4 Lessons From Yale's Happiness Course
Why savoring plays such a key role in psychological wellbeing.
Are you as happy as you should be? That’s the question that always keeps me up at night.
It’s in part why I became interested in studying and writing about happiness. I realized in my 20s that so much of what we’re taught as kids doesn’t fully align with psychological wellbeing.
Sure, my parents and teachers said, “I want you to be happy.”
But how often do they actually teach us how to be happy? And do so with credible science to back their claims?
So I enrolled in Yale’s 8 week happiness course, The Science of Well-Being, which is free for all and deeply informative. Here are a few takeaways, how they tied into my own life, and how they can make an impact in yours.
The basics
The course is taught by Yale Psychology professor, Dr. Laurie Santos, and focuses heavily on flaws in our thinking and approach to happiness.
It’s anchored in a fallacy Dr. Santos developed herself, called the GI Joe Fallacy, which is based off of the kid’s television show, GI Joe, which had public service lessons at the end of the show, which included things like, “Don’t talk to strangers.”
And then closed with, “And now you know. And knowing is half the battle.”
Per Dr. Laurie Santos, “Merely knowing something isn’t enough to put it into practice. It’s not enough to change your behavior.”
And this is a challenge as a self-help writer myself. Having done research on my audience, and spoken with them at length, I’ve learned that many people consume self-help content as a pseudo act of self-improvement. It feels like progress when they read about the importance of exercise and cold showers. But this does nothing if you aren’t actually following through with this knowledge.
I’ve seen the same thing with writing courses that I’ve taught. Many people take a writing course, and even subscribe to a writing course each month and attend weekly calls (for years on end) yet don’t actually do much writing, if any. It’s a fascinating behavior to observe, and is ultimately fine. People have free will and may enjoy it. But if their goal is to write, the act of studying writing alone isn’t really going to help them achieve that goal. The same applies with happiness.
This is the bedrock of understanding the attainment of happiness per the course. It takes work on top of that understanding — or you achieve little.
The misalignment of expectations and outcomes
What’s interesting is that when the professor polled the class on the types of things that we think will make us happy, most of the students were completely wrong. They listed the usual suspects — good grades, a good job, being married, making great money.
Yet in experiments, where students were given their dream internships, they ended up not being any happier than they were months before landing these gigs.
Harvard Professor Dan Gilbert examined this further in his book, Stumbling Upon Happiness, and found that if someone was making $40,000 per year, they always thought making $60,000, or $75,000 would make them happy. And if a person made $75,000, they thought $90,000 would make them happy. Each person was temporarily happy after each bump, but quickly fell back to where they left off.
We are constantly re-baselining our expectations and wanting more — which leads to this inevitable and frustrating cycle of restlessness and acclimation, which underscores so many people’s lack of happiness.
But many of you already know this. How do we counteract it?
Happiness strategies
One such strategy is savoring, which brings proven boosts to wellbeing. Savoring is the deliberate, post-activity act of looking back on what you did, and taking time to appreciate it. As part of my assignment, I took time each day to savor one experience I went through. Usually they were smaller everyday activities.
One day, I savored showering after a hard workout, and the feeling of being clean and dried off — which always makes me feel rejuvenated, but I never pause to appreciate. On another day, there was a brief rain storm that rolled through Tampa. I laid down to read a book. Then, I paused to reflect on how relaxing the whole experience was.
I noticed an improvement in my mood and overall disposition by the third day when I did these drills.
This can also be implemented into a daily gratitude journal, where you express thankfulness for small moments and things in your day (mine takes only 60 seconds). Per Dr. Santos, it’s important to try to feel that gratitude as you think about it. You can also take photos of the things you are grateful for if that helps.
Invest in temporal things
Another key strategy from the course is to invest in things that expire shortly after you use them. Doing this helps you counter that instinct to acclimate to your environment.
Moreover — invest in experiences. A referenced study by Dr. Leaf Van Boven found a negative correlation between spending on material objects and mental wellbeing. Even worse, people woefully overestimate how much these purchases would do for them.
Yet spending on experiences was shown to have a significant and positive correlation to mental wellbeing — do to their openness for “positive reinterpretation” over time.
For example, Laura and I take an annual trip with another couple, Dan and Rick, and usually go to Mexico. This gives us tons of satisfaction and a sense of reward. It offers an escape from our usual routine. I can look back on it and appreciate spending that time with friends and having new experiences together.
Conversely, while I do love buying a new car, it doesn’t really add value in the sense of being happier.
The bronze medal problem
Another fallacy that hit home a bit too well was related to bronze medals. Researcher, Dr. Victoria Medvec, ran a study of photos of Olympic medalists, studying the facial demeanor of gold, silver and bronze medal winners and found a significantly more negative demeanor among silver medalists. Moreover, bronze medalists were happier than silver medalists.
It speaks to the comparison problem we are plagued by, the feelings of, “What could have been.”
Namely, the silver medalist often dwells on what they could have done to get the gold medal. As a swimmer, I got second place in the 50 free at my state championships in high school — and lost by .03 seconds. I didn’t get over it for years.
Yet, a year later in college, I got a bronze medal in the 100 free and was over the moon: I’d made it to the podium. Those two outcomes represent my best and worst memories as an athlete, and are analogous to so many things in life. We have a comparison problem.
Here’s a counterintuitive strategy to help:
Research has shown that if you visualize something important in your life not being there (thinking through how and why it might not have come to be) it leads to greater satisfaction.
For example, what I often forget is that — in that same high school meet where I placed second, I beat the third place winner by only .05 seconds. I should have been grateful for that silver.
Or perhaps with your spouse, you could think through the chance encounter of you bumping into them, and how lucky that was. Or, that your friend had the impulsive idea of introducing the two of you — and how that could have easily never happened.
This exercise has a way of shining light on things we take for granted. Don’t ever forget that these beautiful, loving people and simple luxuries around you were never guaranteed.
A few things before you go
The course was fruitful and super informative, but reminds us we must check all the basic boxes of health. We must respect that our bodies are a walking chemical experiment. Without proper sleep, exercise, and nutrition, we are throwing these chemical and hormonal balances off.
In my experience, it’s sleep more than anything else that has lasting effects on my happiness. It feels like a supercharger to my mood and energy levels. A Norwegian study of college students found a clear and significant link between quality sleep and overall life satisfaction.
I wish you all the happiness that life can bring.
Take the time to invest in these exercises.
Practice savoring — and use it with otherwise mundane, everyday activities: showering, hearing kids laughing, feeling the sun on your face.
Invest in experiences over material possessions. The memory of these moments carries you further than the visual of a shiny object.
Recognize the GI Joe Fallacy — and that happiness takes work, not just reading about how to attain it.
Make healthy comparisons. Remember how the things and people you love could have easily not been here. Don’t become the bitter silver medalist in life.
I'm a former financial analyst turned writer out of sunny Tampa, Florida. I began writing eight years ago on the side and fell in love with the craft. My goal is to provide non-fiction story-driven content to help us live better and maximize our potential.