Chasing happiness boosters

Being out in the nature and witnessing its expansiveness and magic is another way we can experience moments of calm and a way to not be stuck with our thoughts. Clients mention how hiking or being out at a park or near the sea allows them to be at peace

A 33-year-old male client tells me, “Given how volatile the world feels, I think something has significantly shifted for me over the last five to six years. I find myself thinking about what can go wrong and even when things are going well. I find it hard to enjoy and stay in the present. I need to figure a way whereby I can become mindful and engage in ways that allow me to experience pockets of happiness.”

People with funny and happy emojis illustration

Dr Tal Ben Shahar, lecturer at Harvard University and an author in his book ‘Happier’ talks about the concept of ‘Happiness Boosters’. He discusses how there are activities and experiences we can engage with on a day-to-day basis whether it’s for few minutes to few hours that allow us to experience a sense of meaning and at the same time allow for pleasure. Learning to engage in these experiences and making it a part of our routine and life is one of the ways we can infuse a shot of happiness in our life.

While working with clients, I ask them to identify for themselves if they do have activities, they engage daily that serves as their happiness boosters. My personal experience has been that as we begin to engage in these activities, even for few minutes we begin to experience a sense of flow, satisfaction and pleasant sensations and as a result emotions such as joy, happiness, contentment and even gratitude. Going for a walk outdoors is an instant happiness booster and over the years making it part of my routine has anchored me specifically in moments of grief and crisis.

I suggest clients to write down or jog their memory and think about moments where they experienced joy or pleasant sensations. The very act of reminiscing is a way to savor all the good that has been part of your life – it brings a smile to our face sometimes. It’s a good strategy to write down some of your key peak experiences given the brain’s tendency to remember negative experiences more than positive ones. Very often people forget to register the joy an experience may have evoked in them. So, choosing to journal is a good way of registering the experience.

My favourite happiness booster of all times is to look out for micro joys in our daily interactions. Moments when we witness or experience acts of kindness and then micro interactions where there is warmth, humour and even innocence can create moments of micro joy. We lose an opportunity to witness these possibilities of micro joy if we are cooped up in our homes and front of screens all day long.

Learning to reimagine hope and find new ways that allow us to experience grounded optimism can serve as a happiness booster. We do know that individuals who experience possibility of hope are less likely to feel helpless, bitter and resentful about life.

At the end of the session, the client tells me that he has begun to realize that he needs to go back to his meditation practice which is based on loving kindness and how it would be such a stabilizer, and how he didn’t even realize that he stopped engaging in it.

We all intuitively know our happiness boosters, sometimes we just forget to engage and make it a practice.