The One Thing That Makes Us Happy, According to Science
By: Thomas Christopher
Tags: Happiness, Life Lessons, Science, Social, Relationships

The One Thing That Makes Us Happy, According to Science

What is happiness? And what is the one thing science says makes us happy?

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash

I can’t think of anything I would like to do less than skydiving, kayaking, or rock climbing. Yet countless people find great joy and satisfaction in those things. Not me. I spent a beautiful Saturday afternoon reading scientific articles and taking notes.

What we find enjoyable, what makes us happy can be very subjective. So how to define it? According to researchers, happiness comes in two varieties. First is hedonic happiness or subjective well-being. Psychologist Tim Lomas put it this way in Psychology Today: “Basically, pleasure and enjoyment.” What I find pleasurable is deciphering scientific articles. What you find pleasurable is risking your life by skydiving.

The second variety is eudaimonic happiness or psychological well-being. Eudaimonia is a Greek word meaning good or benevolent spirit. “It’s the notion that happiness is experienced through social connections, or the meaningful pursuit of goals or activities,” says Erin Carson on CNET, paraphrasing Brock Bastain of the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences.

These two types of happiness are not opposites, though. They are the flip-side of the same coin. Ying and yang. And what is pleasurable and what is meaningful have one thing in common. The need to connect to something or someone. Most of our goals and activities and interactions have connection at the heart of them. More specifically, social connection. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “happiness is not a goal, it is a byproduct.” It’s a result of those contacts.

Most people go kayaking with friends, or if they go alone it’s because kayaking connects them to nature and to feeling good. They are part of something bigger. A community. People follow religions and gods and sports teams for the same reason. They find personal relationships and a community. I read scientific articles because it plugs me into a vast network of human knowledge. A mental community. For other people it’s a skydiving community. A rock climbing community. At the center of it all is connection.

Psychologist Ed Diener is one of the pioneers in happiness research. He is known as Dr. Happiness. In a 2005 article in Time Magazine, he talked about what he found from his studies. “The most salient characteristics shared by the 10% of students with the highest levels of happiness and the fewest signs of depression were their strong ties to friends and family and commitment to spending time with them.”

In fact, many studies have found the same thing. One of the biggest is the Harvard Study of Adult Development. For over 80 years, they have followed the lives of hundreds of people, including their children. What did they find? Close relationships are the single greatest factor keeping people happy over a lifetime. Those connections extend to husbands, wives, family, friends, and your community. And it’s quality relationships that matter most. “Those are better predictors of a happy life than social class, IQ or genetics,” says Alison DeNisco Rayome in summarizing the findings on CNET.

Some aspects of our life are out of our control. You may have chronic health issues. Your spouse may have divorced you. You may have unexpected financial problems. That’s not happy stuff. But there are plenty of areas where you can make a difference in your happiness and others. And finding and nourishing meaningful connections and relationships is one of them.