
Training Your Brain to Be (and Stay) Happy - reimertz
http://diurnal.st/2013/05/27/training-your-brain-to-be-and-stay-happy.html
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djtriptych
As a practicing yogi, I want to say that gratitude is a great practice! It's
supported not just by modern science, but ancient wisdom. Some advanced monks
and yogis are able to spontaneously invoke feelings of extreme gratitude or
compassion, which are now measurable in brain scans.

Regarding happiness, many yoga traditions would suggest that attachment to
outcomes is a major root cause of suffering. Dedicated work without attachment
to outcomes is suggested to free oneself from these binds of suffering. In
particular, it's stressed that even attachment to positive outcomes will lead
to suffering.

This, in additional to renunciation of baser desires, yoga (which I'll define
here as exercise and some meditation), and finally surrender to "god" or
"love" or the true self.

You are not your mind and you are not your body. Realizing this, and learning
to identify with the true self, and to subdue the ego, are the keys to
happiness in the yogic tradition. When this happens, your happiness is less
and less affected by the outside world; the yogi learns to smile through
adversity and keep a level head through triumph.

I imagine in the near future, hackers here and elsewhere will recognize yoga
as a method to "hack" ones own tendencies, emotions, health, cognition, etc. I
highly recommend it as a gesture towards happiness; I've found it to be both
practical and practicable for the most part.

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stupidcar
This advice appears to boil down to "spend more time recollecting positive
things and happy memories".

OK, but what if you don't have anything positive going on in your life right
now? What if you don't have close friends, a romantic partner, a good job, or
a secure home? What if you don't have a happy memories? Perhaps you had
abusive parents, or you were bullied, or you suffered a debilitating illness?

Convincing middle-class college students to be a bit more cheerful by
focussing on the myriad things they have to be grateful for isn't the
challenge. It's helping people who have had the worst misfortune find some
kind of peace.

~~~
gagege
I think chasing happiness will always leave you disappointed. I mean,
eventually you die, right? Then what was it all for, if you spent time trying
to be happy?

I have to approach this from the perspective of a Christian, because I am one.

Everyone is going to have tips and tricks that they use for improving their
mental state. It could be as simple as "think positive" or it could be drugs
or therapy. These all work, to an extent. But there's really only one way to
deal with the problem once and for all and that's what Jesus did 2000 years
ago.

I'll be clear, trying to have faith and trying to turn away from sin is not
guaranteed to make you happy. But, as I said up top, that's not the goal. What
God offers is peace, which is what I know a lot of people are looking for. An
assurance that there's some larger meaning to the world we live in.

~~~
_dark_matter_
> I think chasing happiness will always leave you disappointed. I mean,
> eventually you die, right?

> What God offers is peace, which is what I know a lot of people are looking
> for

Not only do I think you are wrong on the former count, I don't think this is
the appropriate forum for the latter - but I'll let the mods decide about
that.

On the former, there's nothing to say but "you're wrong". Sure we die, but
then we don't care. Happiness is it's own reward. Existing, living, breathing,
loving, creating, thinking - these all cohabitate uniquely in humans. To say
other things don't matter is to say life itself isn't worth living. If the
peace only comes in death, then why not end it now?

> Then what was it all for, if you spent time trying to be happy?

"What was it all for, if you spent all that time waiting for peace in the
afterlife?"

~~~
gagege
> I don't think this is the appropriate forum for the latter - but I'll let
> the mods decide about that.

I would hope they decide in my favor since there seem to be other people
offering their own brand of semi-spiritual advice.

> Happiness is it's own reward.

I don't deny that at all! I love happiness. I try to do things that make me
happy every day. What I said is that simply searching for happiness will
always leave you disappointed.

> "What was it all for, if you spent all that time waiting for peace in the
> afterlife?"

As I said before, that wasn't my point. So many people have terrible things in
their lives, as the OP said. It's nearly impossible for some people to find
happiness, and if they do, it'll end someday, when they die or when they hit
hard times again.

I would suspect that most people, if they've thought about it long enough,
have realized that true lasting peace, if it exists, must exist outside of
this life. I'm just trying to point out that that's true.

------
sharkweek
Want to be happy? Here's my hot tip:

Don't expect to always be happy. Accept that sometimes life can be really,
really hard and seemingly unfair. I think being able to handle times where our
own minds/emotions seemingly turn against us is one of the most valuable
skills in finding _more_ happiness in life.

It's really hard work, but sometimes it's just ok to feel shitty. Observe this
feeling, recognize that it's very normal on the spectrum of human emotion, and
remind yourself that it's not permanent, even if it feels that way in the
moment.

~~~
cortesoft
Yeah, I am always a little frustrated by the modern American conception that
'happiness' is the end goal in life. "I just want to be happy" or "I just want
my kid to be happy" is a common refrain.

Why is happiness everything? If you just want to 'feel good', you could start
a heroin habit; you will FEEL great. But is that a satisfying and full life?

I know for me personally, I might have been happier 'in the moment' five years
ago, when I lived alone and got to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I
played a lot of video games, did fun projects whenever I wanted, and had a lot
of spending money from a good job. I know for me, I am never 'happier' in the
moment than I am when playing video games.

Even though I can't do that as much anymore, I feel much more satisfied and
content with my life now than I did then. Now, I am married with a kid, and my
life is way harder, more stressful, and less focused on my own happiness.
However, I am way more satisfied in my life, I feel more whole, and I feel a
sense of purpose that I didn't have before. Of course, I would also say I am
happy, but not in that same way I was when everything I did was what I wanted
to do for me.

Happiness is just one part of a full life.

~~~
leggomylibro
>If you just want to 'feel good', you could start a heroin habit; you will
FEEL great. But is that a satisfying and full life?

I don't know, but I would facetiously guess that yes, it probably feels like
it is. Until you stop being able to afford more heroin, at which point no, it
absolutely would not. Kind of like driving fast; it isn't the _speed_ that
kills you, it's the sudden stop.

Happiness and meaning probably look like different things to different people,
though. Some people find fulfillment in offspring, sure. But I don't see how
that's any different from anything else that works to assuage someone's
existential malaise.

------
neillyons
"Everything turns into the everyday." \-- @dhh

The key to being happier is to make it part of your daily routine until it
becomes habit.

There is a good book called "minihabits" which explores this idea.

It has really helped me.

I wrote a calendar app to track my progress and motivate me not to break the
chain.
[http://positivehabits.neillyons.io](http://positivehabits.neillyons.io)

One of my daily habits is to "Write down one positive affirmation per day".

I think it actually works. You are strengthening the connections between
nerons which see positivity. You start to see more positive things in the
world. (I don't know if this science is true. Just my thoughts on the matter)

------
bitsoda
CGP Grey recently posted a great video titled "7 Ways to Maximize Misery".
It's worth checking out.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o)

~~~
chaqke
i do almost everything on cgpgrey's list, but i don't think i'm unhappy. life
is pretty good!

i also do about half of the list in the article. perhaps there are just
different preferences...

------
davidgh
I spent a significant amount of time in Russia in late 90s. At the time the
economic situation was quite bad for most - leaving many to wonder how to
provide the most basic essentials for themselves and their families.

I learned that in these situations that if basic human needs are not being
met, it is very hard for someone to experience "happiness". Two things I
observed:

\- Happiness and peace are not the same thing. Many of the good people I
talked to would not claim any measure of happiness. But many had hope that
tomorrow would be better, and gratitude for what they did have (which most
often revolved around their relationships with others). This brought an
element of "peace" that perhaps the future would be better than the present in
spite of very difficult circumstances.

\- At that time in my life, my own resources were quite limited but I had no
worry that I would go hungry or cold. I didn't have a mountain of money,
truckloads of food or all the answers. But I could see that my efforts to show
sincere concern for people, to be a friend with a soft shoulder, to help with
basic necessities as I was able, etc. helped these individuals increase their
own hope, gratitude and peace. And that brought _me_ tremendous happiness.

I'm not in a great position to tell someone else what to do to be happy. But I
can assert from my own experience that I receive much happiness when I step
out of myself and involve myself in things that help lighten the load of
others.

I've also tried to distinguish between "pleasure" and "happiness". I think
most of us have seen examples of people that have lives full of pleasure but
devoid of happiness, and yet we still believe that our own happiness is the
sum of self-directed pleasure. It seems to me that pleasure can contribute to
happiness, but the foundation of happiness must be something more substantial.

------
ouid
For most people, more money does in fact correlate strongly with more
happiness. Who is the audience of this piece?

~~~
PaulRobinson
Initially, yes, but studies have shown over time you normalise and are just as
unhappy as you were before you had more money.

If I think of the people I know who are happy and unhappy, money isn't a great
correlation factor, and I know people are borderline homeless through to
millionaires - I know happy/unhappy people across capital worth and income
spectrum.

A better correlation for happiness is attitude and gratitude and enjoying the
small things - the very things the article references.

~~~
it_learnses
Yep, from personal experience, after a certain amount of salary, my happiness
level stayed the same. It would go up a bit maybe for a week or so after
getting an increase, but I don't really feel happier than before even though I
can travel more, and spend more.

~~~
ouid
that certain amount of salary is well above average.

~~~
it_learnses
yep absolutely. But it's way below 100k.

------
markvdb
Read prof. Martin Seligman's Flourish.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Seligman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Seligman)

------
nandorsky
Imagining a better future self can also have harmful effects. Reality often
doesn't live up to expectations and projecting what it would feel like to have
or be something gives us some of the enjoyment of being that before we
actually achieve. Furthermore, when our ideal of what something should doesn't
live up to what it is, the gap creates unhappiness.

------
EGreg
I think one of the keys to happiness is to just look down and see how good you
have it.

~~~
magnetic
That's not a bad idea provided you have it good. The challenges in finding
happiness often occur for the other subset: those who don't have it that good.

------
andrei_says_
May I suggest an alternative approach?

Train your mind in an attitude of equanimity toward all phenomenae.

Much more practical than trying to sustain a specific phenomenon (happiness)
in a constantly changing environment.

