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6 skills of happiness help teens live a more positive life
(BPT) - How would you describe hap- piness? You may have trouble putting it into words, but you know you want it for yourself and your loved ones. One thing that’s harder than describing it for many people is knowing how to achieve it.
Researchers studying social emotional well-being de ne happiness as a balance: the combination of how frequent and robust your positive emotional experiences are, how gracefully you recover from di - cult experiences, and how meaningful and worthwhile you feel your life is overall.
“Happiness is the ability to consistent- ly recognize that life is good, even if it’s di cult,” says Dr. Emiliana Simon- om- as, Ph.D., science director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University
of California Berkeley. “It’s being able to identify and enjoy the positive times but also have resiliency to bounce back from the hard times.”
is is particularly important for youth. Research shows two out of three American teens are stressed and many don’t know how to cope. When school is in session, teens are the most stressed group in the country. e inability to reduce and cope with stress and anxiety can negatively im- pact di erent facets of a teen’s life includ- ing their health, friendships, relationships with parents and academic performance.
To help further the idea that happiness skills must be learned, Simon- omas identi ed six Sustainable Happiness Skills which provide the foundation for a new initiative called Life’s Good: Experience Happiness, which helps bring scienti c, evidence-based tools and sustainable happiness skills directly to young people across America. Backed by 70 years of sci- enti c research showing that happy people are healthier, live longer, earn more and do
better in school and life, the platform aims to reach, teach and increase sustainable happiness.
Happiness is associated with several positive health e ects, according to the Journal of Happiness Studies, including less insulin resistance, better sleep, higher HDL cholesterol levels and less reactivity to stress. Additionally, teens who identify as happy are more creative, helpful and sociable.
Research has also shown that happy
kids do better in school. Happy learners remember information better and happi- ness is positively associated with GPA. e research also shows that schools that teach happiness skills outperform schools that don’t, and typically experience dramatic drops in bullying, absenteeism and disci- pline issues. ey also see impressive gains in student engagement, optimism, test scores and executive functioning skills that are key to future success.
When practiced, the six sustainable hap- piness skills can sustain a person’s ability to recognize that life’s good, even if it’s hard sometimes, according to the research from Simon- omas. ese are the foundation of Life’s Good: Experience Happiness, the
new corporate social responsibility initia- tive led by LG Electronics USA.
Mindfulness: Being aware of your thoughts and feelings in the present mo- ment, without judging those thoughts or feelings as admirable, shameful or any- thing in between.
Human connection: Building and sustaining relationships with significant others, friendships and social engage- ment with peers, which is the most reliable, enduring predictor of happiness in life.
Positive outlook: Harnessing the ability to imagine a fruitful outcome and maintain a readiness to pursue and experience the opportunity in any cir- cumstance.
Purpose: Understanding your ability to make a di erence in the world, at work, school or for a team leads to a re ned sense of purpose and increases your sense of happiness.
Generosity: Helping and giving to others can increase one’s own happiness. Accord- ing to a study overseen by Harvard Univer- sity, people who donated time or money were 42 percent more likely to be happy when compared to those who didn’t.
Gratitude: e simple act of appreciating and thanking others for the goodness they contribute to your life helps foster happi- ness.
To learn more about these six skills, nd tools you can use to teach happiness skills to your children and start your own jour- ney to sustainable happiness, visit www. LGExperienceHappiness.com. A primary focus of the Life’s Good: Experience Hap- piness platform is driving positive change in lives across America with the goal of equipping 5.5 million youth with happi- ness skills over ve years.
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