A Promise of Immediate Happiness: Taking On Shawn Achor’s “Challenge”

I came across this article by The Washington Post titled “Do these exercises for two minutes a day and you’ll immediately feel happier, researchers say.” While I always have an internal laugh when I read such titles, I acknowledge some of them are actual studies and examinations, and a lot of people have worked hard to make sure these findings see the light of day.

*insert confetti here*

The coolest title

In the article, happiness researcher Shawn Achor shares 5 non-time-consuming habits everyone can do to increase their happiness levels. Shawn’s worked with Google, large financial companies, MS Society, has performed studies in places like Harvard, UPS, KPMG; and has struggled with depression himself, something that makes the research more valid to me, somehow. He mentioned he used these positive habits to pull himself out, which is pretty amazing, isn’t it?!

My favorite is no. 1, Three Acts of Gratitude. You scan the world around you for 21 days (hopefully more) to find three new things you’re grateful for every day. It doesn’t work if you choose identical or similar three things every day because you’re not scanning for anything new.

You should be ~actively~ training your brain to look for positives.

I consider myself a pretty optimistic person as is, but I’m always willing to add new habits with scientifically proven benefits to my everyday life. Exercise worked. Meditation worked. So here goes… I’m grateful:

• I had to buy something but didn’t have any money on me. I’d need to go upstairs, downstairs, then upstairs again, I wanted to postpone, but I did go, and I found a dollar on the ground there!
• The power went off for an hour or two this Sunday morning, in the meantime, my mother and I talked and talked over coffee I made, that she tried for the first time, and loved
• that calling me was the first thing my friend did when he woke up

Here’s the sequel.