When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

CLARIN

The Everyday Science Of Striving For Happiness

Discovering new methods and habits to help us become a little happier every day has become a veritable science. And big business.

The Everyday Science Of Striving For Happiness
Ernesto Viéitez

BUENOS AIRES — Attaining happiness has become so important in our society that it now occupies an entire field of scientific study. Researchers have moved beyond merely studying the psychology of desire and are now identifying new methodologies to help us learn how to be happier.

One of the pioneers of the field is the Israeli-born psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar, who teaches at Harvard University and is the author of several widely read books, including The Pursuit of Perfect, wherein he calls perfectionism a kind of neurosis. He argues that the modern human condition pushes us to work toward attaining the impossible. The antidote he proposes is to replace this perfectionism with optimism, noting how perfectionists simply reject flaws, while optimists humbly accept them.

Accepting life as it — flawed — will free you of the fear of failure, says Ben-Shahar. Learn from mistakes, he suggests, without dramatizing them. Another specific suggestion: 30 minutes of moderate exercise daily to release the chemicals in your body that mitigate pain and increase the sense of pleasure.

There are also specialists working in this field in Argentina. From the realm of sociology, Marita Carballo published La felicidad de las naciones (The Happiness of Nations), a book based on polls taken across the world that have brought out certain common "pointers" of happiness. She argues that this information could be integrated into school curricula, both to raise satisfaction levels and help students identify personal priorities.

Competing "needs"

"With the argument that too much advertising and consumer-oriented abundance make people less happy with what they have, and make them want more, certain governments are considering restrictions," Carballo notes. "In Sweden, advertising directed at children under the age of 12 was banned."

Since so many people continue to identify happy moments in their lives with social relations, this sociologist says there should be more public programs "that increase the level of interpersonal trust." In practical terms this can mean encouraging neighbors to spend time together.

Carballo notes that "the relationship between earnings and happiness is complex." Beyond a middle-income level, she states, "an increase in revenue does not necessarily signify more happiness." A good work environment and generally following your vocation seem to be important.

"People learn to feel well by repeating positive emotional processes and by avoiding negative processes," says neuroscientist Federico Fros Campelo, author of Ciencia de las emociones (Science of Emotions). "At the end of the day, these processes are the result of step-by-step sequences in the brain."

Fros Campelo says people come "wired with programs that turn into motives." One program is the "quest for self-sufficiency," which helps us develop ourselves, he argues.

Add to all of this what you have learned culturally, and we see that the society in which we live guides people toward individualism, encourages a search for autonomy above all other emotional maps, like empathy for example.

"Without your personality as a counterweight, the "self-sufficiency wand" may dazzle people, and this could become a dysfunctional activity," says Fros Campelo. "To be happy we have to know and harmonize the various programs that sometimes pull us in different directions." Part of that, the writer explains, means balancing our for "certainty and stability" with another need: new things in our lives.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

That Man In Mariupol: Is Putin Using A Body Double To Avoid Public Appearances?

Putin really is meeting with Xi in Moscow — we know that. But there are credible experts saying that the person who showed up in Mariupol the day before was someone else — the latest report that the Russian president uses a doppelganger for meetings and appearances.

screen grab of Putin in a dark down jacket

During the visit to Mariupol, the Presidential office only released screen grabs of a video

Russian President Press Office/TASS via ZUMA
Anna Akage

Have no doubt, the Vladimir Putin we’re seeing alongside Xi Jinping this week is the real Vladimir Putin. But it’s a question that is being asked after a range of credible experts have accused the Russian president of sending a body double for a high-profile visit this past weekend in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.

Sign up to our free daily newsletter.

Reports and conspiracy theories have circulated in the past about the Russian leader using a stand-in because of health or security issues. But the reaction to the Kremlin leader's trip to Mariupol is the first time that multiple credible sources — including those who’ve spent time with him in the past — have cast doubt on the identity of the man who showed up in the southeastern Ukrainian city that Russia took over last spring after a months-long siege.

Russian opposition politician Gennady Gudkov is among those who confidently claim that a Putin look-alike, or rather one of his look-alikes, was in the Ukrainian city.

"Now that there is a war going on, I don't rule out the possibility that someone strongly resembling or disguised as Putin is playing his role," Gudkov said.

Keep reading...Show less

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

The latest