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Along with my grandparents and parents, I also asked my brother, who is a senior, what makes him happy. He responded with spending time with the people he loves, going for a run with friends (he is a runner), food, spending time with his girlfriend, listening to music, sleeping in, and breadsticks from olive garden. A lot of the things that bring him happiness also bring me happiness so I can relate to him more than I do to my parents or grandparents. This kind of shows how age can affect what things make you happy.

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Knowing that I am always able to talk to my parents, brother, and friends whenever I need help or just someone to talk to really makes me happy. There are so many people that don't have anyone that is there for them so I am always grateful when I am able to have one of those experiences.

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I asked my grandparents, who are about 70 years old, what makes them happy. They stated that they are happy waking up every morning and having each other, happy being able to pay their bills, happy that they were able to raise their kids and grandchildren, sitting in front of a fireplace together drinking a cold beer, playing with our dogs and cats, and watching the cubs play baseball. My grandparents seem to find happiness in the simple things in life, instead of the more materialistic things that most teenagers and some adults find make them happy. It was really interesting to see how such small things make them happy and I enjoy how I can somewhat relate at this point in my life and I look forward to reaching toward the smaller things to please me later in life.

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Whenever I can, I always spend time with my dogs because they always bring me happiness. I love animals, especially dogs, and it's always so much fun when I spend time with them. Playing and being with my dogs really relaxes me and they act as a happy distraction whenever I need one.

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<<-- my other dog

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Like most people, being with and doing things with my friends tends to make me happy. I enjoy the company and the fun I have when I am out with my friends. It also makes me really happy when I make meaningful memories with them. My friends are also a huge part of my support system and I am truly thankful for every friend that has come in my life because they have helped me make so many happy memories and they continue to be a huge source of my current happiness.

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Although many believe that money and things of great monetary value will make them happy, I think that money only makes people continuously want more and be more unhappy. I think an abundance of money makes people more materialistic and highers their expectations in life so they will want more and won't be as happy with the smaller, simpler things in life. I know a lot of upper class people that only find happiness in spending money or buying things and it's really annoying and upsetting to see because life is way much more than money.

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I asked my dad, who has been one of the greatest people in my life, what makes him happy. His response included seeing my brother and I succeed and learn from our mistakes, being with my brother and I and my stepmom, playing soccer, and hanging out with his friends. Along with my grandparents, he responded with simpler things and a lot less materialistic things than a majority of teenagers would say. There are some similarities, like playing sports or being with friends, but feeling the way he feels about my brother and I or about my stepmom, his wife, is only something we can hope to feel as we get older and become more experienced. I love that my brother and I can make my dad happy and it's also interesting how we can find happiness because of the way others find happiness.

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how does school affecting our stress levels impact happiness?

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how does school affecting our stress levels impact happiness?

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I created a survey and one of the questions was "How does school affect your happiness?" and I got many answers. Most answers included that is makes them stressed, it's overwhelming, it makes them unhappy but they have no control over it, or that it is a good distraction from outside sources of unhappiness. I agree with the points made by people that is stresses them out and the fact that is is uncontrollable makes it even worse.

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how does mental disease affect our ability to be happy?

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how does mental disease affect our ability to be happy?

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I created a survey that had the question "What do you find the hardest to overcome when you are trying to find true happiness?" and about 40% of those who responded claimed mental disease was the most impacting. It really brings to light how widespread mental disease is and how much it can affect how we find happiness and it can also make it harder to find outside sources of happiness or outlets. I definitely connect because I used to have a mental illness and it made it even harder to be happy and be with my friends.

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Research has found that pet-owners are generally happier, healthier, and more adjusted to life. Pets serve as sources of social and emotional support and are the same as a human friend. I agree with the statement this article is stating because I own dogs and cats and I can lean on them for support without needing them to talk. It is also found that animals, specifically dogs, are able to notice when their owners are sad and will try to comfort them in any way possible.

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(Image: © Caroline Kjall/stock.xchng )

Pets are good sources of social and emotional support for everyone, not just people facing health challenges, new research suggests.

"We observed evidence that pet owners fared better, both in terms of well-being outcomes and individual differences, than nonowners on several dimensions," study researcher Allen McConnell, of Miami University in Ohio, said in a statement. "Specifically, pet owners had greater self-esteem, were more physically fit, tended to be less lonely, were more conscientious, were more extroverted, tended to be less fearful and tended to be less preoccupied than nonowners." [ America's Favorite Pets]

Pet ownership has been on the rise the last few decades. A study in 2006 by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association determined that about two-thirds of American households (71.1 million) have at least one pet. In comparison, 56 percent of households had a pet in 1988, the first year the survey was conducted.

McConnell's group conducted several studies of pet owners.

First they surveyed 217 people, determining differences between pet owners and nonowners in terms of well-being, personality type and attachment style. They found that pet owners were happier, healthier and better adjusted than were nonowners.

The researchers then studied 56 dog owners, finding that pet owners who thought their dogs increased their feelings of belonging, self-esteem and meaningful existence had greater well-being than those who didn't perceive that their pet fulfilled their social needs.

They then asked 96 pet owners who were undergraduates to remember and write about a time they were excluded. They were then asked to either write about their favorite pet, their favorite friend or to draw a map of their college campus. Both writing about a pet or a friend reduced the feelings of rejection brought forth by thinking about being excluded. Surprisingly, both pets and friends staved off the feelings of rejection equally.

All in all, the researchers found that even healthy people benefit from pets. Pet owners are just as close to key people in their lives as to their animals, which serve as important sources of social and emotional support.

"The present work presents considerable evidence that pets benefit the lives of their owners, both psychologically and physically, by serving as an important source of social support," the researchers wrote in the paper, published online by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. "Whereas past work has focused primarily on pet owners facing significant health challenges ... the present study establishes that there are many positive consequences for everyday people."
You can follow LiveScience staff writer Jennifer Welsh on Twitter @microbelover. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on .

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Puppy Love: Pet Owners Are Happier, Healthier

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(Image: © Caroline Kjall/stock.xchng ) Pets are good sources of social and emotional support for everyone, not just people facing health challenges, new research suggests. "We observed evidence that pet owners fared better, both in terms of well-being outcomes and individual differences, than nonowners on several dimensions," study researcher Allen McConnell, of Miami University in Ohio, said in a statement.

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This article goes in depth about how happiness isn't this constant thing. The author defines happiness as "Our ability to connect with others, to have meaningful relationships, to have a community." I agree with this statement because we need relationships in order to be happy, as evident with Holden in "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger.

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Emiliana Simon-Thomas, PhD, is the science director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Along with Dacher Keltner, PhD, she co-teaches GG101x: The Science of Happiness, a free eight-week massive open online course on the edX.org platform that offers science-based practices for a meaningful, happy life. The course launched in September 2015 and will be offered again as a self-paced course in December. We spoke with Dr. Simon-Thomas about the factors that influence happiness and what people can do to cultivate greater happiness in their own lives.

From a scientist's point of view, what is happiness?

Researchers think of happiness as having satisfaction and meaning in your life. It's the propensity to feel positive emotions, the capacity to recover from negative emotions quickly, and holding a sense of purpose. Happiness is not having a lot of privilege or money. It's not constant pleasure. It's a broader thing: Our ability to connect with others, to have meaningful relationships, to have a community. Time and again-across decades of research and across all studies-people who say they're happy have strong connections with community and with other people. That's sort of the recipe for happiness.

Money doesn't matter? Really?!

The assumption used to be, yes; more money will make people happier. But we actually have good data on that over the past 100 years. From the 1920s to the 1950s-an era of depression and world war-as household income rose there was an increase in people's self-reported happiness. But then the line just tapered off. Studies show that money increases happiness when it takes people from a place where there are real threats-poverty-to a place that is reliably safe. After that, money doesn't matter much. Research by the Nobel laureate psychologist and economist Daniel Kahneman showed that money increases happiness until about $75,000 annually, and after that our emotional well-being doesn't increase with income.

Why might that be?

Humans like to make things automatic. We quickly adapt and make all the everyday things in our lives automatic. The first time you drive a car, you're very aware of your foot on the brake, of turning the wheel. But after a while, driving becomes automatic. That's a great way to preserve our resources. We don't want to devote all our brainpower to things we do every day, like driving or riding a bike. But that propensity for making things automatic can get in the way of happiness.

For example, say you really want a sports car (see infographic, above). You finally get one, and maybe you feel happy about it for a week or two. Then, on day 15, you get your new insurance premium and you're angry about the rate increase. On day 400, it's just a car-who cares any more? We get used to material things and to money; science shows they don't make us happy in the long run.

What does make people happier?

When we ask people to assess how happy they are, and then look at what they do in their lives, we find that people who have strong social connections are happier. That's number one.

Then we wonder, well, why? I'm a neuroscientist by training, and have spent my career trying to understand the biological systems that motivate us toward behaviors like cooperation, reconciliation. And, in fact, there are systems in the body that drive us to be more social. For example, the mesolimbic dopamine system linked to addiction also makes people feel pleasure when they give to others. If you measure hormones and activity in the body and the brain when people are being helpful or cooperating, you can see that pleasure happens. We're hard-wired to be generous with others.

Bill Harbaugh, an economist at the University of Oregon, put volunteers in a functional MRI scanner (fMRI), and then told some volunteers they would sometimes give their earned money to charity, and other times keep it. When people were informed that they would be giving to charity, the areas of their brain associated with pleasure and reward lit up-just like they did when they got to keep it themselves. So the act of giving is pleasureable. Other fMRI studies have shown that the act of cooperating, of lending support to others, gives us pleasure.

In a recent paper in Current Opinion In Psycholgy, James Coan and David Sbarra describe the Social Baseline Theory. It suggests, based on years of social psychology and neuroscience research, that for humans, being alone is fundamentally harder than being together with others. According to their research, it simply requires more effort and resources to function in the world solo. Our bodies reflect this fundamental preference for company.

How much of our happiness is within our conscious control?

More than we once thought. Research on twins suggests that about 50 percent of the variance of happiness between two people has to do with our genes. Identical twins are more likely to have similar happiness scores than fraternal twins. That leaves a lot that's not genetic. Research by Sonia Lyubomirsky, PhD, at UC Riverside suggests life circumstances-how privileged you are, whether you're married, whether you have kids-accounts for about 10 percent of the variance in happiness. She attributes 40 percent-nearly half the variance-to our daily life experiences. The people you see, the activities you do, how you see your world each day.

Now, not all researchers agree with her model. But if it is right, then we have the capacity to change our own happiness. We can adopt a new perspective on other people that's less fearful or competitive. We can engage in some sort of self-awareness practice like gratitude or prayer.

Can people learn to find the balance that makes them happy?

Yes, we think so. Our online class The Science of Happiness looks at the mental habits that research has identified as being harmful: perfectionism, maximizing-this idea that I have to get everything possible out of a given moment or I'm dissatisfied. And we present practical things people can do that research shows help people feel happy. We go over the research studies, and we actually teach the same interventions used in those studies. For example, we teach practical ways to cultivate mindfulness, gratitude, forgiveness, and kindness. These are activities that research has shown increase our sense of well-being and strengthen our connections with the people who matter in our lives.

Is there such a thing as trying too hard?

Perhaps. There's evidence that people who strive to be happy may actually be less likely to feel happy. Psychologist Iris Mauss, PhD, at UC Berkeley has found that people who focus on the pursuit of happiness tend to focus on personal gains, and that can damage connections with other people. Research also suggests that people who experience intense amounts of positive emotion may be less creative during that time, and that too much positive emotion makes people inflexible when faced with new challenges.

So it's not striving for happiness that matters. What matters is enabling yourself to have the experiences that we know make people happier. To spend time with someone who matters to you. To know that you are there for them when they need support, and they are there for you.

Originally published August 2015. Updated November 2015.

This opinion does not necessarily reflect the views of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health or of the Editorial Board at BerkeleyWellness.com.

See also: Can You Be Ill and Still Happy?

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Happiness Research: What Makes You Happy?

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Emiliana Simon-Thomas, PhD, is the science director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Along with Dacher Keltner, PhD, she co-teaches GG101x: The Science of Happiness, a free eight-week massive open online course on the edX.org platform that offers science-based practices for a meaningful, happy life.

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This article goes on about how food and happiness are directly related because of the pleasure that food causes us to have because it rewards the pleasure and reward centers of our brain. It also talks about how food can lead to obesity and that makes people unhappy, so it leads one to believe that there needs to be a healthy balance of those outside sources of happiness that we can control.

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Happiness and food are really highly connected, from the pleasure of cooking and eating to the changes in brain chemistry that food can bring about. Many people are made miserable by food but if we switch that around we can use food to make ourselves happier!

Eating is one of the great sensual pleasures in life, tucking into a juicy steak or a delicious bowl of ice cream can be a real joy and something that makes life really seem worthwhile. Food effects the pleasure and reward centres in our brains in the same way drugs do and this can lead to people experiencing the same problems with food as they do with drugs.

Unhappy people very often turn to food to fill the hole in their lives and this can lead to a downward spiral of obesity and dependence. Unhappy people turn to comfort foods like ice cream, pasta or mashed potatoes, all foods which release energy very quickly into the bloodstream. A quick fix of ice cream makes you feel good for a while but very soon you are back to feeling worse than before, so you need more ice cream to correct the balance. There is a classic pattern of peaks and troughs leading to greater amounts of fatty sugary foods to try and balance our moods.

The western world has an obesity problem and this could well be a symptom of unhappiness - everybody is reaching for comfort foods and takeaways to cheer themselves up. How can we fix this? Make everybody happy! How can we make everybody happy? By showing them how to eat well.

Food effects behaviour too, research done with prisoners and schoolchildren (not at the same time!) has shown that eating a diet which doesn't cause peaks and troughs and contains more fresh fruit and vegetables can radically improve behaviour. Jamie Oliver found that when he persuaded schoolkids to eat better, behaviour in the school was much improved. If it works for kids it can work for their parents, they just need to learn to cook.

Cooking too can be a great source of happiness. When I've had a tough day making websites it can be really therapeutic to chop vegetables and turn them into something tasty. I get to enjoy the food twice! Too many people nowadays are eating ready meals and take aways because they feel that they haven't got the time to cook but they are losing something very precious.

One of the reasons for this rise of the ready meals is the mark-up on these products, it's much more profitable to sell ready meals than the raw ingredients and a lot of marketing goes into persuading people to buy them. Imagine if we put as much effort into promoting cooking healthy food from scratch! It's a problem of the market place that it will always try and sell us the most profitable thing rather than the thing which is best for us, but that's one of the reasons that we have governments; to redress the balance.

Cooking is easy too but a lot of people are scared to do it, we've got a generation now who's parents didn't really cook and they have no confidence that it's something they could do. Cooking is something done by professionals somewhere else. Sadly, the ready meals and takeaways are generally really poor quality, made with the cheapest ingredients and designed to store well but rarely as nice as something made at home with a bit of care.

When you cook a ready meal, you are left with a load of plastic packaging - which goes into landfill. When you cook from inredients, you are left with vegetable peelings - which make great compost!

Food is a fundamental part of our lives and a great starting place for us to make everybody happy. It's a shift from a fast empty life to a healthy happy one.

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Happiness and food are really highly connected, from the pleasure of cooking and eating to the changes in brain chemistry that food can bring about. Many people are made miserable by food but if we switch that around we can use food to make ourselves happier!

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This article goes through and debunks the myth that happiness is circumstantial, meaning you don't have to wait for everything in your life to be "perfect". I personally agree because i think we can choose to be happy, no matter the situation.

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Many of us have been believing in a lie. We've bought into the myth that happiness is something we achieve when everything in our life finally looks the way we've been thinking it should. Cue the relationship, ring, job, country house, wardrobe, vacations, beauty products, weight loss. But here's the challenge: These things alone don't create lasting happiness, so happiness becomes this elusive thing that we desire but don't know how to achieve.

We can choose happiness in this moment.

The truth is that happiness is not circumstantial. And this is really good news. It means we don't have to wait for everything to be perfect, nor do we have to control anything outside of ourselves in order to feel a certain way. Becoming aware of this truth is a total game-changer, because it means we can choose happiness in this moment. And something beautiful happens when we do this: When we feel happy first, our outward experience begins to shift in ways we'd only dreamed of.

In this article, I'll discuss how people can reset their attitude toward happiness and share three tips for cultivating happiness from the inside, out.

Searching for Happiness in all the Wrong Places

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we will be happy as soon as everything in our lives is exactly the way we want it to be-and that the solution to happiness is that we must keep working harder to control these external situations in order to make them "right." But when we make things happen (lose the weight, get the relationship, get the raise) in a condition in which we are needing them to fill us up, validate us, or make us feel whole and complete, these changes won't be sustainable. We might even realize these outward things don't make us happy after all.

In reality, self-love is the baseline of happiness. When we live from a pure space of self-love, we are able to achieve sustainable happiness, because our internal feelings of abundance will reflect back to us in the form of beautiful relationships, purpose-driven work, and financial freedom. In short, self-love puts us on the fast track to healing. Our work is to clear out our fearful perceptions and shift them back to a loving perspective on life, which reveals our perfection and wholeness.

We don't need to be fixed and nothing is wrong with us -these are just the stories we've been telling ourselves. When we let go of our limiting beliefs, we can finally experience freedom, happiness, and our highest potential.

Learning to Feel Happy Within

Here, I share three practical ways to cultivate more happiness within and create a life beyond your wildest dreams.

1. Connect With Yourself

Slow down and get quiet enough to listen to your inner guide (a.k.a your intuition or your truth), and spend less time listening to other people's opinions or the loud, critical voice inside your own mind (which often manifests as racing thoughts or 3a.m. panic). One of the best practices for cultivating the ability to hear your inner guiding system is meditation. If finding the time to sit quietly is not realistic at the moment, an even simpler life-changing practice is to make daily mundane activities-such as brushing our teeth or standing in line at the grocery store-a time for quiet reflection. In these moments, ask for guidance and listen for some clear answers.

When we flex our spiritual muscle and connect with ourselves, it gives us access to an inner abundance of wisdom and knowledge (you'll recognize it as a quiet, calm knowing voice). This inner source of wisdom will always guide us to our best right actions.

2. Set an Intention to Be Happy

Despite what we may have been taught, happiness is as simple as just choosing to be happy. When we truly realize this-that happiness is a choice -we instantly empower ourselves in any situation, whether it's a relationship, job, or pattern of thinking that's been creating judgments, worry, doubt, fear, or confusion. The moment we choose to perceive things differently by choosing a loving perception of ourselves, others, and our circumstances, we not only strengthen our capacity to feel happy-we also open ourselves up to limitless possibilities where there once was seemingly no solution. A creative flow reveals itself, and we're able to experience more ease and less struggle sometimes instantly.

This is a lifelong practice, because when we're not monitoring our thoughts, they have a tendency of veering back into fear and worry. One of the simplest and most profound ways we can align with loving perceptions each day is to practice setting an intention every morning when we wake up. This intention can be very simple: Just say to yourself, I choose happiness -and feel it.

3. Surrender

Most of us don't know what "surrender" means. It's the opposite of the way many of us operate, which is by attempting to control outcomes and situations and to make things happen. In contrast, surrender occurs when we release our need to control things, and instead choose to place a higher level of trust and faith in the process of life.

When we tap into this relaxed energy, we allow that which we desire to flow to us in a miraculous way. The job, relationship, or whatever we are envisioning and desiring for our lives is all on its way-and when we surrender our plans for the timeline and the form in which we think it should arrive, we allow an even bigger and better outcome to take place. When we are not fearfully boxing ourselves in, we are able to fearlessly say YES to limitless opportunities for joy to enter our lives.

Being Happy-The Takeaway

By connecting with ourselves, setting intentions to be happy, and surrendering to the natural flow of life, we can breathe a sigh of relief, trusting and knowing that everything is unfolding in perfect, divine timing-and the only work we need to do is to get out of our own way and let life happen. Because happiness is our birthright.
Jennifer Kass is a holistic happiness coach and spiritual mentor. She is a writer and speaker and works in her one-on-one coaching programs. The views expressed herein are hers and hers alone. To learn more about Jennifer, visit www.jenniferlkass.com. Originally posted May 2013. Updated March 2014.

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Many of us have been believing in a lie. We've bought into the myth that happiness is something we achieve when everything in our life finally looks the way we've been thinking it should. Cue the relationship, ring, job, country house, wardrobe, vacations, beauty products, weight loss.