What you need to know about happiness in order not to be afraid of it?

Most Russians consider themselves happy: 85% of survey participants say so. But openly talking about happiness is still not accepted. It seems that “happy person” is a title that needs to be earned and constantly confirmed. Earn a lot, not how much you need, have an exemplary family and a good job.

But research shows that happiness doesn’t come down to a “better life.” It looks like a bizarre picture that looks different for everyone. And yet – is it possible to “measure” happiness? What do representatives of different fields of science say about this?

Neurobiology: balm for neurons

From a neurobiological point of view, emotions are nothing more than the brain’s interpretation of the signals it receives. When we catch admiring glances, wait for an order in a restaurant, see the face of our child for the first time, our nerve cells exchange signals through neurotransmitter hormones. Dopamine, for example, is responsible for anticipating the pleasure of eating. When love inspires us, it is oxytocin that works. And when we are praised, we bathe in serotonin.

Emotions work so strongly because they ensure survival and procreation. They came to us from wild ancestors, who were more important to quickly navigate than to think.

“An elephant doesn’t have to ‘try’ to remember the signs of an area where there is water,” writes Loretta Breuning, author of Happy Hormones. “Dopamine automatically creates a neural pathway in his brain. The next time he sees something that looks like a spring, the impulses will go along the neural circuit and cause a surge of the “hormone of happiness”.

But our life is more complicated than that of an elephant, so in addition to the fast “unconscious” we also have a “conscious” part. She is responsible for plans, goals and behavior in difficult situations. The problem is that the two “accounting departments” of the brain cannot always agree with each other.

For example, we consciously want to look good and for this we refuse high-calorie foods and go to the gym. But as soon as we feel hungry, a mammal wakes up in us that does not understand our goals. He is interested in one thing: to get nutrients and store them for future use. To resist the temptation, you have to strain your willpower and feed yourself with the promises of a future happy life in a slender body.

“The paradox is this: in order to find conscious happiness, we need to understand the unconscious language of the brain,” explains Loretta Breuning. “And perhaps deceive him.”

Economics: dancing on a treadmill

The brain of each of us is unique, therefore, the images of happiness are different for each of us. But what ensures a happy life in general? For a long time, economists believed that happiness means the maximum satisfaction of needs. It can be measured objectively – in money in a bank account, the quality of products and services.

Indeed, up to a point, we become happier when we get richer. However, in 2010, Nobel Prize winners in economics Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton proved that happiness growth stops after reaching the “optimal level” of income.

Moreover, there is a “treadmill” effect – the standard of living, which recently seemed to us the ultimate dream, after a week, month or year ceases to satisfy. I want something more, and advertising successfully parasitizes on this desire. The pursuit of sensations becomes an end in itself, but new models of gadgets and more expensive entertainment provide only an opportunity to “stay in the saddle”, to relieve anxiety for a while.

Recently Canadian, American and British economists have been working together to solve this problem. In 2011, they released the article “If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy, You Might Be Spending It Wrong.” Their recipe is to discipline yourself:

• pay for “impressions”, not goods;
• consume pleasures in “small portions”, but often;
• invest more not in status things, but in what ensures a stable “good life” – medicine, education, living conditions.

Culturology: life by the rules

The experience of happiness is connected with the state of society and cultural norms – people in different countries are as happy as they are “allowed” by the prevailing attitudes. For example, in China, personal well-being depends on the well-being of the team: being happy alone is shameful, and wealth and success are valued less than caring for others.

In the USA, on the contrary, happiness is presented as the result of a person’s own achievements, and a happy person must be successful. During World War II in Japan, thousands of young people were happy to become kamikaze and bring glory to their homeland, although they understood that they would have to become murderers and die themselves. Interestingly, the cohesion of society is as important for the happiness of its members as material well-being.

“Many Latin American countries are almost as happy as the Scandinavian ones, although they are much poorer,” comments sociologist Eduard Ponarin. “But they have a ‘warm’ culture where communication is highly valued, people are religious and tend to experience the country’s victories as their own.” But the collapse of norms and a change in values ​​can become a personal tragedy.

This was the case in Russia in the early 1990s. “After the collapse of the Union, the level of happiness fell sharply,” continues Eduard Ponarin. – The worldview system collapsed, landmarks disappeared, material well-being decreased. As the situation improved, the level of happiness increased. Increased pride in the country. And now, although incomes have declined, judging by the polls, Russians are happy.”

Psychology: the right formula

And yet, in many ways, our happiness depends on what we do with our lives. American psychologists Sonya Lubomirsky and Ken Sheldon summarized data from various sciences and came to the conclusion that only 10% of happiness comes from external circumstances – the place where we live, the wealth of the family, the level of education.

Exactly half of the ability to be happy depends on the factors set from birth – the structure of the brain, personality type, temperament. But for the remaining 40%, happiness depends on ourselves – on what people we communicate with, what activities we choose, what lifestyle we lead. What exactly can we do to be happier?

In the late 1990s, a whole branch of positive psychology arose, whose supporters set out to “tame” happiness. Or at least accurately calculate its components. In one of his last works, Martin Seligman, one of the founders of this trend, proposed a formula that he called PERMA after the first letters of the English words that make it up.

In his opinion, everyone’s life should contain positive emotions, involvement in some important business for him, relationships with significant people, experiencing the meaning and purpose of his existence: “Who am I? What do I live for? and personal achievement.

Philosophy: a false goal?

From the point of view of philosophy, which dates back to the ancient Greek Stoics, we do not have to strive for happiness in order to eventually arrive at it. Moreover, the very desire to be happy or “to have happiness” leads us astray.

“All people want to live happily, but they vaguely imagine what a happy life is,” Seneca wrote more than two thousand years ago. He believed that a person “goes further away from happiness, the more he is carried away by the pursuit of him: when the path leads in the opposite direction, haste causes an even greater distance from the final destination.”

The Austrian psychotherapist Viktor Frankl, who went through a concentration camp, adhered to the same approach. He considered the pursuit of happiness a less worthy goal than the search for meaning and the transformation of the world. According to Frankl, following desires, we follow the easy path – we avoid what can harm us, spare strength and stop if the goal threatens our peace of mind.

“Happiness is like a butterfly,” he wrote. – The more you catch it, the more it slips away. But if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit quietly on your shoulder.”