\n
<\/p>\n
When I was about 8 years old, in response to the ubiquitous question of what I wanted to be when I grew up, I responded, \u201cI want to be happy!\u201d<\/p>\n
The adults chuckled and my inquisitor did not ask any follow-up questions. But my mother later pulled me aside to tell me that being happy wasn\u2019t always something we mere mortals had perfect control over.<\/p>\n
Mom wanted to prepare me for the reality that happiness couldn\u2019t be planned for or worked toward, like becoming a writer (my usual response to grownups asking about my future career goals). Happiness wasn\u2019t something I could buy from a store, earn from an institution of higher education, or receive along with a corner office.<\/p>\n
As wise as Mom\u2019s counsel was, science has found that she wasn\u2019t quite right. The recently published World Happiness Report<\/a>, along with myriad<\/a> other<\/a> clinical<\/a> studies<\/a>, show that it\u2019s entirely possible to plan, purchase, and implement greater daily happiness. You just have to know how to spend your time and money effectively.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what the science of happiness has to say about how to invest in greater daily contentment.<\/p>\n Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)<\/a> was first formally described in the mid-1980s, although anyone who feels the winter doldrums probably wondered why it took scientists so long to finally name this condition\u2014and so aptly, too.<\/p>\n While SAD is usually diagnosed if you have the blahs during the colder part of the year, researchers believe that the shortened daylight hours and reduced access to sunlight during the winter have a chemical effect on the brain that can trigger depressive symptoms and increase the production of melatonin, a sleep-related hormone.<\/p>\n This is why light therapy lamps<\/a> have long been prescribed to help reduce the depressive symptoms of SAD. Sitting close to a 2,500- to 10,000-lux bright light therapy lamp for at least 30 minutes every morning has proven to improve depression symptoms<\/a> in SAD patients, boost the effectiveness of antidepressant medication, and aid sleep.<\/p>\n But bright light therapy lamps aren\u2019t just for those of us who get the SADs, or just for the long, gray winter. Studies have found<\/a> that these lamps are also effective for easing major depressive and perinatal depressive symptoms\u2014along with the additional benefits of boosting medication effectiveness and making it easier to sleep.<\/p>\n If you experience Seasonal Affective Disorder (or just become a hermit every year between New Year\u2019s and Easter), you may want to consider investing in a light therapy box to help regulate your circadian rhythm during the dark days of winter\u2014and beyond.<\/p>\n These light boxes cost anywhere from about $70 to a little over $200<\/a>. While light therapy lamps range in brightness from 2,500 to 10,000 lux, the more lux the lamp delivers, the less time you need to spend in front of it. This means you\u2019re better off purchasing a lamp that offers 10,000 lux because it will mean 30 minutes in the morning will be sufficient.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re not sure if a therapy lamp is what you need, consider purchasing a sunrise alarm clock<\/a> instead. You can purchase these alarm clocks for as little as $30 all the way up to $170.<\/p>\n Rather than blaring a loud noise to rouse you in the morning, these alarm clocks emit light to gently wake you at your specified time. The bright light signals to your brain that it\u2019s time to wake up, and these kinds of alarm clocks can help better regulate your sleep\/wake schedule, while also providing you with another source of light in the morning.<\/p>\n It\u2019s incredibly telling that the CEOs of major social media companies<\/a> don\u2019t allow their own children<\/a> to use social media<\/a>. Social media, despite its claim to bring people together, causes incredible stress.<\/p>\n In fact, the recently published World Happiness Report<\/a> found that \u201clife satisfaction is highest at low rates of social media use and lower at higher rates of use.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, as anyone who has taken a statistics class will remember, correlation doesn\u2019t equal causation. The areas with high life satisfaction and low social media usage may be happy for some reason unrelated to ignoring the siren song of Instagram\u2014while the folks who are less satisfied with life might be unhappy for a reason that has nothing to do with their multiple hours per day arguing with @urmom420 on the platform formerly known as Twitter.<\/p>\n However, a recent clinical study<\/a> backs up the conclusion that social media is bad for your mental health. In this study, one group of participants reduced their social media screen time to less than two hours per day for three weeks, compared with a control group who continued using social media as they normally did.<\/p>\n The participants who reduced their social media time saw the following improvements compared with the control group:<\/p>\n Just by reducing their social media use to under two hours per day for a three-week period, these participants greatly improved their daily quality of life.<\/p>\n Reducing your social media usage is the kind of thing that feels like it should be easy. Jumping onto Facebook is entirely voluntary. Clicking on a TikTok is all your decision.<\/p>\n And yet, you\u2019ll find yourself wasting precious hours on social media, wishing you knew how to quit YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a reason it\u2019s so difficult to turn it off. Like gambling, social media relies on intermittent reinforcement<\/a>, where rewards are offered sporadically, keeping the user consistently refreshing (or betting) to try to get another hit of dopamine. So many of us find it necessary to bring in a different kind of reinforcement to keep ourselves from falling back into social media\u2019s intermittent reinforcement.<\/p>\n Specifically, spending money on a social media blocker that allows you access only during preplanned times of day will ensure that you maintain the social media boundaries you need to reap the benefits of stepping away from these platforms.<\/p>\n There are a number of types of blockers, including apps that simply add friction<\/a> when you attempt to navigate to a verboten platform, apps that lock down chosen platforms<\/a>, and even a physical device<\/a> that fully blocks all of your most distracting apps. Prices range from free to $60 for a one-time charge, to $7 per month to $30 to $100 per year, depending on which you choose.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hardly groundbreaking to say that sleep and mood are intimately related. When someone is uncharacteristically grumpy, they will apologize by saying, \u201cI got up on the wrong side of the bed.\u201d And everyone has had the experience of snapping at an innocent bystander or kicking a door (it knows what it did . . . ) after a night of restless sleep.<\/p>\n What\u2019s interesting about the connection between sleep and mood is not just that we all turn into the grouchiest versions of ourselves when we don\u2019t get enough shuteye. Researchers have also found that poor sleep is also correlated with zero-sum beliefs<\/a> about happiness.<\/p>\n Specifically, people who are sleep deprived are more likely to believe that happiness is finite, so that if one person is feeling happy, that means there is less happiness for others. Those who are sleep deprived also feel happiness in the moment increases the likelihood of less happiness in the future\u2014as if enjoying a current moment of happiness will take away a future opportunity for joy.<\/p>\n But well-rested individuals do not share these kinds of zero-sum beliefs about happiness. Since they are not dealing with scarcity of rest, they do not assign a scarcity mindset to happiness, and they express greater levels of life satisfaction.<\/p>\n Improving the quality of your sleep is one of the best and most effective ways of increasing your daily and overall happiness. And there are a number of investments that you can make to get better sleep starting tonight, including:<\/p>\n Happiness may not be a singular goal one can attain like a degree or a profession, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s entirely out of our control. Science has discovered a number of predictable things that help make humans feel happy. These include daily access to sunlight (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), hard limits on our social media usage, and consistent quality sleep.<\/p>\n Investing in a light therapy lamp or sunrise alarm clock, a social media blocker, a mattress, blackout curtains, and a fan or white noise machine could create a measurable difference in your sense of daily contentment.<\/p>\n All it takes is a commitment to using these purchases to embrace the scientifically proven behavioral changes.<\/p>\n \n<\/a>Increased light makes us happier<\/h2>\n
<\/a>How to invest in light<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Social media amplifies your daily stress<\/h2>\n
\n
<\/a>How to invest in less daily stress<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Good sleep is the foundation for a good mood<\/h2>\n
<\/a>How to invest in an abundant good mood<\/h2>\n
\n
You can buy happiness\u2014if you\u2019re mindful with your purchases<\/h2>\n