HHappiness is a worthy pursuit. But fixating too much on achieving it often leads to bad feelings when you fail – which ultimately makes you any less happy.
This is the observation of a new study published in the magazine Emotion. “Imagine someone going to a birthday party and halfway through the event they realize they’re not as happy as they expected,” says lead author and social psychologist Felicia Zerwas, who was a doctoral student at the University of California-Berkeley. when the research was conducted and is now a postdoctoral researcher at New York University. “We could just acknowledge that it’s a fact of life and birthday parties. Or, one might judge, thinking how sad and disappointing it is.”
This second way of thinking, research shows, is of the problematic kind. “Over time, infusing potentially positive moments with negativity can accumulate to harm well-being – similar to how plaque can build up in arteries and harm heart health.”
Sabotaging one’s happiness is surprisingly common, Zerwas and his colleagues found. Something interesting emerged when they analyzed surveys of mood, personality, well-being and depression, as well as daily records, of around 1,800 people over 11 years.
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They discovered that striving for and valuing happiness was not a problem. How people pursued this was. “Someone may value happiness and struggle to identify effective strategies for achieving their happiness goals,” says Zerwas, “and another person may value happiness and successfully identify effective strategies for achieving their happiness goals.”
Worried and stressed no It turns out that being happy is not one of those effective strategies. It gives rise to what are known as meta-emotions – feelings about what we are feeling – and they can be destructive.
“Consider someone on a first date,” says Zerwas. “They expected to feel happy, but the meeting started out a little awkward. They may begin to judge their feelings thinking that they should enjoy the experience more; however, this very act goes against your goal of feeling happy. Accepting that social interactions often have ups and downs can prevent them from obsessing over the differences between what they want to feel and what they are feeling.”
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In the study, people who said they were concerned about achieving and maintaining happiness tended to have more depressive symptoms, worse well-being and less life satisfaction than those who simply had happiness as a goal – and didn’t worry about whether they were or not. know him.
What’s the secret then? Ease the pressure and stop taking your happiness temperature so often, says Zerwas. Embrace all your feelings – both happy and sad – as all emotions can be informative, providing us with insights into our psychic makeup. And practice cognitive-behavioral strategies like mindfulness—being present with your emotions and aware of what those feelings are—to really tune in. This can “take the pressure off of setting emotional goals,” says Zerwas. “Harmful emotional experiences [can occur] during the search for happiness.”
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
