The Happiness Project

Are you looking for reading recommendations to help you eat more healthfully?

On the last day of the month, I post a list of happiness-themed recommended reading.

I think I’m going to have trouble posting on Friday, so here’s the list, one day early.

One of the most common goals that people express – in fact, it’s THE all-time most popular goal, according to the fabulous goal-recording site, 43 Things -- is the goal of losing weight. (The goal to “be happy” is number five! But I imagine that most people want to lose weight because they think it will make them happy.)

And even people who don’t want to lose weight often want to eat more healthfully.

I think these three books are outstanding – fascinating, full of useful information and advice, and well-written.

After I read these books, I started eating more appropriate portions, feeling fuller because I was eating MORE filling food (but less of the unsatisfying food, e.g., pretzels), and eating mindfully. Without “dieting” (which I refuse to do), I cut calories.

Zoikes, I sound like an advertisement.

I don’t always follow this advice (my downfall is “fake food”), but it has made a difference. So, for inspiration, and in this order, I recommend:

Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think – Brian Wansink. How various factors lead us to eat without noticing -- light in a restaurant, portion size, whether we're pouring from a big box of cereal or a little box, convenience etc. Tons of fascinating information about human behavior.

Volumetrics: Feel Full on Fewer Calories – Barbara Rolls and Robert Barnett. How to make food choices that mean that you eat a lot and feel full and satisfied, instead of choices for the same calories that leave you feeling hungry and like you haven't eaten much. E.g., eat a big bunch of grapes instead of a few raisins. Surprisingly obvious and sensible, when you think about it.

The Portion Teller: Smartsize Your Way to Permanent Weight Loss – Lisa Young. How to think about portion size to get control of what you're eating without realizing it.

These books sound like “diet” books, but they’re really about making healthier choices, on a permanent basis, whether or not you care about watching your calories. But it turns out that when you eat more healthfully, you tend to consume fewer calories.

Folks with a Buddhist outlook will like these books, because they focus on eating mindfully -- choosing food mindfully, eating mindfully, eating in a way that allows you not to obsess about food.

I also recommend Michael Pollan’s terrific New York Times Magazine article, Unhappy Meals, where he wrote memorably, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

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A key to happiness: having something to look forward to.

A reader sent me an email that made a point that I hadn’t quite grasped before. She mentioned the importance of having something to look forward to. (There's just no graceful way to avoid ending the sentence with a proposition, sorry.)

I hadn’t quite focused on this aspect of happiness, but now I see how important it is.

My First Splendid Truth is: to tackle happiness, you must think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.

Having something to look forward to makes you “feel good” and may also give an “atmosphere of growth” to your life, because the future seems bright.

Also, my Third Splendid Truth is that… happiness is a four-fold path, or a house with four stories, or a four-petalled flower – any ideas for poetic yet appropriate imagery to use?

Well, for now, I’ll just say that the Third Splendid Truth is: there are four stages for enjoying a happy event:
-- anticipation (looking forward to it)
-- savoring (enjoying it in the moment – remember to turn off your cell phone!)
-- expression (sharing your pleasure with others, to heighten your experience)
-- reflection (looking back on happy times – so take pictures)

Anticipation is a key stage; by having something to look forward to, no matter what your circumstances, you bring happiness into your life well before the event actually takes place. In fact, sometimes the happiness in anticipation is greater than the happiness actually experienced in the moment – that’s known as “rosy prospection.”

Everyone should be able to pull out a calendar and see at least a few fun things scheduled in the future weeks.

If your life is a parade of obligations, dreaded tasks, horrible encounters, and mandatory appearances, take a minute to figure out something that YOU would find fun, and make time for it. And don’t forget -- just because something is fun for someone else doesn’t make it fun for you.

Be honest about your likes and dislikes. Don’t pretend that you like going to museums if you don’t. Your “fun” may not look like other people’s fun.

For example, I’m really looking forward to the Little Girl’s first days in pre-school. Her school has a long process of getting the children accustomed to separation, which means that I will do a lot of hanging around in the hallway while she’s in the classroom. I can’t wait.

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This post on the terrific site Unclutter had me laughing out loud. For a moment, I was even tempted to order one for the Big Man, but the impulse passed.

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This Wednesday: Six tips for keeping school-day mornings calm and cheery.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Six tips for keeping school-day mornings calm and cheery.

Unbelievable, but school is starting up again. And that means that the early-morning scramble is starting, too.

I had a major insight about the challenge of keeping our school-day mornings moving along smoothly and peacefully.

Here’s the insight: I was focused on chivvying my children along. Wrong! I needed to worry about ME.

When I work on my own habits, mornings are much easier.

Here are some tips for keeping the mornings calm:

1. Get enough sleep yourself. I’m good at putting my kids to sleep at a decent hour, but not so good about doing it myself. It’s tempting to stay up late, to enjoy the peace and quiet, but 6:30 a.m. comes fast, and being overtired makes the morning much tougher.

2. Sing. As goofy as it sounds, I try to sing in the morning. It’s hard both to sing and to maintain a grouchy mood, and it sets a happy tone for everyone—particularly in my case, because I’m tone deaf, and my audience finds my singing a source of great hilarity.

3. Say “no” only when it really matters. Wear a bright red shirt with bright orange pants and bright green shoes? Sure. As Samuel Johnson said, “All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.”

4. Get organized the night before. It’s so hard to take the trouble to wrangle all the stuff together the night before, but it really pays off. Those last-minute dashes for homework sheets or empty paper-towel rolls are hard to bear with equanimity.

5. Have a precise routine. This sounds counter-intuitive, and I’m not sure it would work for everyone, but in our house, we have a NASA-like countdown to get to school. At 6:45 a.m., the Big Girl can go downstairs to breakfast (we let her watch TV during breakfast! Aack, I know that’s bad, but we do). At 7:15, she leaves the table to get dressed. At 7:45, we leave the house to walk to school. Knowing these exact times keeps the Big Girl moving and stops her from repeating, “Just a minute, just a minute.”

6. Caffeine. If you need your caffeine, make sure you can get your caffeine! I usually manage to drink a huge mug of black tea and a Diet Coke before we leave the house.

A friend of mine works full-time and has two young sons. She told me, “For a long time, our mornings were awful -- lots of crabbiness and procrastination, me yelling at everyone to hurry up. Then it hit me: I don’t get to spend that much time with my kids during the week, and a big part of that time is during the morning. I made changes so that it became good family time.”

For her, the secret was to get up earlier. She hated to lose thirty minutes of sleep, but that extra half hour made the difference between a relaxed, cheerful morning and a rushed, difficult morning.

It’s worth the effort to try to get mornings running smoothly, because the morning sets the tone for the whole day – for everyone.

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Via the great site Pick the Brain, I found a fascinating list on Steve Olson's blog, 10 things I wish I had never believed. I was most intrigued by: 'Money is the root of all evil," "School is the best place for kids to learn," and "Admitting a mistake is a sign of weakness."

My Secrets of Adulthood (see left column) is my version of this list -- for example, I realized that I wish I had never believed "It's a sign of weakness or incompetence to ask for help." I'm going to try to tackle this question in the "things I wish I had never believed" form, too. Very interesting.

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Why losing my ability to send email actually allowed me to thwart the "hedonic treadmill."

One of the most significant factors in happiness is the hedonic treadmill, or hedonic adaptation.

People are adaptable. We quickly adjust to a new life circumstance—for better or worse—and consider it normal.

Although this helps us when our situation worsens, it means that when circumstances improve, we soon become hardened to new comforts or privileges. Scoring air-conditioning, a bigger house, or a new title gives us only a brief boost in happiness before we start to take it for granted. As Aldous Huxley wrote, “Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.” That’s the hedonic treadmill.

It’s possible to beat the hedonic treadmill. One way is through conscious enjoyment and appreciation. Remind yourself how much you enjoy your perfect cup of coffee or your expensively comfortable bed.

Another is rarity. By keeping a pleasure infrequent, or by going through periods of deprivation, you can awaken yourself to it anew.

I had a great time on vacation in Kansas City, but one pleasure (which I hadn’t before even considered a pleasure) that I missed was the pleasure of sending out email. For some reason, although I could read my email, which was much better than no service at all, I couldn’t send it.

Now I’m back at home. What joy, what satisfaction, what appreciation I feel for my fully operational email! I’m facing many hours of catch-up, but I’m just happy to have this service back at last.

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I just discovered Success from the Nest through LifeRemix. A fun source of lots of useful information.

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The happiness of NOT having to run laps -- and the happiness of going for a run.

Here I am in Kansas City. My parents moved a few years ago, and now they live in an apartment building that happens to overlook my former school.

I have a great view of the playground where I played Four Square in fourth and fifth grade, my seventh-grade classroom, my ninth-grade chemistry lab, and the playing fields, around which I ran innumerable glum laps during high school.

Ah, the happiness of looking at those fields and knowing that never again will I be required to run around them! I get a little jolt of satisfaction every time I look out the window.

Here’s the irony, though: across the street from my former school is a park. Just this morning I went for a run, twice around the park.

Such is the difference between compulsion and free will, and between being a kid and being an adult.

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If you emailed me to ask for a chart or to offer a subtitle suggestion, you haven't heard back from me because I can't email OUT here in Kansas City. I'll respond as soon as I get back to my desk.

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This Saturday: a happiness quotation from Zeno of Citium.

“Well-being is attained little by and little, and nevertheless it is no little thing itself.” --Zeno of Citium

Help! Do you have a brilliant idea for a sub-title for the Happiness Project?

At long last, in a few weeks, I’m going to try to sell my book proposal for the Happiness Project.

It’s very unusual with a non-fiction book to work for so long on a project before selling it. I hope I made the right strategic decision to hold off as long as I have. Wish me luck.

In any event, I’ve been trying, and failing, to come up with a great subtitle.

So I’m turning to you and the wisdom of crowds for suggestions for a subtitle.

To start the thinking, here are some current options:

The Happiness Project:
 A Year of Changing My Life—Without Changing My Life

 My Year-Long Quest to be Happier

 My Year-Long Quest to be Happier by Changing My Life—Without Changing My Life

 Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Pick Up Litter, Swallow Anger, Contemplate the Heavens, and Generally Have More Fun

 My Year of Bursting into Song, Picking Up Litter…etc.

Aaack.

I like the paradoxical “changing my life without changing my life” but I fear that’s too obscure – people won’t get it and so will be put off. (What I mean is that I don’t make a radical change in my life -- move to India or give up shopping or take a sabbatical from my family. I look for greater happiness within the ordinary confines in my life.)

My usual tagline for the Happiness Project is “I spent a year test-driving all the tips, rules, wisdom of the ages, and current scientific research to find out what actually works.” I like this description, but I can’t figure out how to turn it into a snappy subtitle.

“My Year of Test-Driving the Wisdom of the Ages and Current Scientific Studies to Discover What Actually Made Me Happier” doesn’t strike me as compelling.

I also like the idea that “Gretchen tests all this advice and reads all those books so you don’t have to.”

A friend suggested “My Year of Purposeful Living, Wanton Singing…and Picking Up Strangers’ Trash.” This sounds great. My only hesitation is that I wish I could replace “Purposeful Living,” because that kind of vague advice is the kind of thing I really avoid in the Happiness Project. (We can all agree that that’s a worthy goal, but how the heck, exactly, do you go about living more purposefully?) I can’t think of something that sounds as good but that’s more concrete.

I like the word “adventure.” I wish there were a synonym for “quest” that had the same meaning and wasn’t quite so unicorn-y. I really want to keep the mention of the “year.”

I suspect that the right subtitle is something completely different from the ideas above. Something imaginative and unexpected, but that also accurately describes the Happiness Project. But darned if I can think of what it could be.

One of my Secrets of Adulthood is “It’s okay to ask for help.” So I’m asking. Help!

An unrelated matter:
If you’ve emailed me in the last few days to ask for a copy of my charts, please be patient. Here in Kansas City, I can’t SEND email because of a technical issue, but I’ll send the charts as soon as I get back to my office. And for those who may have missed the message – if you’d like a copy of my resolution charts, to use as inspiration for your own happiness project, just email me at grubin [at] gretchenrubin [.com]. (I’ve added the brackets to thwart spammers, but just type the email address in the usual way.)

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When it comes to happiness – or enthusiasm, or friendliness – are Midwesterners different?

We’re in Kansas City, Missouri (just a few blocks from the Kansas state line, but we Kansas Citians care a lot about the distinction) for the yearly summer visit to my parents.

As always, I love being in Kansas City.

By coincidence, a few days before this trip, I had dinner in New York with one of my best friends from high school, who now lives in Brooklyn.

We were talking about Kansas City, and she mentioned that she had decided that Midwesterners really WERE more friendly and enthusiastic than people on the East Coast.

I’ve heard that, of course, but I never noticed too much of a difference myself. So this trip, I’ve been trying to pay attention.

People do seem less hurried. Clerks in stores are more chatty and helpful. Drivers don’t even turn into an intersection if a pedestrian is crossing (in NYC, they practically edge you out of the way with their bumpers).

Certainly the people walking around move more slowly than I’m used to. In a recent fascinating cover story in New York Magazine, Clive Thompson's Why New Yorkers Live Longer, I read that a “recent ranking of cities found that New York has the fastest pedestrians in the country.”

Of course, the flip side to “not hurried” is “slow.” When you’re in a hurry, this slower pace can be slightly irritating. But overall, it’s a much nicer atmosphere.

I’m not so sure that people are really more friendly. Part of the friendlier atmosphere comes from not being in such a rush. People take the time to exchange a few words.

There’s a kind of friendliness peculiar to New York, too. Odd things are always happening, and you’re always around lots of other people, many of whom have hilarious commentary to offer.

Nevertheless, this exercise has made me appreciate the value of adding a few extra words to a routine exchange. Even a “Hot enough for you?” as clichéd as it is, makes an encounter seem more pleasant.

I’m not good about talking to strangers, so it’s an effort for me to offer these little remarks, but I’ve noticed the big difference it makes in the emotional tone of my day.

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This Wednesday: Five tips for making your schedule work better (with particular emphasis on coping with Mondays.)

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Five tips for making your schedule work better (with particular emphasis on coping with Mondays).

Over the last few weeks, unrelated to each other, a few friends happened to mention to me that they’d made minor changes to their approach to scheduling their work, with dramatic results.

These changes demonstrate the usefulness of paying attention to our own idiosyncratic rhythms – when we feel like buckling down, when we feel like goofing off.

1. One friend used to hate the frantic rush of Monday mornings, but now he comes into work Monday morning without any expectations for himself until after lunch. He lets himself do easy work like checking email, reading email newsletters, and doing more substantial tasks IF he feels like it, but doesn’t consider himself “at work” until 1:30. The result? He gets about as much done as he did before – he just feels less pressure.

2. Also on the subject of Mondays -- one of my former roommates has always suffered from the Sunday Blues. Now she deals with it by making sure she has something to look forward to on Monday: she schedules lunch with a friend, excuses herself from some daily task that she doesn’t enjoy, or figures out some other way to improve the day. Once Monday morning comes, she’s always fine – she just suffers from dread on Sunday. Having something pleasant to anticipate lessens the feeling.

3. Another friend gets to work at 8:00 a.m. but doesn’t react to anything until 10:00.m. He only works on tasks that he’s set himself. By not answering email or working on someone else’s request until 10:00, he takes care of his own priorities first.

4. Studies show that the brain is often better able to tackle cognitive tasks before noon. A friend of mine noticed that this was true for him, so now he loads all his serious intellectual work into the morning, and uses the time after lunch for meetings, easier work, and going to the gym.

5. The change I’ve made in my approach to my schedule is – don’t expect to have a regular schedule. I love routine and predictability, but the way my life is right now, every day is different. For a while, that made me felt frustrated and inefficient. Now I’m trying to embrace and enjoy it.

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Is your iPod a source of happiness? At last, I discover the happiness power of music.

The first of my Twelve Commandments is to “Be Gretchen,” and it’s only since I’ve started making an effort to “Be Gretchen” that I realize how difficult that goal is.

Take music.

I knew from my research that listening to music is one of the most effective ways to boost your energy and mood (second only to exercise). In fact, in one study, 92% of people felt happier when they listened to music they liked. If you’re in a blues emergency, music is a great way to turn yourself around.

For a long time, I had assumed I liked music, because “everyone” did, but then realized I didn’t enjoy music very much (I thought). It’s one of my Secrets of Adulthood: “Just because something is fun for other people doesn’t mean it’s fun for you, and vice versa.”

I decided that I didn’t really like music much, and I thought this recognition was a mature, thoughtful embrace of “Being Gretchen.”

But a few nights ago, as I listened in ecstasy to the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Under the Bridge for the fiftieth time since I discovered it, I thought – wait, maybe I DO like music.

It has finally dawned on me that I do like music, but I like to listen to it in a very particular way. I don’t like to get a CD and listen to the whole thing. I don’t like a wide variety. I like to listen to my very favorite songs over and over.

I’ve always been slightly embarrassed by this propensity. I thought it showed a lack of sophisticated appreciation. It’s a Top-40 kind of mentality. I have no depth of musical knowledge, just familiarity with a handful of scattered songs. Plus, my taste in music runs to the slightly cheesy.

But I thought, “Be Gretchen. Listen to the music I like, the way I like.”

I bought my first iPod yesterday. The Big Man – who loves music – showed me how to load it. It’s very easy.

And now I’m so excited to listen to music. I’m in the process of hand-picking my favorite songs to put on the iPod. Perfect timing, because we’re going home to Kansas City to visit my parents, and I like to go running there, and running is so much nicer with music.

This project is giving me a huge boost even when I’m not listening to the music. I’ve noticed that making collections of your favorite things is a great way to get a jolt of happiness. Try it. Make an album of your favorite photos of your friends or kids; make a shelf of your favorite sources for your Ph.D. thesis; make a list of your favorite restaurants.

I KNOW listening to this music is going to make me happy – plus, it will probably make it more likely that I’ll go for a run, also a mood booster.

Incidentally, I would point to this incident as an example of the way money, used right, can give happiness support. I was very lucky to be able just to go out and buy an iPod when I decided I wanted one. Now that I have it, I’m sure it will give me a lot of happiness bang for the buck.

Next on my list of songs to download: Angie by the Rolling Stones.

(As a way to link to the songs, I'm linking via YouTube, which I hope is ok from a copyright standpoint [I am a lawyer, after all] but I think the videos distract, and detract, from the music.)

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A great productivity/life hacks blog with a tech emphasis is The Cranking Widgets Blog. It's a fun read, and although most of the tech hacks are over my non-techy head, I like being exposed to that stuff -- I'm hoping it will seep in over time.

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