How to be happier, according to science

The concept of “happiness” may seem elusive. Or maybe we’re just going about cultivating it in the wrong way.

“People tend to overestimate the impact that money, achievement, and physical possessions will have on their happiness, when in reality social connections and relationships matter much more,” says behavioral scientist Jennifer Aaker, professor at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and coauthor of Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life (and How Anyone Can Harness It. Even You.).

Plus, according to Aaker, happiness is a moving target: “We go from associating happiness with excitement in our teen years, to pursuit in our 20s, to balance in our 30s, to contentment later in life.”

Fortunately, behavioral scientists like Aaker and other experts and researchers have found some ways that we can cultivate more happiness in our lives. In this guide, we’ve compiled some of their best tips and strategies to help you live a happier life.

Take inventory

Start by taking inventory of the things in your life that bring you joy or which have caused you regret, says behavioral scientist and personal development coach Dinorah Nieves, author of Love You: 12 Ways to Be Who You Love & Love Who You Are. These are excellent clues to the areas on which we should be focusing on cultivating or fixing, she says.

Nieves counsels her clients to think back to when they were children. Before you learned how to talk yourself out of doing or pursuing the things that bring you joy, what did you love? What gives you similar feelings of happiness and satisfaction now?

Address regret

Similarly, taking inventory of regrets can give you insight into areas you might want to address or avoid, says Neal Roese, SC Johnson Chair in Global Marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and the author of If Only: How to Turn Regret into Opportunity.

“Regret tends to come about when people see something as under their own control so they see that they could contribute to it some way, and they also see something that has also fallen short of a standard or expectation or something that they desired,” he says. Take note of the things you wish you had done differently in the past and use that to inform your decisions or actions in the future.

And if something is nagging at you, try to fix it. “When we do something, even if it doesn’t quite work out the way we want, we’re more likely to forgive ourselves and to rationalize it away and not be bothered by it quite as much as when we don’t do something and we realize late, ‘Oh, there was something I could have done and I didn’t,’” Roese says. “That tends to haunt us for longer periods of time.”

Regret can become a habit, Nieves says. If you’re a regretful person, you may have a tendency to find ways to look at a situation from a negative perspective. But you can dilute feelings of regret, she says, if you can instead reframe the decisions you made—looking at why you made them and learning from them—and treat yourself with compassion.

Control what you can

Taking ownership of what we can control and making decisions accordingly can lead to fewer regrets and more happiness. “One of the very small things that we can all control is just to be nice to other people and to be responsive to when other people go out of their way and do something well for you or just they do a good job. You can be more generous with compliments,” Roese says. “Also, if you see that there’s some way that there was a misunderstanding, then being quick to take proactive action can help to settle things more quickly.”

Rethink your relationship with goals

All too often, we set ruthless goals that aren’t feasible in reality and then label ourselves a “failure” when plans don’t come to fruition. As entrepreneur and business consultant Nick Wolny points out, even when a goal is attainable, the temporary, happy high of accomplishment will fade, leaving a sense of letdown in its wake. But the goal itself isn’t the problem—it’s your relationship to that goal. 

You could continue forcing yourself to achieve at all costs, hit unrealistic performance markers, then ride the endorphins of success until they’re gone. But there’s a better way. Give yourself grace, clinical psychologist Lindsay Henderson suggests. It’s not a sign of failure to veer off track because you have permission and the ability to course correct at any time. 

With this newfound grace in mind, here are a few new ways to pursue your goals with happiness in mind:

• Break your goals down into a series of micro habits. Attempting an entire behavioral or performance overhaul can seem insurmountable—and often is. Making small, incremental changes over time makes the goal feel more manageable and less stressful. Build micro habits into your routine that will gradually help you reach the macro objective that you’ve set for yourself to get there while feeling happier and more accomplished.

• Be clear on the overarching “why” behind each goal. Determine why a goal matters, who will benefit from it, and what value it can bring to your life (or someone else’s). This will boost your momentum and perseverance because there’s a purpose that you’re emotionally connected to.

• Reward yourself—but don’t rely on this for happiness. It’s normal to feel triumph when you achieve a goal, so celebrate those wins, both large and small. But don’t allow your internal happiness to hinge on external rewards or affirmations. Use them as supporting players in the game of happiness. 

Work on communication

“After a long time studying happiness in the workplace, we can say that everything comes back to communication,” says Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen. Relieving stress is the factor that can increase happiness the most, he explains, and while many people believe that stress at work comes from being too busy, poor communication is usually at the heart of it, including:

• Unclear roles, goals, and management expectations
• Inability of employees to say no to managers when they’re busy
• Not being able to discuss emotions with colleagues when stressed

“Stress comes from places where communication does not flow properly,” Wiking says. His organization has found that the intervention with the most benefit is helping people across an organization talk openly about what they’re feeling, what’s wrong, and how it can be improved.

Ask your future self

When you have a decision that may help you be more joyful or prevent regrets and you’re struggling, think about yourself 20 years from now, says personal development coach Kate Hanley, author of Stress Less: 100 Mindfulness Exercises for Calmness and Clarity. In two decades, will you be thankful to your current self for having made a particular choice?

“It can also be helpful to frame a choice in terms of choosing your regrets—what would you regret more, saying yes to this opportunity, or saying no?” she says. “Thinking of it this way helps you acknowledge the fact that there probably isn’t one right choice that will protect you from all possible regrets; so if you’re going to have them, what kind do you want to have?”

Redirect your resources

Many of us have a long list of excuses about why we don’t do more of the things that bring us joy, Nieves says. We “have to” attend to something else or we just don’t have time or resources for what we want to do. When she works with clients, she has them track how they’re spending their time or money. That often identifies pockets of resources that can be used to pursue the things that bring us joy, she says.

Create non-negotiable rituals

Whether it’s a walk outside, a few quiet moments with a great cup of coffee, or some other ritual that brings you peace and makes you happy, make it a non-negotiable ritual, says healthy lifestyle expert Danette May, author of The Rise: An Unforgettable Journey of Self-Love, Forgiveness and Transformation. “What are your non-negotiables that you’re going to do each day? These are the things that keep you grounded, they keep you in awareness, they light you up,” she says. Put these activities into your calendar and protect them.

One of May’s non-negotiables is a well-known mindfulness tactic. She sets intentions for her day by using “I am” statements. A form of visualization, it helps her start her day both clear about what she wants to accomplish and feeling better about herself. Self-care in the form of proper rest and healthful eating are other non-negotiables for her.

Exercise

Exercise has such a profound effect on our happiness and well-being that it’s actually been proven to be an effective strategy for overcoming depression. A study cited in Shawn Achor’s book, The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life, found that while people who turned to exercise, medication, or a combination of the two experienced similar improvements in their happiness levels to begin with, the first group had a much lower relapse rate six months later (9% compared to 38% for the medication group and 31% for the combination group).

You don’t have to be depressed to gain the benefits of regular exercise on your physical and mental health. It can help you relax, increase your brain power and improve your body image, even if you don’t lose any weight. Moderate exercise releases chemicals like endorphins as well as proteins that make us feel happier, as you can see in the image below.

Go outside

Achor also recommends spending time in the fresh air to improve your happiness. “Making time to go outside on a nice day also delivers a huge advantage,” he says. “One study found that spending 20 minutes outside in good weather not only boosted positive mood, but broadened thinking and improved working memory.” This is pretty good news for those of us who are worried about fitting new habits into our already-busy schedules.

And there‘s plenty more proof that it’s worth the effort. One study that looked at data from a U.K. government survey found that people who spent two hours outdoors each week were significantly more likely to report better health and well-being than those who spent less time outside (with the effect peaking at 200 to 300 total minutes). Another U.K. study from the University of Sussex also found that being outdoors in all natural environments—like, it suggested, “near the sea, on a warm, sunny weekend afternoon”—made people substantially happier than being in urban environments.

“Our increasing reliance on technology, combined with a global trend toward urban living, means many of us are spending ever less time outdoors—even as scientists compile evidence of the value of getting out into the natural world,” Kirsten Weir writes for The American Psychological Association. “From a stroll through a city park to a day spent hiking in the wilderness, exposure to nature has been linked to a host of benefits, including improved attention, lower stress, better mood, reduced risk of psychiatric disorders and even upticks in empathy and cooperation.”

Get that sleep

We know that sleep helps our bodies to recover from the day and repair themselves, and that it helps us focus and be more productive. It turns out, sleep has not only health benefits, but also happiness benefits.

Research has found that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories, yet recall gloomy memories just fine, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman explain in NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children. Another study found that people became more sensitive late in the day to negative emotions like fear and anger when they didn’t take a nap in the afternoon.

So tune into whether you’re getting enough sleep, and though it’s easier said than done, do what you can to increase the amount and quality of sleep you get.

Spend time with friends and family

Staying in touch with friends and family is one of the top five regrets of the dying. Social time is highly valuable when it comes to improving our happiness, even for introverts. Several studies have found that time spent with friends and family makes a big difference to how happy we feel.

As Harvard happiness expert Daniel Gilbert explains it: “We are happy when we have family, we are happy when we have friends and almost all the other things we think make us happy are actually just ways of getting more family and friends.”

But don’t get stuck in a rut

You’ll be happier if you’re working to find enjoyment rather than just coexisting. A study from Southern Methodist University in Dallas found that people actually reported being happier around friends than family. But psychology professor Nathan Hudson, the study’s author, pointed out in Science Daily that the finding had more to do with the activity than the people with whom it was shared. We typically engage in chores and caretaking with family, whereas we tend to do more fun things with friends. Try changing that up.

Plan a trip or another fun thing

Planning a vacation or just a break from work can improve our happiness. A study published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life showed that the highest spike in happiness came during the planning stage of a vacation as employees enjoyed the sense of anticipation that boosted happiness for eight weeks (though happiness did drop down to baseline levels for most people soon after the vacation).

Another study found that even just thinking about watching your favorite movie can raise your endorphin and therefore happiness levels.

“If you can’t take the time for a vacation right now, or even a night out with friends, put something on the calendar—even if it’s a month or a year down the road,” Achor writes. “Then whenever you need a boost of happiness, remind yourself about it.”

Buy experiences, not stuff

People get more satisfaction when they spend money on experiences (such as travel, entertainment, outdoor activities, and meals out) than when they splurge on material possessions (such as clothing, jewelry, furniture, and gadgets), according to research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. This is true whether you measure happiness before, during, or after the experiences or purchases in question.

“If you want to be happier, it might be wise to shift some of your consumption away from material goods a bit and more toward experiences,” said lead author Amit Kumar, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Texas at Austin. “That would likely lead to greater well-being.”

Why? One possible explanation, according to the researchers, is that you carry memories of experiences with you, but assign less value to material goods over time.

Help other people

One of the most counterintuitive pieces of advice in this list might be the notion that to make yourself feel happier, you should help others.

Research has found that spending money on other people, called “prosocial spending,” boosts happiness. So does spending time on other people, by volunteering, for instance.

Try to perform small acts of kindness. These can be as simple as holding open the door for someone or paying for someone’s coffee. “If I hold a door open for you, I feel good, I feel proud of who I am and that fills me up with happiness,” says Neil Pasricha, author of The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything=have Everything.

As University of Pennsylvania professor Martin Seligman sums up in his book Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being, “We scientists have found that doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we have tested.”

Allow yourself to disengage

Buffer cofounder and CEO Joel Gascoigne has a ritual of disengaging from work and going for a walk at 9:30 p.m. “This prompts reflection,” he writes. “I also feel calm and relaxed by the time I return.”

He points to this quote from Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal: “The richest, happiest, and most productive lives are characterized by the ability to fully engage in the challenge at hand, but also to disengage periodically and seek renewal.”

Revel in gratitude

Focusing on the good things in your life—especially writing them down in a gratitude journal—helps you stay focused on the joyful aspects of your life, says social psychologist Dan Cable, professor of organizational behavior at London Business School and author of Alive at Work: The Neuroscience of Helping Your People Love What They Do. The benefits of this exercise are well-documented.

“If at the end of the day you journal for 20 minutes about one positive experience that happened to you during the day, you’ll be happier,” Pasricha says. This way, you get a tripling effect of the positive experience. First, you have the positive experience. Then, in writing about it, you re-live it. If you read what you wrote, you re-live it again, giving you three positive moments from one experience.

There are other ways to practice gratitude, if keeping a journal isn’t for you, such as sharing three good things that happen each day with a friend or your partner and going out of your way to show gratitude when others help you.

Meditate

“If you close your eyes and do silent deep breathing, you increase the activity in the prefrontal cortex of your brain; the area responsible for focus and attention,” Pasricha says. Meditating for only 20 minutes means you’re less likely to be affected by distractions, allowing you to be more productive during the rest of your day.

If you have trouble closing your eyes and sitting in silence, try using a guided meditation app. Pasricha uses a free app called Headspace for his meditation practices.

Embrace new experiences

When we’re learning something that’s exciting to us, we typically experience an increase in dopamine, the neurotransmitter linked to rewards and pleasure, Cable says. Dopamine also controls our time perception. “When you’re learning new things, you’re pushing on boundaries, and seeing the effect of your actions on other people and so on, time zips right by you,” he says.

When possible, immerse yourself in learning experiences and stretch assignments that trigger this type of response. It’s an opportunity to both grow your skills and integrate more joy into your work and in your life, overall.

Find humor

Humor is not happiness, but it sure can help you be happier, according to Aaker. “Humor and levity get you through the hard times that are part of a meaningful life. Humor and levity actually connect people much more quickly,” Aaker says. Plus, laughing helps depress the release of cortisol, which can help us feel less stressed.

Having trouble finding anything funny? Practice priming, Aaker and coauthor Naomi Bagdonas, who is a lecturer at Stanford GSB, suggest. Essentially, priming is the concept that we find what we set out to look for. Just as if you’re primed with the word doctor, you might see the word nurse more readily in a word puzzle, you can introduce concepts that will make you more likely to find humorous moments in your day-to-day life.

The duo suggest a “humor audit” to prime for humor and levity. “All that you do is you go through your day, and you jot down any moment when you laughed, or any moment when you had shared laughter,” Aaker says. Typically, their students report experiencing much more joy and laughter in their lives by the seventh day of this practice. “In many ways . . . humor is the habit [and] happiness is the outcome,” Bagdonas says.

Seek out meaning

When we seek happiness for its own sake, our focus becomes too narrow. After all, feeling happy can be a fleeting moment, a yummy snack at best. Meaningfulness, on the other hand, is like the main course that fills you up. Most of us are pursuing happiness, but having a sense of purpose and a why are what sustains us in the long run.

When it comes to meaning in both our personal and professional lives, think of this: Which activities align most with your values? What is your big-picture vision? What are the experiences that fulfill you the most?  It’s in those answers that you’ll find something even more satisfying than happiness: a true calling and a sense of belonging.

Build mental and emotional resilience

Do you wonder how the natural optimists of this world maintain a balanced, positive outlook despite whatever situation they’re in? This attitude is not a sheer denial of painful emotions or circumstances. Nor is it a chronically upbeat façade. That’s called toxic positivity, which can erode trust, stifle communication, and harm interpersonal dynamics. 

The secret to optimism is not manufacturing positive emotions—it’s building resilience, or the mental and emotional fortitude to quickly recover from crises, learn from mistakes, identify growth opportunities, and form healthy coping skills to clear the next hurdle. In other words, it’s about handling obstacles in a positive but honest way. 

Here are a few strategies to build your own resilience so you can create more sustainable happiness:

• Believe in your own talents and positive attributes. Self-confidence enables you to challenge doubts or insecurities. It also gives you the emotional security to accept feedback from others without a defensive reaction. 

• Be flexible and embrace the inevitability of change. The one constant in life is its unpredictability. So don’t fear or resist change—adapt to this new season as it comes. You will discover opportunities to branch out and evolve.   

• Look for reasons to stay both hopeful and grateful. No matter how bleak a situation can feel, remember that no circumstance lasts forever. Hope for a brighter tomorrow will fuel you with the endurance to continue showing up today.

• Build proactive, actionable problem-solving skills. When a conflict arises, don’t react impulsively. Slow down with deep breathing and carve out the space to clear your head, then make a list of practical and rational ways to solve the issue. 
• Nurture yourself and invest in healthy relationships. Don’t overlook self-care—it’s vital for resilience and happiness. Get adequate sleep, make time for exercise, drink water, and seek out nurturing foods rather than eating junk food. Surround yourself with uplifting relationships. Make time for enjoyable activities and interactions. Once your needs are met, you can face obstacles with renewed energy.

Pursuing happiness is a consistent practice without an endpoint—and that’s okay. Happiness is truly in the journey and with this guide in your toolbox, happiness, both in work and life, will no longer feel out of reach. 

Jessica Thiefels, Belle Beth Cooper, Lisa Evans, Aytekin Tank, and Arianne Cohen also contributed writing, reporting, and/or advice to this article.