International Day of Happiness

Mark your calendars – tomorrow is the first International Day of Happiness!

On this first International Day of Happiness, let us reinforce our commitment to inclusive and sustainable human development and renew our pledge to help others. When we contribute to the common good, we ourselves are enriched. Compassion promotes happiness and will help build the future we want. - Ban Ki-Moon

In July last year, the General Assembly of the UN agreed to mark March 20^th as a day for celebrating and spreading happiness, and educating ourselves and others about it. Three key pillars are recognised as being required for global happiness: economic, social, and environmental wellbeing.

     This Huffington Post article by Randy Taran of Project Happiness provides a great overview of the day, with details of the story behind the UN resolution, suggestions for how to participate on the day, and ways to boost your own happiness. I encourage you to read the article and explore the numerous hyperlinks she has provided.

We tend to think about wellbeing often in the Social Brain Centre, because along with the critical external variables of economic stability, democracy and environmental sustainability, we believe that our internal habits, attention, and decisions influence our wellbeing as well.

Just yesterday, Emma wrote about achieving a state of ‘flow’ out on the slopes, and the deep satisfaction that comes with such a focus of attention. Also related to attention, research has shown that those who seek out the positive are more resilient to stress and anxiety, and interestingly, it seems that we can be trained to pay attention in various ways.  Gratitude lists may also be a helpful tool in focusing on the positives in our lives.

In a blog post from earlier this year cheekily entitled The Key to Eternal Happiness, I reposition the want/should conflict and suggest that to help maintain or improve wellbeing, we should try to make things that are good for us in the long run also  fun to do now. So if it is difficult to motivate yourself to work out at the gym, invite a friend to go with you and focus on the immediate reward of getting the chance to catch up with each other and share a laugh.

Elsewhere in the RSA, the Connected Communities team explores the impact of our social and community networks on our happiness and wellbeing; check out this video about the Social Mirror project to learn more about their important work. And last night the Whole Person Recovery team hosted an event in Tonbridge, where Andy Gibson of the Mindapples organisation spoke about getting our mental 5-a-day.

What will you do to celebrate the International Day of Happiness and help to spread happiness, joy and peace to others?  The day’s website urges us all to ACT:

A-     Affirm the pledge to bring happiness to others

C-   Cheer ‘happy heroes’ and celebrate their good deeds

T-   Take action!  Make someone happy and spread the word by using the #happyday Twitter hashtag or by posting on the Action for Happiness Facebook page

So start thinking about what you can do to improve the happiness and wellbeing of others around you, and don’t stop after tomorrow!