be happy. Now, because of the ground-breaking research on wellbeing, you can learn how to be happy like you learned basic math. If you take time to learn and apply these lessons, you will feel a sense of freedom. Without the tools outlined in this course, your life can feel like a roller coaster: up and down, up and down. If good things are happening, you are happy; if bad things are happening, you are unhappy. Yet, if you use these tools, your life will naturally skyrocket out of the dizzying roller coaster of life into an intergalactic upward spiral of peace, contentment, and joy! Contentment is a state of feeling fulfilled, at peace, and at ease. Your happiness will be in your own hands. When you are in this upward spiral, you get the benefits, including better health, more money, faster recovery from illness, more promotions, more fulfilling lasting relationships, and you will likely live a longer life (Lyubomirsky, King et al., 2005).?
Does Your Wellbeing Seem Worth the Work?
Currently in our society, the treatment for unhappiness is to go into therapy and talk about your problems or take drugs to numb your brain. Only in recent times, however, has anyone begun to teach happiness! Harvard introduced its first class on happiness in 2006. It turned out to be the most popular class on the campus (Ben-Shahar, 2007). At Yale university, Laurie Santos started teaching Psychology and the Good Life, the precursor to her online happiness course. In 2018, she began teaching her happiness course live, and it became Yale’s most popular course in over 300 years (Elassar, 2022).
As you move through this course, you are learning how to create sustainable wellbeing in your life. You will learn wellbeing skills and how to change your life so you will see positivity everywhere you look!
Here is the disclaimer: We are human beings and we are supposed to experience the full spectrum of emotions. After completing this course, you will still experience those emotions, yet the intensity and the frequency of “negative” emotions will decrease significantly when you use the methods outlined in this course. You may experience happiness challenges, yet you will have the skills to prevent the world from getting you down. Before I go further into the step-by-step process, here is a look into the world that is waiting for you when you reach sustainable wellbeing.?
Thanks to the scholarly work of Sonja Lyubormirski, Ed Deiner, and Laura King (2005), who did a extensive analysis of over 50 pages of the empirical gains of wellbeing, we now know there are tangible benefits to being happy! In short, happy people are promoted more often, make more money, have better social relationships, visit the hospital less, and have overall better health. These are the fruits of wellbeing!?
Enhancing Wellbeing has Extraordinary Benefits
This next section includes a breakdown of the benefits of wellbeing, which is empirically supported by scientific research on happiness (Lyubomirsky, King et al., 2005).
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Employment and quality of work. Happier people surpass their unhappier counterparts in every aspect of job acquisition, from the interview to evaluations once hired. They perform better and are viewed as superior employees. Happy people are less likely to leave a job, miss work, or exhibit “retaliatory behaviors, and burnout” (Lyubomirsky, King et al., 2005, p. 823). Happy employees also tend to have better relations with their coworkers. People that display positive affect have a general sense of wellbeing at work and tend to secure more desirable jobs, which Lyubomirsky defined as jobs with greater “autonomy, meaning and variety” (p. 807).
Income. More so than education, income is positively correlated with wellbeing and life satisfaction. This implies that happier people secure better paying jobs.
Organizational citizenship. Happier coworkers tend to help other coworkers. They exhibit a higher sense of overall organizational spontaneity, that is, making the best decision for the organization as a whole and everyone in it on a case-by-case basis.
Community involvement. Happy people tend to incorporate community involvement into their lives at a higher level. They volunteer more hours of their time to their communities at all levels (e.g., religious, political, educational) and are more willing to help others in general.
Social relationships. Happier people have happier interpersonal relations, as well as a wider network of social support and friends. Happier people are more satisfied with these relationships and marriages and exhibit fewer jealous behaviors. They are also more likely to describe their partner as their “great love.”
Health. Happy people have fewer symptoms of psychopathology and depression and are less likely to take drugs to monitor mood. People who experience subjective wellbeing also report better health and fewer physical symptoms. They tend to miss work less and have better quality of life overall. Women who are happier even tend to give birth to healthier babies! As you can see by the empirically supported results of research, it benefits us in life to actually be happy!
Dr Aymee Coget