“Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.” -Herman Hesse
Hello Beautiful Readers,
Harvard educated psychologist and happiness expert, Dan Gilbert’s 2006 TED Talk, The surprising science of happiness, has been seen and or heard by over 8 million people. If you aren’t one of them, or if you are and would like to refresh your memory or share it with a friend, you can watch here. What The Science of Happiness and Engaging the Senses share is the understanding that happiness happens in the present moment. Yes, surprisingly even when we are doing something that we think we would rather not be doing, we are still happier when we are fully engaged in the task at hand. So the next time you have to cook a meal and you think you’d rather be doing something else, I invite you to mindfully engage your senses and take pleasure in the sounds of the chopping and sizzling, the scents of the spices and other fragrant ingredients, and the way the colors, textures, and shapes combine to create a meal that nourishes you body, mind, senses, and soul. For more free and effective methods for increasing your happiness quotient, you may want to register for “A free eight-week Science of Happiness course that will offer practical, research-backed tips on living a happy and meaningful life” that can be done at your own pace. Health professionals who register can earn continuing education units for their participation.
“The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.”- James M. Barrie
“The Science of Happiness” explores the roots of a happy and meaningful life. Students can engage with some of the most provocative and practical lessons from this science, discovering how cutting-edge research can be applied to their own lives. Students will learn about the cross-disciplinary research supporting this view, spanning the fields of psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and beyond.”
“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.” -Groucho Marx
We all want to be happy, and there are countless ideas about what happiness is and how we can get some. But not many of those ideas are based on science. That’s where this course comes in. It offers students practical strategies for nurturing their own happiness. Research suggests that up to 40 percent of happiness depends on our habits and activities. So students learn many different research-tested practices that foster social and emotional well-being—and the course helps them track their happiness along the way.
“Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.” -William Feather
The course’s co-instructors, Dacher Keltner and Emiliana Simon-Thomas, are not only leading authorities on positive psychology but also gifted teachers skilled at making science feel fun and personal. They’ll be joined by world-renowned experts discussing themes like empathy, mindfulness, and gratitude—experts including Barbara Fredrickson, Paul Ekman, Sonja Lyubomirsky, and Jon Kabat-Zinn.
