How can you be happier? Jennifer L. Aaker, a marketing professor at Stanford University’s School of Business, Melanie Rudd, a Stanford MBA student, and Wharton marketing professor Cassie Mogilner, are here to help. Noting that inquiries into money and happiness
have found surprisingly few correlations between the two, the trio
instead set out to look at the way people spend their time and how that
affects happiness. The researchers examined 60 academic studies, then
tried to draw links between those findings to draw more general
conclusions.

The results? Here are five guidelines they say anyone can use to increase their happiness.

1. Spend time with the “right people.”  Sounds
simple. But who exactly are the right people? Unfortunately, they’re
generally not your office mates, who are the ones people tend to spend
the most time with. The people that make you happiest will generally be
friends, family, and romantic partners. That’s why one the most powerful
influencers of general happiness is whether or not someone has a “best friend” at work and whether or not they like their boss.

• Avoid small talk. A related predictor of happiness
  is how much substantive discussion a person engages in, compared to
  small talk. Generally, small talk makes people unhappy, and often, work
  relationships involve a disproportionate amount of small talk. If you
  want to increase your happiness, it’s far better to find one or two
  colleagues with whom you can have a real discussion than to engage in
  small talk around the water cooler.

2. Spend time on “socially connecting” activities, such as volunteering and spending time with friends.

• Work doesn’t count. Unless your job is particularly fulfilling and
  your colleagues are your best buds, work is not ’socially connecting’
  and is generally one of the more unhappy parts of the day. Commuting is
  also gets high marks for making people unhappy.


• Volunteering has been proven to be a good way to increase happiness.


• Memory is important, because it helps us take an event that happened
  in the past and extend its ‘worth’ into the future.  One way to help
  choose experiences that will increase happiness is to consider how you
  might remember them in the future. What are your happiest memories? How
  might you create more similar memories?

3. Day dream, or, as the researchers say, enjoy the
experience without spending the time. As counterintuitive as it may
seem, research has shown that the part of the brain responsible for
feeling pleasure can be activated just by thinking about something
pleasurable. And we often enjoy the anticipation of something
pleasurable more than the actual experience that we think is going to be
so great. The most common example is vacation planning, which some find
more pleasurable than the vacation itself.

4. Expand your time. No, this does not mean you have
to find a warp in the space-time continuum (although it might help).
Focusing on the “here and now” slows down the perceived passage of time,
allowing people to feel less rushed and hurried. How can we do that?

• Breathe slowly. Just for a few minutes.  As the
  authors write: “In one study, subjects who were instructed to take long
  and slow breaths (vs. short and quick ones) for 5 minutes not only felt
  there was more time available to get things done, but also perceived
  their day to be longer.”


• Volunteering makes it seem like you have more time.
  In general, spending time on someone else makes people feel like they
  have more spare time and that their future is more expansive.


• Pay people to do the chores you hate. Activities
  that we choose to do generally make us happier than those that are
  obligatory. So if you can afford it, hire someone else to do some of the
  ‘obligatory’ tasks, such as cleaning the house. Then use the time
  you’ve ‘bought’ not to catch up on work, but to do something you
  genuinely enjoy.

5. Be aware that aging changes the way people experience happiness. Youths
tend to equate happiness with excitement, but as people get older,
happiness is associated with feeling peaceful. Young people get more
happiness from spending time with interesting new acquaintances, while
older people get more enjoyment from spending time with close friends
and family.

Do these sound like guidelines you can follow in your own life? What
activities make you happy? What else do you think should be on the list?
I’m compiling readers’ suggestions and posting the best ones here.

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Photo courtesy flickr user dotbenjamin.

Kimberly Weisul is a freelance writer and editor. You can follow her at www.twitter.com/weisul.