Americans Have Keys To Happiness, Don't Use Them (an article I read on Yahoo March 1, 2006)

Psychologists have recently handed the keys to happiness to the public, but many people are not using them, experts say.Polls show Americans are no happier today than they were 50 years ago, despite significant increases in prosperity, decreases in crime, cleaner air, larger living quarters and a better overall quality of life.So what gives?"It requires some effort to achieve a happy outlook on life, and most people don't make it," says researcher Gregg Easterbrook.Happiness is 50 percent genetic, says University of Minnesota researcher David Lykken. What you do with the other half of the challenge depends largely on determination, psychologists agree.As Abraham Lincoln once said, "Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be."Happiness does not come via prescription drugs, although 10 percent of women 18 and older and 4 percent of men take antidepressants, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.Anti-depressants benefit those with mental illness but are no happiness guarantee, researchers say.Money probably won’t buy you happiness either. Research shows that it may lift people from poverty, but after that the cash stops paying off sense-of-well-being dividends.One route to more happiness is called "flow," an engrossing state that comes during creative or playful activity, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has found. Athletes, musicians, writers, gamers, and religious adherents know the feeling. It comes less from what you're doing than from how you do it.Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California at Riverside has discovered that the road toward a more satisfying and meaningful life involves a recipe repeated in schools, churches and synagogues. Make lists of things for which you're grateful in your life, practice random acts of kindness, forgive your enemies, notice life's small pleasures, take care of your health. Also, make friends.The happiest people have strong friendships, says psychologist Ed Diener. Interestingly, his research finds that most people are slightly to moderately happy, not unhappy.Some Americans are reluctant to make these changes and remain unmotivated even though our freedom to pursue happiness is written into the preamble of the Declaration of Independence."Research shows that people who are grateful, optimistic and forgiving have better experiences with their lives, more happiness, fewer strokes, and higher incomes," according to Easterbrook. "If it makes world a better place at same time, this is a real bonus."