Harvard Professor Answers Happiness Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED

I'm Arthur Brooks, a Harvard University

professor

and Atlantic

happiness

columnist. I'm here today to answer his

questions

on Twitter. This is the first

happiness

support

for simpi Samantha, who just discovered that the key to happiness is sleeping well. schedule that I knew well the secret to happiness is not sleeping a lot or even a good sleep schedule one of the curious things about diet nutrition exercise sleeping does not actually bring happiness but it does reduce unhappiness, which may be your problem now it seems I'm splitting hairs, right, most people think that unhappiness is the opposite of happiness, it's not that they are actually processed in different hemispheres of the brain, happiness on one side, unhappiness on the other, the right side.

They are the basic negative emotions and the way we know them. This is because the left side of the face, which is controlled by the right side of the brain, is more active when we feel negative emotions, so just, Samantha, I guess you know that you have someone happy in your life and look, we. All of us, some of us have higher levels of negative feelings than others. If you have that and you want some relief, that's what it will bring you, so it won't make you happier. It's not the secret to making this happen, but it sure is a good thing. have less unhappiness have a good night's sleep fire queen 85.

Does anyone ever experience depression or uncertainty after achieving a goal oh yes they do? This is the true enigma of happiness. This is the satisfaction dilemma in a nutshell, yes, I do understand it. Look, I'm going to love it forever. I'll get that car. I'll get that house. I will get that relationship. I'll get that job. That money that will fill in the blank. It's going to be great and it's for a minute. Now there is neurophysiology behind this. a neuromodulator in the brain called dopamine and you want it, you work for it you will get it dopamine dopamine dopamine you have it oh oh I guess I need to start over here's a little way to think about how to solve that problem you, me, everyone, mother nature It teaches us that to get satisfaction and keep it you need to have more, that is the wrong model, your true satisfaction is all the things you have divided between all the things you want, now you can try to increase your satisfaction. permanently having more or you can work on the denominator of the halves divided by once you can work on wanting less, that turns out to be the right formula kitoff or Shake It Off shake it I already have it Shake It Off masks how do I practice? gratitude when all I feel is sadness frustration and confusion going back to your question how do I feel gratitude? you decide to be grateful is the conclusion the brain is divided into three parts it is not exactly like that but just for reference there is the old part that has all the motor functions, breathing, the brain stem and the spine, then you have the middle part, your limbic system, which receives signals from the outside world and takes a kind of machine language and turns it into feelings that happen to you and then go from there.

It sends those signals to the brain's neocortex, the wrinkled part on the outside of your brain, the most evolved and surprisingly human of which is the prefrontal cortex, a bumper of brain tissue just behind your forehead, and it receives these emotions and you decide what they are. What it means and what you're supposed to do now, a lot of people go through life in a kind of limbic state where emotions are transmitted and if you're kind of a limbic person, you feel like these things control you, like. You have hope. The best thing is that your limbic system is in charge, but that is not your only option, you can be in charge yourself, but what you have to do is experience your emotions in the prefrontal cortex of your brain and it is a very simple process if you put your Keep in mind that it is called metacognition metacognition means being aware of your emotions and your thinking this is what humans are exclusively available to do my dog ​​Chucho is not metacognitive he cannot be he feels it he does it he sees the cookie he eats the cookie but I can actually send that information to my prefrontal cortex and make an executive decision about what I'm going to do despite my feelings, this is what I ask my students to do at Harvard.

I ask you to make a gratitude list on Sunday nights. Make a list of the five things you are most grateful for every night for the rest of the week Take five minutes and look at your gratitude list on Sundays Update your list In 10 weeks you will be between 15 and 25 percent happier because you decided to be grateful, you manage your emotions so they don't control you and if you do that, Game Changer is in charge, you will never be the same cute rabbit Haze 1136 that I am here. I wonder what. is the true meaning of happiness happiness is actually a combination of three identifiable things that we all need and we all want both in balance and in abundance these are the macronutrients of happiness your Thanksgiving dinner are proteins, carbohydrates and fats, well, your happiness is enjoyment, satisfaction and purpose.

Enjoyment is not just pleasure, it is pleasure with Consciousness, it is using your prefrontal cortex, satisfaction is the joy you get from a job well done, it is your reward for trying hard to work even with a purpose of suffering, what is that? ?, it's really a matter of finding coherence in your life finding goals in your life finding meaning in your life if you have those three things you have happiness George styles asks if happiness is related to having a purpose purpose is literally one of the macronutrients of happiness, but it's strange, it's actually hard to understand find out what it even is if you feel that life doesn't have enough purpose that life doesn't have enough meaning answer the following two

questions

why am I alive and why would I be willing to die if If you don't have an answer to one or both questions, you are going to have an existential crisis and you need to go search with your life for an answer to those two questions.

I'm not going to tell you what those

answers

are. different for different people so yes purpose leads to happiness oh yes how do you find your purpose? Answer those two questions find the answer to those two questions that is your task Can social media cause depression? Yes, so it seems that here is the basic result of social networks. like the junk food of social life, if it's high in calories and low in nutrition, you're starving for this neuropeptide called oxytocin that brings people together, you get almost none of that when you have no touch or eye contact, but you crave it every time. more social contact when you've been on social media for so long that you binge it's basically like binge eating potato chips and then wondering why you feel bad and you're gaining weight but you're not getting your nutrition this is the Try if you are going to use social media, make sure you only implement your relationships in person and use it very sparingly.

I'm talking about a total of 30 minutes a day on all platforms and it will never replace an in-person friendship if it does. for any friendship or one that goes beyond those limits will reduce your happiness. Puja escal got the middle initial. I know how age affects happiness and she attaches a graph and what she does is she looks at different ages at the average level of happiness in a particular country at a particular time and it looks the same everywhere what do you think is going to happen? pass? Let's say you're in your twenties. Will you be happier or unhappier in 10 years?

Most people who look at me are optimistic. People think that they are going to be happier at number 38 and number 28, and the reason is that everyone has these goals and they think that they are going to achieve their goals. Most people think they will become happier as they go along. ages and will reach a peak and then go back down. The truth is exactly the opposite. Most people, on average, experience a slight decline in their happiness from their 20s through their 40s and early 50s, but it's like an eight to seven on a scale of one to ten, this isn't a big deal. it's noticeable but not horrible, then when you're in your early 50s it changes and you start over and almost everyone gets increasingly happier from 50 to 70 except two groups of people who have mental illnesses not remedied and people who have untreated substance use disorders, so if this is what you are treated for anxiety, depression and mood disorders and you are treated for addiction, okay, the next question comes from completely laughing, How do we adjust our expectations as we age are good.

One of the things that actually gets better and better as we get older is expectations about the future, because we understand how things work. There is a tyranny that people don't understand until, generally, a little after age 50, they think that if they get what they want, they will get it and they will enjoy it and it will never go away, and then they also think that if something bad happens to them that they are going to stay in a bad mood or sad or angry or scared forever this is what you learn after 50. nothing lasts and it doesn't matter there is one thing that all biologists talk about which is homeostasis the tendency of every biological process to return to its good balance works emotionally too your anger your sadness your disgust your fear your joy your interest those things do not last for better and for worse your heart is broken it will not last when I discovered that this is power and if you take advantage of that each year is better than the last or it could be the next, this comes from the father's poster and I'm going to guess that he is not actually a priest, how can I transcend my mortal anguish it sounds to me like the father's poster has a little afraid of dying, but we are all afraid of our own version of dying.

There is a meditation that Theravada Buddhists do if you go to a monastery, a Buddhist monastery in the southern tier. from Asia, especially East Asia and Thailand, Vietnam or Myanmar, you will find photographs of corpses in various states of decay and the monks have to reflect and they have to say "that's me" and "that's me" what are they doing? what is called Marana Sati's death meditation, go through that why because you are going to get used to that kind of surreal experience of your own death as you see it, how do I transcend my mortal anguish by relying on my mortal anguish, you conquered the fear?

Experiencing fear and making it normal and it will no longer be a ghost and it will no longer be a problem in the third eye prian because I have been working on being present to be present means to be here now, those are the words that Ram Das used to talk about that We have a special type of language that we use that is now called being conscious. Mindfulness is difficult because we are Time Travelers. You're thinking about the past. You are thinking about the future. The average person. the way you spend 30 to 50 of your time thinking about the future that's amazing you're not here now think about how much you do that by the way you're going on vacation you say I'm going to make some memories so I'm going to take a photo in which you're thinking now like it's the past in the future when you look back at the present that's amazing time travel we do it all the time here's the problem you missed your life you missed it, you know the great vietnamese buddhist monk, no Han, everyone needs to read Mindfulness Miracle because it starts with him describing what it's like to wash the dishes.

I'm washing the dishes and I'm conscious. to wash the dishes because if I don't think about washing the dishes I won't be present in the act of washing the dishes, that means working on being a conscious person maybe it's with meditation maybe it's with prayer maybe it's with therapy and sitting with your hands crossed on your lap looking out the train window saying I'm sitting on the train right now because I don't want to miss my life finally shimeri stresses AAA wants to know the definition of wisdom psychometricians those who study different forms of intelligence discovered that we have something called fluid intelligence in your early 20s and 30s the ability to concentrate to innovate to solve problems to think quickly people tend to peak in the knowledge professions for their ability to solve problems to innovate to concentrate working memory around your 30s , but there is another curve behind it called crystallized intelligence that increases at 40, 50 and 60 years old and remains high at 70 and 80 years old.

It is the wisdom curve, the essence of wisdom is teaching, advising, leading teams, recognizing patterns, understand. what things really mean and using that information to serve other people and improve and if you choose to cultivate it can make your life as happy as possible as you get older, that's not just the comfort of age, that's the promise. of wisdom well it looks like that's all we have for today those are your questions I hope you learned a lot from this time I hope you enjoyed it I hope you're a little happier but here's the key If you really want to lock it in, here's the secret, you must think about it and adopt new habits in your life and, above all, hereThere is the most important part, you must share it, share it and you will never lose.

Thank you for taking some time with me today.