Yale's most popular class ever, "The Science of Well-Being,"
was designed by professor Laurie Santos. She collected all the
psychological science related to happiness and came up with a
step-by-step process for boosting your own happiness.
The class has already
been taken by more than 225,000 students online. About one in
four students at Yale have taken it since it was first offered.
Santos designed the course for three reasons: to synthesize what
psychologists have learned about making our lives better, to
help undergrads overcome stress and unhappiness on campus, and
to live a better life herself.
A few exercises
include:
Focus on your strengths - Identify your signature strengths and
refocus on them each day. Studies show happiness increases and
depression decreases when a person uses his or her signature
strengths regularly.
Invest in experiences -
Going for a walk or traveling to a new place are much better
investments in terms of happiness than buying material things.
Your stuff loses "happiness value" almost as soon as you have
purchased it. Paying for experiences, however, has multiple
benefits for happiness, including the anticipation of the
experience leads to more happiness and joy. Also, talking about
the experience afterward with friends reignites your own happy
memories and, sharing these tales with friends tends to boost
their happiness, too.
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