#Seven habits that lead to happiness how to#
#Seven habits that lead to happiness full#
#Seven habits that lead to happiness series#

Arguably the single best, time-tested way to do this is by walking daily. Prioritize movement in your life by scheduling time for it every day and sticking to it.Eat a diet with lots of fruits and vegetables and moderate serving sizes, but avoid yo-yo diets or intense restrictions that you can’t maintain over the long run. Although forgoing alcohol can be difficult, you’ll never be sorry you made this decision. If you have drinking problems in your family, do not take your chances: Keep that switch turned off. If you have any indication of problem drinking in your life, get help now. Alcohol abuse is strongly correlated with smoking in the Harvard study, but plenty of other research shows that even by itself, it is one of the most powerful predictors of winding up sad-sick. You might not succeed on your first try, but the earlier you start the quitting process, the more smoke-free years you can invest in your happiness account. Don’t smoke-or if you already smoke, quit now.

#Seven habits that lead to happiness full#

Here’s what you can do about each of them today to make sure your accounts are as full as possible when you reach your later years: Using data from the Harvard study, two researchers showed in 2001 that we can control seven big investment decisions pretty directly: smoking, drinking, body weight, exercise, emotional resilience, education, and relationships.

#Seven habits that lead to happiness how to#

Some of these are, like generational wealth, difficult for each of us to control: having a happy childhood, descending from long-lived ancestors, and avoiding clinical depression.īut some are, to varying degrees, under our control, and these can teach us a great deal about how to plan for late-life happy-wellness. When they were young, the happy-well senior citizens tended to have accumulated certain resources and habits in their Happiness 401(k)s. On the other end of the spectrum are the “sad-sick,” who are below average in physical health, mental health, and life satisfaction. The best off are the “happy-well,” who enjoy good physical health as well as good mental health and high life satisfaction. There is a lot of variation in the population, but two distinct groups emerge at the extremes. And from this crystal ball of happiness, you can learn how to invest in your own future well-being.Īs the participants in the Harvard Study of Adult Development have aged, researchers have categorized them with respect to happiness and health. Those results are a treasure trove (and I’ve referenced them several times in this column): You look at how people lived, loved, and worked in their 20s and 30s, and then you can see how their life turned out over the following decades. The study has since expanded to include people beyond men who went to Harvard, and its results have been updated regularly for more than 80 years. Every year or two, researchers asked the participants about their lifestyles, habits, relationships, work, and happiness. I n 1938, researchers at Harvard Medical School lit upon a visionary idea: They would sign up a bunch of men then studying at Harvard and follow them from youth to adulthood. Want to stay current with Arthur's writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. And just as financial planners advise their clients to engage in specific behaviors-make your saving automatic think twice before buying that boat-we can all teach ourselves to do some very specific things at any age to make our last decades much, much happier. Something similar happens with happiness, as I show in my new book, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.Įach of us has something like a “Happiness 401(k)” that we invest in when we are young, and that we get to enjoy when we are old. Those who planned ahead and saved up are more likely to be able to support themselves in comfort many of those who didn’t, can’t. Right around this same time of life, many people realize the importance of having made good financial decisions in their earlier decades. Read: Three rules for middle-age happiness

Older people split into two groups as they get old: those getting much happier, and those getting much unhappier. After that, it heads back up again into one’s mid-60s. They are shocked when I show them the data on what happens to most people: Happiness tends to decline throughout young adulthood and middle age, bottoming out at about age 50. Being in their late 70s doesn’t sound so great to most of them. But when I ask about their prediction for 50 years from now, it seems a lot less rosy. Will you be happier or less happy than you are today? I ask my graduate students-average age, late 20s-this question every year.

#Seven habits that lead to happiness series#

Click here to listen to his podcast series on all things happiness, How to Build a Happy Life. “ How to Build a Life ” is a weekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness.