I recently came across an article summarizing research into the “Science” of Gratitude and Happiness.

As a result of my many years of personal research, I believe that gratitude and happiness are important and intuitively acknowledged there was value in having a “Positive Mental Attitude” and “An Attitude of Gratitude”, however, I thought they were largely clever phrases for marketing purposes. Having stumbled across these articles, however, I find there has been active research into “Positive Psychology” for over a decade, emphasizing the emotions of Gratitude and Happiness (elusive as they are to quantify for research purposes), together with ways to increase your gratitude and, subsequently, happiness.

The important factor is that we have a stable “Happiness” baseline (the SET Point), as determined largely by three overall components;

• heritability (genetics) – 50%,
• life circumstance (relatively static demographic and circumstantial factors) -10% and
• Intentional Activity (the activities people DO) – 40%.

We may have perturbations to this baseline (i.e. winning the lottery, losing a job) but, by and large, we have a tendency to return to this baseline stability in 3 – 5 months.

The key factor is “Intentional Activity“. Researchers believe we can develop an active program to increase our happiness and, for the long term (i.e. increase our baseline SET Point level), through intentional activity (i.e. exercise, hobbies, other pursuits that make us happy).

“The key is to achieve and maintain a state in which one has many positive experiences over time, and that these experiences (i) fit one’s personality, dispositions, and needs; (ii) vary in their content so that the effects of hedonic adaptation are minimized; and (iii) vary in their timing, again to minimize the effects of hedonic adaptation.”

Another common recommendation is to develop an attitude of gratitude, specifically, through initiating and maintaining a Gratitude Journal. I came across an online Gratitude Journal, however, being an essentially private person I have chosen to maintain a private Gratitude Journal.

The recommendation for implementing a Gratitude Journal is to physically write down things for which you are grateful on a daily basis.  At first, it can be simply statements like:

• “I am grateful for being alive”
• “I am grateful for my family”
• “I am grateful for a beautiful day” etc.

Then, as you become more accustomed to keeping your Gratitude Journal, other, more specific things may occur to you.

Studies have shown that keeping such a journal can increase “happiness” by “24%” over a study period of two to four weeks.  More recent “longitudinal studies” (i.e. over time) suggest that this increase in the happiness may also be reflected in your baseline SET Point level.

I know it may be intuitive or even common sense for many, however, keeping a physical journal and the act of writing is very important for the success in these studies and that is a component that I had not read, or been aware of, previously.  More importantly, recognition (identification) of a baseline SET Point and the possibility that an active program of “Intentional Activity” may increase the SET Point is very exciting.

I am working on a more substantive Page to post in the future, together with a comprehensive list of articles and research papers documenting this work. It is fascinating!

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