228. Hold on to your handbasket! Every day, the headlines push our buttons of alarm, despair, and fury all at once. What’s a thinking, feeling human to do, besides invest in a Hunger Games-style bow and arrow? This week, in an episode that originally ran in January 2019, Dr. Ellen Hendriksen offers 4 tips to be happy in a world that can feel like a Mad Max chase through the headlines. As true today as the day this episode first dropped!
228. Hold on to your handbasket! Every day, the headlines push our buttons of alarm, despair, and fury all at once. What’s a thinking, feeling human to do, besides invest in a Hunger Games-style bow and arrow? This week, in an episode that originally ran in January 2019, Dr. Ellen Hendriksen offers 4 tips to be happy in a world that can feel like a Mad Max chase through the headlines. As true today as the day this episode first dropped!
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Welcome back to Savvy Psychologist. I'm Dr. Ellen Hendrickson. Happy New Year, and every week in 2019, I will help you meet life's challenges with evidence-based research, a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment.
So listener Lynn wrote in and asked, quote, how to find happiness or at least comfort in a world that is fundamentally broken in so many ways. She writes, quote, "I cannot help but to be sad about things like plastics in the oceans, wildfires in the west, caravans of refugees about to be met with military force and the extermination of the Rohingya. I have frequent reminders to be thankful for all I have. Nonetheless, I am often unhappy because of the many ways that humans are unkind to each other and to our planet." Now, Lynn's beautifully articulated problem isn't unique.
Every day, the headlines push our buttons of alarm, despair, and fury all at once. And when those headlines start to blend suspiciously with The Handmaid's Tale or bring to mind visions of WALL-E sorting through post-apocalyptic garbage, it's easy to feel sad and hopeless. So what is a thinking, feeling human to do?
Well, much like the climate change episode from a few weeks ago, I can't promise to fix the world in 15 minutes or less. But before you move off grid and start brewing your own zombie repellent, you can try these four tips to be happy in a world that can feel like a Mad Max chase through the headlines.
1. Tip number one is feel what you feel and let it spur you to action. So in my humble opinion, one of the few negative side effects of the happiness movement is the mistakenly sky-high expectation that we feel happy most, if not all, of the time.
But set those expectations against a backdrop where, according to a Gallup poll, 87% of people worldwide don't like their jobs. According to the CDC, around 40% of marriages end in divorce. And according to anyone not living under a rock, the headlines pummel us with bad news 24-7. The result is major dissonance.
So instead of fake smiling through the negativity, lean into all your feelings. We are wired for a wide range of emotions, from the peanut butter and jelly of sadness, anger, and fear, to the more nuanced emotions like envy, contempt, or apprehension.
So rather than seeing emotions other than happiness as bad or wrong, mind them for their own unique powers. So let's take anger for example. Anger spurs you to act. It's like the classic bumper sticker. If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention. Anger drives people to call the representatives, head to the voting booth, and otherwise bridge the gap between doing nothing and doing something.
Now, sadness, too, has its uses. Sadness is the most clear-headed emotion. It doesn't cloud judgment or create knee-jerk reactions like anger. Instead, it's been found to confer generosity, reduce judgmental errors, and make us more polite. Three humane things in a world that needs all the humanity it can get.
2. Tip number two is search out good news. Now, journalism faces a unique challenge. For news organizations to survive, they have to generate clicks and views they can use to attract advertisers. And in an attention economy, what makes us click more than conflict, divisiveness, and tragedy? Everybody loves a good train wreck.
But as cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker points out in his TED Talk, no newspaper ever reported 137,000 people escaped from extreme poverty yesterday. No news analyst ever reported alive from a city where there was no terrorist attack.
And Pinker goes on to make the case that the world is getting better on metrics as diverse as violence, literacy, poverty, and even the probability of being killed by a lightning strike. Now, good news doesn't give us the same cheap thrill as bad news, but in times like these, search out a good news site. There are dozens, like Upworthy or Good, to restore your faith in humanity.
3. Tip number three, take a break from social media. Now, social media has become not only a way to see our high school classmates' most recent Hawaiian vacation photos and videos of that raccoon in Minnesota, but also the best, or maybe we should say worst, sources of news, both real and fake.
So, a study out of the University of Copenhagen asked half of a group of over a thousand participants to quit Facebook for a week, while the other half carried on as usual. And those on a Facebook fast reported, after a week, better life satisfaction, and notably, they felt more positive emotion.
So this makes sense because a reprieve from social media not only gives us a break from the envy of the highlight reel, but also a break from the whip sign that comes from the news clickbait in our feeds. And it more than makes up for missing out on that Australian giant cow.
4. And finally, tip number four, look out for each other. Now, listener Lynn is concerned about the world and its people. So when she asks about happiness, she doesn't just mean crazy rich Asians bachelor party pleasures. She is likely looking for meaning as well.
And luckily, there is a way to make two Pop-Tarts with one toaster. Strong social connections. A study out of Florida State University examined almost 400 participants and assessed which traits and activities were most related to happiness, and meaning. And what activity went along with both happiness and meaning? Social connection. Now, there were nuances, so hanging out with friends was linked more strongly to happiness than meaning, while spending time with family, like taking care of kids, was meaningful but not necessarily happy.
Likewise, being a giver was meaningful, while takers were happier. But overall, connecting with others was the key to finding comfort and happiness in the shadow of today's headlines. I guess company is actually the antidote for misery.
So to Lynn and everyone in the same boat, hang in there and hold on to your handbasket. Feel what you feel. Let it spur you to action. Search out good news as a counterweight. Take a break when you need it. And most importantly, go hang out with your friends and loved ones. Even when the headlines read like a dystopian novel, remember, there can still be a happy ending.
Thank you so much for making the Savvy Psychologist a part of your life. Savvy Psychologist is audio engineered by Steve Riekeberg and edited by Joe Muscolino. As always, Savvy Psychologist is strictly for informational purposes and doesn't substitute for mental health care from a licensed professional. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week for a happier, healthier mind.