Today let's talk about how to be happy

Scientifically

You've probably already heard of the most popular class in Yale University, within its 317 year old history

1 out of 4 Yale students have attended this class called "Psychology and the Good Life"

Sounds like something I would sign up for

If I were back in college

And if I could make it into Yale in the first place

Psychology and the good life is taught by professor Laurie Santos

She's a professor in psychology

She doesn't just teach in class though

She actually lives on campus with the students

so that she has a good picture of what campus life is about these days

But what she found she wasn't happy about

Yale students are extremely privileged

They have all these abundant resources, opportunities

Their future is literally shining bright like a diamond

But how they react to this is with

Anxiety

They're just too stressed out to even enjoy life on campus

And the thing is, it's not just Yale

This is a widely seen phenomenon across

all schools, all organizations, all workplaces, all ages

And I bet it's even worse here in Asia

So today let's talk about how to be happy with a good life

Now this is a whole semester's course at Yale University with all sorts of practices

You can also get it free on the internet, which is a free condensed version of it

Maybe 30 40 hours I think

I viewed the crash course, which is a one-hour lecture on YouTube

So this video is like a crash course of a crash course

How would you put it?

crash crash course?

crash crash crash course?

Anyways, the course is based on two domains of psychology

The first is "positive psychology", which is basically research on what happy people do to become happy

And then there's the second domain

Behavioral Change

Now that you know the theories of becoming happy

you have to actually alter your behavior in order to make a change in your daily life

The course puts it down into ten insights

The first four points are these psychological theories and the rest are the actual practices

Today we'll talk about half of these insights

starting with the theories, and we'll give you a heads up on the actual practices starting from point 5

As for the rest, we'll leave it to the next video

cuz we don't want to make this video too long, right?

So here they are

#1 We can control a lot more happiness than we think

This is gonna surprise you

But according to research, 50% of our happiness lies within the genes

In other words, we get it from our parents

Wow, like 50% of that! That is quite a lot!

I'm pretty happy that my parents seem like to be quite happy people

I think

But if you see it the other way around

we actually get control over the other 50%

It's kind of like seeing the glass half-full or half-empty

Pretty much up to you

And that 50% is the area where we can work on

#2 The things we think matter a lot about our well-being are usually overestimated

Now we've got 50% of space to work on now, right?

We're thinking of getting rid of the bad things in life

bringing in more good stuff

Good in, bad out

Simple logic

But research shows that either in good or bad circumstances

The positive or negative effect only lasts for a short amount of time

Say for example, people who've won the lottery, they go bonkers on the day they've won

Like who wouldn't?

Or else give me your money

But that sort of happiness only lasts for an average of six months

After that, their happiness level is indistinguishable from controls

So in other words, these things..

material, money, a promotion, college admission, a boy or girlfriend

These might have a certain degree of influence over your happiness

But the influence is way smaller in proportion than we think

And it lasts way shorter than we think

So what are the crucial factors to happiness then?

We'll get to that soon

But first, walk with me

#3 Becoming happier takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of daily work.

Namely, you got to walk the walk

You can't just talk to talk

Just by watching this video alone won't make you a happier person

And that is a guarantee

Imagine yourself going to a class on exercise

You want to get fit. You want to build those muscles

You don't grow muscles just by attending class alone

You grow muscles by attending class

learning the basics, the knowledge, the know-how on how to get your body fit

And then putting it into practice

Not just once, but repeatedly every single day

That's how you get fit

And it's the same in pursuing happiness

First, well we gotta sit down cuz I'm getting a little bit tired

First, you gotta learn the basics, the know-how, the positive psychology

on how happy people become happy

And then you got to put it into practice in your daily life

That's how it works

And that leads us to number four

Let us just recognize that..

The mind lies a lot of the time about what it means to be happy

Our minds forecast on what will make us happy

But oftentimes, the fact is..

We don't turn out as happy as we assume we would be

And the most obvious example would probably be the expectations of happiness coming from our salary

According to research in the U.S.

if you are below the poverty line

there will be a significant bump up in your happiness level if your salary jumps up from 10,000 to 20,000 US dollars

But from a certain point on, that effect levels off very quickly

We think that if we get twice the salary or twice the material possessions than we have now

we will be twice as happy, right?

But wrong! That is a wrong assumption that your mind is telling you

I think it's fair to say that material can bring you happiness

But at a very very basic level

And beyond that

Happiness relies in other factors in life

So so far we've shed light on the four theories

First of all, number one

50% of happiness is inherited in the genes

but on the other hand

That means we have control over the other 50%

Number two

Either in good or bad circumstances

the positive or negative effects only last for a short amount of time

Number three, if you want to be happy, you gotta learn the know-how and then you gotta to walk the walk

Number four, our mind lies to us about what it means to be happy

So you got to quit chasing those delusional thoughts

And starting from point five

These are the actual things you can do to boost your happiness in your daily life

So #5

Very happy people make time for social connection

Happy people tend to spend more time with family, close friends, loved ones

They prioritize spending time with people they care of

What's funny is, according to research..

Even interacting with strangers can boost up your happiness level

And this really strikes a chord with me

Cuz you know, the essence of my work doesn't really give me much time to hang out with people

I do have some friends that I regularly do sports with or go out to lunch for dinner with

And whenever I have an appointment in the evening

It gives me this great momentum to work even harder during daytime

because I'm looking forward to something good in the evening

It gets me all pumped up

But even when I don't have plans for the day.. I don't have an arrangement with someone..

what I usually do to recharge my batteries is..

I take a walk outside

Just to get a feel of people

Cuz when you're around people, you feel this good feeling inside of you

I don't even have to literally talk to someone

Actually I'm quite of an introvert

So you know, striking up a conversation with a stranger

Not quite suitable for me

But as I said, just by being around people gives you this good feeling

And that is not something that can be replaced by social media

If interaction on the Internet could boost up your happiness

Then I'd be a fluent in happiness

Cuz I get tons of mail and messages from my fans every single day

Thank you guys for the support, by the way. Love you guys!

But just saying, you just can't compare it to real life face-to-face connection

And that's why I encourage you.. I urge you..

to put down your phone and hang out with real people

Social connections is a crucial factor to happiness

So that's about it for this episode

And we just covered the first five insights on Yale's most popular class in history

on how to be happy

And we will be back with the other five insights in our next video

As I said, this is just a 7,8 minute video

We can't cover it all in detail

But this is just to give you a brief summary of what it's like

If you like the video, remember to hit that like button ,share, subscribe, leave a message down below

And if you would, support us on PressPlay

Thank you guys very much. See you guys next video