I have a question to ask you: Are you happy? Although it might seem awkward, happiness is an issue that modern science is beginning to study seriously. While in Europe, especially after Enlightenment, we have been focusing on reason and progress as the foundations of joy, leaving aside emotions, Eastern cultures have strengthened their belief in emotional intelligence for thousands of years.

Matthieu Ricard, a French scientist turned Buddhist monk, sums it up quite well: happiness is commonly taken for pleasure in the Western world; this last one being contingent on time, place or subject. Modern life tends to look for this emotion in the outside instead of in the inner conditions: serenity, inner strength, freedom or self-confidence; as people like Ricard, after years of regular meditation, have discovered.

Our satisfaction with life is, we think, many times dependent on work, health, family, money, education or our ethnic group.  However, fifty percent of our happiness is genetic: the rest is just auxiliary help! But lay back, labs bring good news too: Brain plasticity does not end with adulthood; we have the capacity of changing our predisposition and controlling two ancient systems related to each other:

-The reward system: the hormone dopamine increases when, for example, when we are in love; it is normally active when we are obsessed with something and it produces a feeling of “need”; it works like a drug.

-The pleasure system: oxytocin, channelled in a strategic way, could be the tool to create long term bonds.

It seems the “romantic” image of happiness we maintain has more to do with chemistry (and with our animal nature) than we are willing to accept. Maybe now you understand why the joy you feel when looking at the sunset is more profound than when working on your favourite subject; humans have strong responses to the beauty of the nature (biophilia) and moreover, these emotions are contagious! And what is most important for the times we are living in: new technological advances have revealed that competition and individualism activate the right part of the prefrontal cortex, that is, the area dealing with depression and negative thoughts. Human beings are happy when we collaborate with others: be it when playing sports, learning together or having sex.

To conclude, I will propose you to follow this equation, taken from the book “The trip to happiness”, a book by Eduard Punset. Because we have to start thinking about tangible ways of improving our state of being in the world:

Happiness= E (M+S+P)/R+I

These being:

E: emotions in the beginning and the end of a project, that is to say, there is no action completely rational and emotions have a key role in taking decisions.

M: maintenance of your body but also your mind, give some time to yourself.

S: Enjoy the journey itself as well as arriving.

P: Cultivate your personal relations

R: Avoid these factors, they reduce your state of well-being: forget most of what culture and society have taught you, learn how to “dis-learn”; do not always recur to traditions-innovate; do not let yourself be driven by fear because fear is the biggest enemy of happiness.

I: Inheritance. Abject political power exercise; imagined stress (when you get stressed over something that has not actually happened yet); harmful mutations in our genes; ageing. Try to fight them as much as you can as long as it is in your hand.

I hope you find it useful and interesting, and that you get a fare share of happiness out of it. And now, why don’t you tell us what truly makes you happy?

Punset, Eduardo. (2009) El viaje a la felicidad. Barcelona: Ediciones Destino.