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The following is an example of a METAR, a surface observation, from O' Hare Airport. Just click on any of the cells to go to the help dealing with that particular section

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Freezing Levels Task 2: Write an equation given a verbal description

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Freezing Levels Task 2: Write an equation given a verbal description

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As you increase in altitude the temperature decrease at a rate of approximately 3 C per 1,000 ft while the dew point decreases at a rate of 0.5 C per 1,000 ft. Use this information to answer the following questions.

It is a humid spring day with the temperature at your airport of 18 C (approximately 64 F) and the field elevation is 760 feet MSL. You have planned a flight at 7,000 ft and are hoping to stay below the freezing level. Do you think you will be able to do this at 7,000 ft? If not at what altitude will you plan to fly to say below the freezing level (i.e., above 0 C)?

Extension What would the dew point at your airport need to be for you to predict that the cloud bases would be above 7,000 ft?

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This link will take you to a site where you can search for aircraft performance by aircraft manufacturer. The performance information I would pull from here is rate of climb (given in feet per minute) and cruise speed (given in knots).

Suggested Planes:

Cessna (152, 172)

Piper PA28 Cherokee Series (Warrior, Dakota)

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aircraft airplanes ga air craft light aircraft description performance specifications history adam aircraft a 500 a 700 aerocar aeronca history 11 ac chief 11 cc super chief 7 ac champ 7 ccm champ 7 dc champ aerospatiale socata tampico tobago trinidad tb-10 tobago tb-20 trinidad tb-21 tc trinidad tb-21 trinidad turbo tb-9 tampico club tbm 700 horizon/diplomate morane rallye aerostar history pa-60-700p pa-600 600a pa-601 601a turbocharged pa-601b (after 1980) turbocharged pa-601p pressurized aerostar pa-601p pressurized aerostar (1977) pa-602p aerostar airtourer allison  american champion 7aca 7ec 7eca 7gcaa 7gcb 7gcbc 7kcab 8gcbc 8kcab-150 f/p 8kcab-180 super decathlon avanti (piaggio) piaggio avanti 180 piaggio p 166 beagle beagle pup 100 pup 150 bulldog beech beech history musketeer/sierra sundowner bonanza duke duchess skipper model 18 queen air king air staggerwing bellanca history cruisemaster viking super viking bolkow bo 208c junior 209 monsun bombardier leerjet 31a leerjet 40 leerjet 45 leerjet 45xr leerjet 60 challenger 300 challenger 604 challenger  800 global 5000 global express global express xrs bushmaster cessna 150 152 170 172 175 172 skyhawk 172r 172s 177 cardinal 180 185 182 skylane 205 206 207 210 centurion 310 336 337 340 335 421 414 cirrus commander alpine gran turismo diamond katana da20-a1 da20-c1 hk36 da40-180 katana 100 mpx twinstar d jet dyn aero banbi cr 100 mcr vla mcr club mcr ulc mcr m mcr ulc r mcr 4s ercoupe extra fairchild (swearingen) metro merlin globe gf 200 g 115 swift great lakes grob grumman aa-1a trainer aa-1b trainer aa5 traveler aa5a cheetah ag5b tiger ga-7 cougar gulfstream gulfstream g100 gulfstream g150 gulfstream g200 gulfstream g300 gulfstream g400 gulfstream g450 gulfstream g500 gulfstream g550 jodel history jodel d9 bebe jodel d11 jodel dr100 robin dr200 d 140 mousquetaire mudry abeille d150 mascaret dc1 d18 d19 d20 falconar jodels lake c-1 amphibian c-iv amphibian la-4 amphibian la-4 seaplane la-4 turbo-lake la-4-200 buccaneer la/250 renegade la4/200ep lancair columbia liberty luscombe history silvaire 8 e 8 f 8 a spartan maule maule history m-4 & m-4c jetasen m-4-180-c astro rocket m-4-210 c rocket m-4-220c strata rocket m-5-180c m-5-210c lunar rocket m-5-210tc (turbocharged) m-5-220c lunar rocket m-5-235c m-6 (land plane) mx-7-160 mx-7-180a mx-7-180ac mxt-7-160 comet mxt-7-180a comet mx-7-180b star rocket mx-7-180c star rocket mxt-7-180 star rocket m-7-235b super rocket m-7-235b super rocket m-7-235c orion m-7-235c orion mt-7-235 super rocket m-7-260 super rocket m-7-260c orion mt-7-260 super rocket m-7-420ac (turbine) mt-7-420 (turbine) metasokal micco history micco 1999 sp20 micco sp26 n149ma miles history merlin sparrowhawk hawcon nighthawk whitney straight m.11c mohawk hobby magister hawk trainer 111 t.1/37 mentor monarch m.18 mercury messenger gemini aries mooney history m18 mite a 2-a cadet m-10 cadet m-20-a mark 20a m-20-b mark 21 m-20-c mark 21 m-20-c ranger m-20-d master m-20-e chaparral m-20-e super 21 chaparral m-20-g statesman m-20-mark 20 m-20c ranger m-20f executive 21 m-20f executive 21 201 (m20j) 205 (m20j) 231 (m20k) m-22 pressurized 252 tse (m20k) pfm tls toxo ovation (2003) ovation 2 dx (2003) bravo dx (2003) navion percival history percival gull mk4 percival mew gull percival proctor percival vega gull percival prentice percival q.6 petrel percival provost t1  percival jet provost pzl pilatus pilatus pc 12 pilatus pc 6 piper cub supercub pa20/22 pa23 pa24 pa28 pa28r pa32 pa38 pa46 pa30/39 pa34 pa44 pitts s2-c robin history dr400/120/180 hr200 r2160 alpha sport r3000/100 r3000/160 ruschmeyer r90 slingsby stearman stinson taylorcraft tiger moth waco wilga yak18t zlin;

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certified aircraft database, history, performance and specifications

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http://www.aviationweather.gov/icing/frzlvl

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Aviation Weather Center Homepage provides comprehensive user-friendly aviation weather Text products and graphics.

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Freezing Levels Task 1: Collecting and modeling data

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Freezing Levels Task 1: Collecting and modeling data

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Collect a sampling of temperatures at different altitudes (from the same location) and use this data to create a model that could be used to predict the temperature at a given altitude.

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Aviation Weather Center Homepage provides comprehensive user-friendly aviation weather Text products and graphics.

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Now that you have identified a departure and arrival airport, it is time to pick up the weather and determine the best runways to use. After identifying the runway you will use, make sure to determine whether or not you will be within the crosswind limitations for your aircraft (15-20 knots is a reasonable maximum demonstrated crosswind for a general aviation aircraft). The tools below can be used to pick up the weather and to calculate crosswinds.

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Where would you like to go? Lets plan a trip from your local airport to some other town within a few hundred miles. The first thing to do is to find the airport nearest to you. Use skyvector or airnav to find the airport nearest to you. (Airnav has an easier searching capability, but skyvector is easier to search visually.)

After you have identified your departure airport find out what runways are available for this airport.

On airnav you can simply scroll down and look for runway information. If the airport is large enough (KBMI, KPIA, KCMI, KDEC, KORD, KDPA…) you should also be able to get an airport diagram from skyvector. (Right click on the airport, then click on the airport diagram on the left hand side.) If the airport is too small you maybe able to click on the AFD (airport facilities directory) in the upper left hand corner. (You may also be able to click on the actual satellite photo from google maps and zoom in to see the runways clearly enough.)

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How are the runways named/labeled/identified? It appears that each runway has two different numbers on it—what do you notice about these two numbers? Take a few minutes with the people near you and make and test some conjectures about runway labels/names. Did anyone find runways at different airports that have the same labels? What might be the same between these two for them to have been given the same label? Did anyone find an airport that has runways that are perpendicular? How are the labels for these runways related?

KPIA has a runway that is labeled 13 on one end and 31 on the other. Are there any other runways that might be “like this”? Find all runways that are "like this" and prove that there are no others or prove that 13 and 31 are the only ones.

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This file allows you to visualize a runway and wind to help determine the preferred runway.

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https://codap.concord.org/app/static/dg/en/cert/index.html#shared=https%3A%2F%2Fcfm-shared.concord.org%2FfvDl28PezodzwnFGrjPN%2Ffile.json

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Commercial Airline Pilot Education Requirements

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This is an introduction to using free online aviation tools to pose mathematics tasks. (Descents rates and distance.)

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BCIT Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Program

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Commercial Airline Pilot Education Requirements

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This is an introduction to using free online aviation tools to pose mathematics tasks.

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What goes up must come down. This is true of aircraft in flight. Bringing an aircraft back to the ground safely is the primary concern, but it also is necessary that the return to the ground occur at the intended landing point. The...

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At the end of this session you should be able to;

1. Find the airport identifier in a given city. (AirNav, Skyvector)

2. Use the airport identifier to pick up the weather at that airport. (AirNav or NOAA)

3. Find the airport diagram for an airport and identify the runways. (AirNav or Skyvector).

4. Plan a flight,

a. Identify departure airport, pick your take off runway, verify if you are within your cross wind tolerance

b. Identify arrival airport, pick your landing runway, and verify if you are within your cross wind tolerance

c. Find the field elevation for departure and arrival airports. What is the traffic pattern altitude (TPA) for each?

d. Determine your altitude for your flight and when you will need to start your descent to be at TPA 5 miles before you arrive.

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Now that you have identified the field elevations and your en route altitude, we will need to determine when you will need to start your descent.

Background information: When you arrive at an airport, all planes should be at the same altitude so that it is easier for pilots to see one another more easily. With this in mind we should plan to descend so that we are at the traffic pattern altitude approximately 5 nautical miles away from the airport.

Approximately how many nautical miles away from your destination airport should you start your descent? At what point along your route will you start your descent? Can you identify a prominent landmark you could use to identify this point? What information would you need to know to answer these questions?

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After you have identified a departure and arrival airport we will need to plan our en route altitude. To do this we will need to know the direction of our flight and we should also find the field elevation at your arrival airport.

Background information: The altimeter in most planes is based on barometric pressure. When you are sitting in the plane on the ground, with your altimeter set correctly it will not read 0, but rather it will read approximately the field elevation in feet MSL (i.e., feet above mean sea level). This becomes really important when you take off, remember your altimeter will not tell you how high you are above ground level (AGL), but rather how high you are above mean seal level (MSL)! What good does that do me?

Find the field elevation at your departure and arrival airports. This can be found in the AFD (airport facilities directory), the airport diagram, or the sectional chart (skyvector).

The traffic pattern altitude (TPA) at most airports for small planes is 800 feet AGL. What is the TPA for your departure and arrival airport? (What will your altimeter read when you are at TPA?)

Pick your altitude:

To help keep planes from flying along at intersecting paths the altitude you fly at is determined by your direction of flight. (Note: altitudes are given in feet MSL, Above Mean Sea Level).

If you are flying on an easterly heading (0 – 179) you should fly at an altitude that is an odd thousand feet plus 500. (e.g., 3,500 ft, 5,500 ft,…)

If you are flying on a westerly heading (180 – 359) you should fly at an altitude that is an even thousand feet plus 500. (e.g., 4,500 ft, 6,500 ft,…)

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Task Version 2: Writing equations/expression given a model

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Task Version 2: Writing equations/expression given a model

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Given a cloud base calculator create a model that can be used to predict the lowest cloud layer (AGL) given the temperature and dew point.

Consider making your own version in Excel to avoid giving away the answer!

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This calculator is designed to give an approximate but calculated altitude for the base of cumulus clouds, based on entered data.

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Task Version 1: Collecting and modeling data 

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Task Version 1: Collecting and modeling data 

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Collect a sample of dew point temperature spreads and cloud base layers. Build a model that can be used to predict the cloud base layer given the temperature and dew point. Based on your model and data how useful is your model?

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Aviation Weather Center Homepage provides comprehensive user-friendly aviation weather Text products and graphics.

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Task Version 3: Writing equations/expression given a
description

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Task Version 3: Writing equations/expression given a
description

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As you increase in altitude the temperature decrease at a rate of approximately 3 C per 1,000 ft while the dew point decreases at a rate of 0.5 C per 1,000 ft.

Use this information to create a model to predict the temperature at a given altitude (AGL) given the air temperature at ground level.

Create a model that could be used to predict the dew point and temperature at a given altitude (AGL) given the dew point and temperature on the ground.

Use these models to explain how you could find the altitude at which the temperature and dew point will be equal.

Extension: After you have finished go online and look

up the weather (METAR) at 5 different airports to test your formula.

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Temperature dew point spread, cloud bases, and freezinglevels.

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Temperature dew point spread, cloud bases, and freezinglevels.

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Now that you have identified your altitude for your flight, it is important to determine if you will be in the clouds and if you will be above or below the freezing level.

Background information

As a beginning private pilot it is important to be able to see the ground and the horizon (i.e., maintain VFR) at all times. The best way to accomplish this is to stay below the lowest cloud layer.

In theory when the temperature and dew point are equal water vapor will begin to condense (i.e., clouds will begin to form). In general temperature and dew point are inversely related to altitude, however, the temperature decreases more quickly as the altitude increases.

It is also important to be aware of the altitude at which the temperature will be freezing. This is of particular importance when there is the potential for moisture (e.g., rain/mist or clouds) at or above that freezing level.

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SkyVector: Flight Planning / Aeronautical Charts

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Make your Flight Plan at SkyVector.com. SkyVector is a free online flight planner. Flight planning is easy on our large collection of Aeronautical Charts, including Sectional Charts, Approach Plates, IFR Enroute Charts, and Helicopter route charts. Weather data is always current, as are Jet Fuel Prices and avgas 100ll prices.

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Happiness is so interesting, because we all have different ideas about what it is and how to get it. It's also no surprise that it's the Nr.1 value for Buffer's culture, if you see our slidedeck about it. So naturally we are obsessed with it.

I would love to be happier, as I'm sure most people would, so I thought it would be interesting to find some ways to become a happier person that are actually backed up by science. Here are ten of the best ones I found.

1. Exercise more - 7 minutes might be enough

You might have seen some talk recently about the scientific 7 minute workout mentioned in The New York Times. So if you thought exercise was something you didn't have time for, maybe you can fit it in after all.

Exercise has such a profound effect on our happiness and well-being that it's actually been proven to be an effective strategy for overcoming depression. In a study cited in Shawn Achor's book, The Happiness Advantage 1, three groups of patients treated their depression with either medication, exercise, or a combination of the two. The results of this study really surprised me. Although all three groups experienced similar improvements in their happiness levels to begin with, the follow up assessments proved to be radically different:

The groups were then tested six months later to assess their relapse rate. Of those who had taken the medication alone, 38 percent had slipped back into depression. Those in the combination group were doing only slightly better, with a 31 percent relapse rate. The biggest shock, though, came from the exercise group: Their relapse rate was only 9 percent!

You don't have to be depressed to gain benefit from exercise, though. It can help you to relax, increase your brain power and even improve your body image, even if you don't lose any weight.

A study in the Journal of Health Psychology 2 found that people who exercised felt better about their bodies, even when they saw no physical changes:

Body weight, shape and body image were assessed in 16 males and 18 females before and after both 6 × 40 mins exercise and 6 × 40 mins reading. Over both conditions, body weight and shape did not change. Various aspects of body image, however, improved after exercise compared to before.

We've explored exercise in depth before, and looked at what it does to our brains, such as releasing proteins and endorphins that make us feel happier, as you can see in the image below.

2. Sleep more - you'll be less sensitive to negative emotions

We know that sleep helps our bodies to recover from the day and repair themselves, and that it helps us focus and be more productive. It turns out, it's also important for our happiness.

In NutureShock 3, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman explain how sleep affects our positivity:

Negative stimuli get processed by the amygdala; positive or neutral memories gets processed by the hippocampus. Sleep deprivation hits the hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories, yet recall gloomy memories just fine.

In one experiment by Walker, sleep-deprived college students tried to memorize a list of words. They could remember 81% of the words with a negative connotation, like "cancer." But they could remember only 31% of the words with a positive or neutral connotation, like "sunshine" or "basket."

The BPS Research Digest explores another study 4 that proves sleep affects our sensitivity to negative emotions. Using a facial recognition task over the course of a day, the researchers studied how sensitive participants were to positive and negative emotions. Those who worked through the afternoon without taking a nap became more sensitive late in the day to negative emotions like fear and anger.

Using a face recognition task, here we demonstrate an amplified reactivity to anger and fear emotions across the day, without sleep. However, an intervening nap blocked and even reversed this negative emotional reactivity to anger and fear while conversely enhancing ratings of positive (happy) expressions.

Of course, how well (and how long) you sleep will probably affect how you feel when you wake up, which can make a difference to your whole day. Especially this graph showing how your brain activity decreases is a great insight about how important enough sleep is for productivity and happiness:

Another study 5 tested how employees' moods when they started work in the morning affected their work day.

Researchers found that employees' moods when they clocked in tended to affect how they felt the rest of the day. Early mood was linked to their perceptions of customers and to how they reacted to customers' moods.

And most importantly to managers, employee mood had a clear impact on performance, including both how much work employees did and how well they did it.

Sleep is another topic we've looked into before, exploring how much sleep we really need to be productive.

3. Move closer to work - a short commute is worth more than a big house

Our commute to the office can have a surprisingly powerful impact on our happiness. The fact that we tend to do this twice a day, five days a week, makes it unsurprising that its effect would build up over time and make us less and less happy.

According to The Art of Manliness 6, having a long commute is something we often fail to realize will affect us so dramatically:

... while many voluntary conditions don't affect our happiness in the long term because we acclimate to them, people never get accustomed to their daily slog to work because sometimes the traffic is awful and sometimes it's not. Or as Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert put it, "Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day."

We tend to try to compensate for this by having a bigger house or a better job, but these compensations just don't work:

Two Swiss economists who studied the effect of commuting on happiness found that such factors could not make up for the misery created by a long commute.

Love this post? Pass it along! Schedule this post to send to your followers when they're most likely to see it.

4. Spend time with friends and family - don't regret it on your deathbed

Staying in touch with friends and family is one of the top five regrets of the dying 7. If you want more evidence that it's beneficial for you, I've found some research that proves it can make you happier right now.

Social time is highly valuable when it comes to improving our happiness, even for introverts. Several studies have found that time spent with friends and family makes a big difference to how happy we feel, generally.

I love the way Harvard happiness expert Daniel Gilbert 8 explains it:

We are happy when we have family, we are happy when we have friends and almost all the other things we think make us happy are actually just ways of getting more family and friends.

George Vaillant is the director of a 72-year study of the lives of 268 men.

In an interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant was asked, "What have you learned from the Grant Study men?" Vaillant's response: "That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people."

He shared insights of the study with Joshua Wolf Shenk at The Atlantic 9 on how the men's social connections made a difference to their overall happiness:

The men's relationships at age 47, he found, predicted late-life adjustment better than any other variable, except defenses. Good sibling relationships seem especially powerful: 93 percent of the men who were thriving at age 65 had been close to a brother or sister when younger.

In fact, a study published in the Journal of Socio-Economics 10 states than your relationships are worth more than $100,000:

Using the British Household Panel Survey, I find that an increase in the level of social involvements is worth up to an extra £85,000 a year in terms of life satisfaction. Actual changes in income, on the other hand, buy very little happiness.

I think that last line is especially fascinating: Actual changes in income, on the other hand, buy very little happiness. So we could increase our annual income by hundreds of thousands of dollars and still not be as happy as if we increased the strength of our social relationships.

The Terman study, which is covered in The Longevity Project 11, found that relationships and how we help others were important factors in living long, happy lives:

We figured that if a Terman participant sincerely felt that he or she had friends and relatives to count on when having a hard time then that person would be healthier. Those who felt very loved and cared for, we predicted, would live the longest.

Surprise: our prediction was wrong... Beyond social network size, the clearest benefit of social relationships came from helping others. Those who helped their friends and neighbors, advising and caring for others, tended to live to old age.

5. Go outside - happiness is maximized at 13.9°C

In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor recommends spending time in the fresh air to improve your happiness:

Making time to go outside on a nice day also delivers a huge advantage; one study found that spending 20 minutes outside in good weather not only boosted positive mood, but broadened thinking and improved working memory...

This is pretty good news for those of us who are worried about fitting new habits into our already-busy schedules. Twenty minutes is a short enough time to spend outside that you could fit it into your commute or even your lunch break.

A UK study from the University of Sussex 12 also found that being outdoors made people happier:

Being outdoors, near the sea, on a warm, sunny weekend afternoon is the perfect spot for most. In fact, participants were found to be substantially happier outdoors in all natural environments than they were in urban environments.

The American Meteorological Society 13 published research in 2011 that found current temperature has a bigger effect on our happiness than variables like wind speed and humidity, or even the average temperature over the course of a day. It also found that happiness is maximized at 13.9°C, so keep an eye on the weather forecast before heading outside for your 20 minutes of fresh air.

The connection between productivity and temperature is another topic we've talked about more here. It's fascinating what a small change in temperature can do.

6. Help others - 100 hours a year is the magical number

One of the most counterintuitive pieces of advice I found is that to make yourself feel happier, you should help others. In fact, 100 hours per year (or two hours per week) is the optimal time we should dedicate to helping others in order to enrich our lives.

If we go back to Shawn Achor's book again, he says this about helping others:

...when researchers interviewed more than 150 people about their recent purchases, they found that money spent on activities-such as concerts and group dinners out-brought far more pleasure than material purchases like shoes, televisions, or expensive watches. Spending money on other people, called "prosocial spending," also boosts happiness.

The Journal of Happiness Studies 14 published a study that explored this very topic:

Participants recalled a previous purchase made for either themselves or someone else and then reported their happiness. Afterward, participants chose whether to spend a monetary windfall on themselves or someone else. Participants assigned to recall a purchase made for someone else reported feeling significantly happier immediately after this recollection; most importantly, the happier participants felt, the more likely they were to choose to spend a windfall on someone else in the near future.

So spending money on other people makes us happier than buying stuff for ourselves. What about spending our time on other people? A study of volunteering in Germany 15 explored how volunteers were affected when their opportunities to help others were taken away:

Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall but before the German reunion, the first wave of data of the GSOEP was collected in East Germany. Volunteering was still widespread. Due to the shock of the reunion, a large portion of the infrastructure of volunteering (e.g. sports clubs associated with firms) collapsed and people randomly lost their opportunities for volunteering. Based on a comparison of the change in subjective well-being of these people and of people from the control group who had no change in their volunteer status, the hypothesis is supported that volunteering is rewarding in terms of higher life satisfaction.

In his book Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being 16, University of Pennsylvania professor Martin Seligman explains that helping others can improve our own lives:

...we scientists have found that doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we have tested.

7. Practice smiling - it can alleviate pain

Smiling itself can make us feel better, but it's more effective when we back it up with positive thoughts, according to this study 17:

A new study led by a Michigan State University business scholar suggests customer-service workers who fake smile throughout the day worsen their mood and withdraw from work, affecting productivity. But workers who smile as a result of cultivating positive thoughts - such as a tropical vacation or a child's recital - improve their mood and withdraw less.

Of course it's important to practice "real smiles" where you use your eye sockets. It's very easy to spot the difference:

According to PsyBlog 18, smiling can improve our attention and help us perform better on cognitive tasks:

Smiling makes us feel good which also increases our attentional flexibility and our ability to think holistically. When this idea was tested by Johnson et al. (2010), the results showed that participants who smiled performed better on attentional tasks which required seeing the whole forest rather than just the trees.

A smile is also a good way to alleviate some of the pain we feel in troubling circumstances:

Smiling is one way to reduce the distress caused by an upsetting situation. Psychologists call this the facial feedback hypothesis. Even forcing a smile when we don't feel like it is enough to lift our mood slightly (this is one example of embodied cognition).

One of our previous posts goes into even more detail about the science of smiling.

8. Plan a trip - but don't take one

As opposed to actually taking a holiday, it seems that planning a vacation or just a break from work can improve our happiness. A study published in the journal, Applied Research in Quality of Life 19 showed that the highest spike in happiness came during the planning stage of a vacation as employees enjoyed the sense of anticipation:

In the study, the effect of vacation anticipation boosted happiness for eight weeks.

After the vacation, happiness quickly dropped back to baseline levels for most people.

Shawn Achor has some info for us on this point, as well:

One study found that people who just thought about watching their favorite movie actually raised their endorphin levels by 27 percent.
If you can't take the time for a vacation right now, or even a night out with friends, put something on the calendar-even if it's a month or a year down the road. Then whenever you need a boost of happiness, remind yourself about it.

9. Meditate - rewire your brain for happiness

Meditation is often touted as an important habit for improving focus, clarity and attention span, as well as helping to keep you calm. It turns out it's also useful for improving your happiness:

In one study, a research team from Massachusetts General Hospital looked at the brain scans of 16 people before and after they participated in an eight-week course in mindfulness meditation. The study, published in the January issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, concluded that after completing the course, parts of the participants' brains associated with compassion and self-awareness grew, and parts associated with stress shrank.

Meditation literally clears your mind and calms you down, it's been often proven to be the single most effective way to live a happier life. I believe that this graphic explains it the best:

According to Shawn Achor, meditation can actually make you happier long-term:

Studies show that in the minutes right after meditating, we experience feelings of calm and contentment, as well as heightened awareness and empathy. And, research even shows that regular meditation can permanently rewire the brain to raise levels of happiness.

The fact that we can actually alter our brain structure through mediation is most surprising to me and somewhat reassuring that however we feel and think today isn't permanent.

We've explored the topic of meditation and it's effects on the brain in-depth before. It's definitely mind-blowing what this can do to us.

10. Practice gratitude - increase both happiness and life satisfaction

This is a seemingly simple strategy, but I've personally found it to make a huge difference to my outlook. There are lots of ways to practice gratitude, from keeping a journal of things you're grateful for, sharing three good things that happen each day with a friend or your partner, and going out of your way to show gratitude when others help you.

In an experiment 20 where some participants took note of things they were grateful for each day, their moods were improved just from this simple practice:

The gratitude-outlook groups exhibited heightened well-being across several, though not all, of the outcome measures across the 3 studies, relative to the comparison groups. The effect on positive affect appeared to be the most robust finding. Results suggest that a conscious focus on blessings may have emotional and interpersonal benefits.

The Journal of Happiness studies published a study 21 that used letters of gratitude to test how being grateful can affect our levels of happiness:

Participants included 219 men and women who wrote three letters of gratitude over a 3 week period.

Results indicated that writing letters of gratitude increased participants' happiness and life satisfaction, while decreasing depressive symptoms.

For further reading, check out 7 Simple productivity tips you can apply today, backed by science, which goes even deeper into what we can do to be more grateful.

Here's a look at all 10 factors in case you'd like to Pin them for later:

Quick last fact: Getting older will make yourself happier

As a final point, it's interesting to note that as we get older, particularly past middle age, we tend to grow happier naturally 22. There's still some debate over why this happens, but scientists have got a few ideas:

Researchers, including the authors, have found that older people shown pictures of faces or situations tend to focus on and remember the happier ones more and the negative ones less.

Other studies have discovered that as people age, they seek out situations that will lift their moods - for instance, pruning social circles of friends or acquaintances who might bring them down. Still other work finds that older adults learn to let go of loss and disappointment over unachieved goals, and hew their goals toward greater wellbeing.

So if you thought being old would make you miserable, rest assured that it's likely you'll develop a more positive outlook than you probably have now.

Want to chat about this article? Leave a comment below or send me an email with your thoughts.

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Photo credit: Spencer Finnley, Dr. Chuck Hillman, Berkeley, Paul Ekman, The Mind Unleashed.

References:

1. "The Happiness Advantage" by Shawn Achor

2. "How To Feel Better About Your Body, Backed By Research" the Journal of Health Psychology

3. "NutureShock," by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

4. "An afternoon nap tunes out negative emotions, tunes in positive ones" The BPS Research Digest

5. "Got up on the wrong side of the bed? Your work will show it." by EurekAlert

6. "Where Is the Grass Greener? The Economics of Happiness" by Brett & Kate McKay

7. "Top Five Regrets of the Dying" by Susie Steiner

8. Harvard happiness expert Daniel Gilbert

9. "What Makes Us Happy?" by Joshua Wolf Shenk at The Atlantic

10. "This Is What Your Relationships Are Worth In Dollars" by Erik Barker

11. "The Longevity Project" by Howard S. Friedman, Leslie R. Martin

12. "Sea + sun = happiness: science" by the University of Sussex

13. "Weather and Individual Happiness" by Yoshiro Tsutsui

14. "How To Create A Feedback Loop Of Happiness" by Erik Barker

15. "Is being selfless the smartest way to be selfish?" by Erik Barker

16. "Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being" by Martin E. P. Seligman

17. "For a better workday, smile like you mean it" by Michigan State University

18. "10 Hidden Benefits of Smiling" by PsyBlog

19. "How Vacations Affect Your Happiness" by Tara Parker-Pope

20. "Was grandmom right about "counting your blessings'?'"" by Erik Barker

21. "How to quickly and easily feel happier and more satisfied with life" by Erik Barker

22. "Why are older people happier?" by Association for Psychological Science

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10 Simple Things You Can Do Today That Will Make You Happy

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Happiness is so interesting, because we all have different ideas about what it is and how to get it. It's also no surprise that it's the Nr.1 value for Buffer's culture, if you see our slidedeck about it. So naturally we are obsessed with it.

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Christie Johnston for The New York Times

Vacations are a chance to take a break from work, see the world and enjoy time with family. But do they make you happier?

Researchers from the Netherlands set out to measure the effect that vacations have on overall happiness and how long it lasts. They studied happiness levels among 1,530 Dutch adults, 974 of whom took a vacation during the 32-week study period.

The study, published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life, showed that the largest boost in happiness comes from the simple act of planning a vacation. In the study, the effect of vacation anticipation boosted happiness for eight weeks.

After the vacation, happiness quickly dropped back to baseline levels for most people. How much stress or relaxation a traveler experienced on the trip appeared to influence post-vacation happiness. There was no post-trip happiness benefit for travelers who said the vacation was "neutral" or stressful."

Surprisingly, even those travelers who described the trip as "relaxing" showed no additional jump in happiness after the trip. "They were no happier than people who had not been on holiday," said the lead author, Jeroen Nawijn, tourism research lecturer at Breda University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands.

The only vacationers who experienced an increase in happiness after the trip were those who reported feeling "very relaxed" on their vacation. Among those people, the vacation happiness effect lasted for just two weeks after the trip before returning to baseline levels.

"Vacations do make people happy," Mr. Nawijn said. "But we found people who are anticipating holiday trips show signs of increased happiness, and afterward there is hardly an effect."

One reason vacations don't boost happiness after the trip may have to do with the stress of returning to work. And for some travelers, the holiday itself was stressful.

"In comments from people, the thing they mentioned most referred to disagreements with a travel partner or being ill," Mr. Nawijn said.

The research controlled for differences among the vacationers and those who hadn't taken a trip, including income level, stress and education. However, Mr. Nawijn noted that questions remain about whether the time of year, type of trip and other factors may influence post-vacation happiness.

The study didn't find any relationship between the length of the vacation and overall happiness. Since most of the happiness boost comes from planning and anticipating a vacation, the study suggests that people may get more out of several small trips a year than one big vacation, Mr. Nawijn said.

"The practical lesson for an individual is that you derive most of your happiness from anticipating the holiday trip," he said. "What you can do is try to increase that by taking more trips per year. If you have a two week holiday you can split it up and have two one week holidays. You could try to increase the anticipation effect by talking about it more and maybe discussing it online."

Mr. Nawijn said that while he expected the study results to show a prevacation happiness boost, he was surprised that the study showed that relaxed holidays didn't affect post-trip happiness levels.

"People start working again," he said. "They have to catch up. Usually there is a big pile of work for them when they get back from the holiday."

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Christie Johnston for The New York Times Vacations are a chance to take a break from work, see the world and enjoy time with family. But do they make you happier? Researchers from the Netherlands set out to measure the effect that vacations have on overall happiness and how long it lasts.