7 tips from a Harvard professor on how to be happier

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Tal Ben-Shahar taught one of the most popular courses at Harvard, which enrolled thousands of students every year. Translated into Russian, the title of his course might sound like this: "Introduction to the Science of Happiness." Ben Shahar gave simple advice on how to make happiness come true. We have selected the best for you. We think they will help you become a little more productive, more efficient and happier.

Fight procrastination

Procrastination is, of course, a weird thing. Senseless and merciless. But the more meaningless the phenomenon, the more difficult it is to cope with it. Ben-Shahar suggests doing the following thing: when there is no strength to do an important matter, you need to arrange yourself a five-minute start. It means saying to yourself:

Okay, Google, we’ll only work with you for five minutes and then we’ll finish right away.

In general, in such a fraudulent way, you drag your brain into the necessary activity. Typically, five minutes is enough to focus on a specific task. And then it's a matter of technology - we take and feed, and feed ourselves with "five-minute starts".

Getting rid of stress

American physician Andrew Weill expressed an interesting thought: "If I had to choose one single piece of advice on how to lead a healthier lifestyle, it would be advice to learn how to breathe."

Thomas Crum, in his book Three Deep Breaths, also talks about the wonders of breathing properly. In order to completely relax and focus on your current goals, you need to take three deep breaths. The first breath is taken by the stomach. This should be done slowly and deeply, focusing on the fact that we are here and now. On the second breath, the same thing, only focusing on our current goal. But the third breath can be called a breath of gratitude, because during it we should feel gratitude for the fact that we live.

This practice should be repeated several times a day. And preferably not only in those moments when we are under stress.

We become more generous

It has long been noticed that a simple technique helps a lot from any whining - helping another person. Psychologist Sonya Lubomirsky conducted an experiment: she asked people to do five good deeds that were unusual for them in a day. These were different things: treating a neighbor with cookies, giving someone movie tickets, taking a voter off the road for free, donating money to charity, and so on.

After that, Lubomirsky discovered that no matter what a good deed was, it markedly changed the quality of life of the one who did it. And not only at the moment when it was done, but also later. So instead of whining and looking for the meaning of life, it is better to go and buy food for your grandmother.

Getting Luckier

There is a very simple way to become luckier - to increase your failure rate. One of the most successful baseball players in history, Babe Ruth has topped the player list for outs five times. Thomas Edison, who patented 1,093 inventions in the United States, has failed his experiments tens of thousands of times. Relatively speaking, there is one success for several failures.

So make mistakes again and again. And remember that with every new mistake you get luckier.

We create a good mood

To quickly get in a good mood, you can use a technique called Loving-Kindness Meditation.

If something pisses you off, just close your eyes for three minutes and imagine the person you love. In this case, it is advisable to choose some kind song that will quickly introduce you to a state of love and kindness. You can put, for example, I Will Always Love You Whitney Houston.

Relieve stress

Try to feel your body right now. Most likely, very often you have the desire to stretch, sign up for a massage, or arrange a running marathon for yourself.

It is clear where the roots of our tightness grow from. Very often we hold back our emotions, and this is directly reflected in our body. For example, clenched jaws are a common sign of pent-up anger that you may not even be aware of.

To release physical tension, you need to focus on a specific part of the body and loosen the clamp. You can repeat the word "release" to yourself.

Yoga teacher Patricia Walden says that the most important part of the practice is shavasana, or corpse pose. In order to do shavasana, you need to lie on your back, put your hands along the body, stretch your legs and relax.

Taking a break from thoughts

Man is like a plant: in order to develop, we need free space. One way to create such a space is to create silence around you. At least for a while.

Think about how much time have you spent in complete silence in recent days? No music, no talking, no extraneous noise. And without noise and in my head too.

Try to arrange yourself three hours of silence and silence. Turn off your phone and take a walk listening to birds, grasshoppers and the sounds of the city. You will see the world completely different.

There are even more rules for a happy and meaningful life in the book "".