“All that time we spend staring at screens is time we don’t spend on things that can make us happier” (36).
When I picked up this book, it wasn't what I expected it to be. The Happiness Hack by Ellen Petry Leanse started out by explaining with science how the brain works to give us this feeling of what we call happiness. At first it was hard to get started, but it quickly got more interesting as I went. In the end, I learned about the things we can do to be happy and how we really need to get off of our phones. There were so many good points this book had to offer, so of course I’ll share a few, but if you’re interested in how the brain works, I strongly suggest this one! This book shared everything from facts to stories and it was hard to pick just a few of my favorite things to share. Something she shared that really stood out to me was when we take a picture, we barely retain the memory of what the camera saw. Our brain decides that we’ve outsourced that memory so it doesn’t bother to map it (37). That means when we go on vacation and spend half of the time taking pictures, our memory isn’t actually retaining any of it. How are we supposed to look back on that then and find happiness? Another thing she shared was that as we are directing our attention on things rather than people, our brains are adapting and rewiring to our “new normal.” Although this normal isn’t leading us to happiness, but rather feeling lost, out of sorts, and alone (45). It’s almost the opposite of happiness, which makes sense as we see depression rates rise and more and more people feeling unhappy. We have to focus on things that aren’t part of our automatic habits to find our happiness. It may even mean that we have to disconnect from them. We have to invest the energy and practice into activating parts of our brains that aren’t always used when in automatic mode. If we learn to take back some control, it can be a path to more happiness and satisfaction than we can find in our usual habits (25-26). I’m sure you’ve heard people say that taking a break is good for you, but to actually take a break means we have to not take the prior stress along with us. We have to focus on how we’re doing what we’re doing and be in the present moment, whether that is a walk or doing the laundry. If we “take a break” and just go through the motions we’re not refreshing the brain. Having a true break away from it could even help you overcome your roadblock (88). One of my favorite things she shared about is how a smile activates mirror neurons. That means that smiling is literally contagious! They activate neuropeptides that work to reduce stress and spread happy messages throughout the body. So make sure you do some smiling (39-40). With all of this information about how happiness works in our brain, what can we do to actually take advantage of it? (Besides smile of course). Remembering that you are here for a reason and your feelings and worth are what your happiness stems from. It is easy for that fact to get lost in all the noise and distraction of everyday life, but we need to remember to know and act on it (97). Before you do something, think about why you’re doing it. If it distracts you, why does it distract you and take your time? How does it serve you? (97). Your challenge this week is to choose one real-world thing you’d like to do more of and one screen-based thing you’d like to do less of. Next time you go into the coffee shop, remind yourself to say good morning before you place your order and put your phone away (46). If you truly want to find your happiness, take what you learned and put it in action. As Ellen says, “The journey of happiness is mapped by your brain, but it’s directed by you” (97). I want to end with a wonderful quote by Steve Jobs that she shared in her book: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life… don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become” (100).
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Have you ever found yourself getting annoyed or frustrated at something you saw on social media? In the past year I noticed I felt frustrated or some other negative feelings a few times based on certain accounts. With all the politics and strong opinions on social media it was hard to go into these apps without feeling frustrated or annoyed at something.
This happened with more than just politics and opinions though. Some fitness accounts made me feel guilty or like less of an athlete and some other accounts made me feel other negative feelings. I noticed that there was a pattern with these feelings, and that they were often from the same accounts. It came across my mind as I ranted to a friend about something that I don’t need to follow these accounts. Why view something that is going to make me frustrated and give me negative feelings when I can change my social media to have things that will make me smile, happy, and motivate me to be my best. I’m not sure why I continued to follow these pages even though I could feel my happy mood change to a negative one after I closed the app. This week I was talking to a friend about Tik Tok (another social media app) and she was sharing with me how she ended up having to delete the app all together because it made her so mad that it ruined her mood. As she was talking about it I made the connection that I just wrote a blog about that for this week! We talked about how important it is to acknowledge when something makes us feel this way and really take the time to question if we need it. I think she made a strong move that not many people have the strength to do. She deleted the app all together. I wish I could say I did that too, but I still find myself scrolling through social media apps. Thankfully social media makes it really easy to hit “unfollow” or “unfriend” so why not click it. What we fill our brain with correlates to our happiness. If we’re taking the time to look at things that make us frustrated, guilty, and annoyed, we’re not taking the time to make ourselves happy. A couple months ago, I finally decided to unfollow and it changed my mindset drastically. I no longer had things to “rant” about and was able to leave social media feeling motivated rather than frustrated or guilty. If there is an account, or even a person, that makes you feel a negative feeling every time you see a post, why not hit unfollow. If it’s a friend in real life, they can still be your friend. If you’re on Facebook use the snooze feature and snooze them for 30 days and see how that makes a difference in your day to day on social media (and even off social media). There’s even an unfollow feature so you can stay their friend but not see their post! (See below). Maybe you could replace those accounts with ones that will motivate you and remind you of the things that make you happiest. Have you found yourself unfollowing accounts already during the past year? Comment below how it helped your happiness and mental health. |
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August 2022
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