Back in 2018, the University of Bristol launched the ‘Science of Happiness’ course. There weren’t grades or exams, just some reading and social exercises.

The idea was that if students investigated peer-reviewed studies concerned with the psychology and neuroscience of what “really makes us happy”… then happiness would rub off on them.

That is, by simply exposing students to happiness literature – and encouraging them to adopt new habits – their mental health and sense of well-being would be boosted and protected.

The habits include gratitude, exercise, meditation and keeping a journal. These are staples of the positive psychology movement.

And it worked

According to a study from the course convenors, students who took the course reported a 10 to 15 per cent improvement in wellbeing.

A couple of years later, when COVID-19 held millions of people hostage, the course was taught online. And again, participants reported feeling better, although perhaps not to the same extent.

This week, the Bristol psychologists running the course published a new paper. This was a two-year follow-up.

They found that participants who had abandon the happiness-promoting habits the “wellbeing boosts are short-lived”.

However, if participants maintain “the evidence-informed habits learnt on the course”, the protections remain in place in the long term.

What the researcher says

Senior author Professor Bruce Hood, in a prepared statement, said:

“It’s like going to the gym – we can’t expect to do one class and be fit forever. Just as with physical health, we have to continuously work on our mental health, otherwise the improvements are temporary.”

In an article from Medical Xpress, Hood goes further:

“Much of what we teach revolves around positive psychology interventions that divert your attention away from yourself, by helping others, being with friends, gratitude or meditating.

“This is the opposite of the current ‘selfcare’ doctrine, but countless studies have shown that getting out of our own heads helps gets us away from negative ruminations which can be the basis of so many mental health problems.”

Other findings

Some of the findings that course participants are exposed to include:

• Talking to strangers makes us happier, despite a majority of us shying away from such encounters.
• Social media is not bad for everyone, but it can be bad for those who focus on their reputation.
• Loneliness impacts on our health by impairing our immune systems.
• Optimism increases life expectancy.
• Giving gifts to others activates the reward centres in our brain, often providing more of a happiness boost than spending money on oneself.
• Sleep deprivation impacts on how well we are liked by others.
• Walking in nature deactivates part of the brain related to negative ruminations, which are associated with depression.
• Kindness and happiness are correlated.

What is happiness anyway?

In her 2007 book The How of Happiness, positive psychology researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky describes happiness as “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.”

Of course we can’t and don’t experience joy or contentment all the time. And feelings such as bliss and ecstasy tend to be less often experienced, unless you have some mind of mania happening.

The second part of Lyubomirsky’s definition carries more weight, relating as it does to how one feels about one’s life overall.

This argument was first made by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, the pioneer of happiness. Having friends, good health, being financially secure and so on were the ingredients of happiness.

But it was measured over the arc of a lifetime, and includes how we manage inevitable disappointments, setbacks and sorrows.

So we need to throw resilience and grace in their too.

For more on the ‘Science of Happiness’ see here.