When I did the research for my book, Tough Transitions, I enjoyed learning about all the investigations that are going on to try to determine how people can increase their experience of happiness.

There’s a lot of information to read on this subject, and all of it is fascinating.

One thing that some researchers have suggested is that each of us has an individual “happiness thermostat” and that each person’s thermostat is stuck at that person’s basic setting. What this means is that when both good or bad things happen in an individual’s life, the individual will eventually adapt to both kinds of events and return to the same basic happiness thermostat setting that the person is accustomed to.

But some studies disagree with this assertion. These studies suggest that we can get our personal happiness thermostat unstuck by thinking particular ways and doing specific things. We can increase our experience of happiness by the thoughts we focus on and the actions we take.Here is one example:

A woman doing work on her master’s at Harvard was given this assignment:

Each night after going to bed and before going to sleep, think of three good things that happened during the day and analyze why they occurred.

The woman, a chronic worrier, had little faith in the exercise which was why she all the more astonished at the result she experienced from doing the assignment. She reported that she received a boost from doing this simple activity each night. Her dreams changed, she never had trouble falling asleep, and she felt happier. In fact, she found the simple exercise so useful that she has now extended the number of good things that happened during the day to ten or twenty.

It seems to me that this simple exercise is well worth trying. Perhaps we will see a rise in the basic setting of our personal happiness thermostat.

After all, the idea is ancient. Remember that beautiful verse in the Bible?

…whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Have a wonderful winter season.

Love,

Dr. Elizabeth Harper Neeld offers wisdom and practical insights to anyone whose life is in a time of transition, change, grief and loss of any kind. As an internationally recognized and accomplished consultant, and author of more than twenty books - including Tough Transitions and Seven Choices: Finding Daylight After Loss Shatters Your World - she is committed to work that helps lift the human spirit.