Why happiness is saying thanks - Health - Times Online

Why happiness is saying thanks - Health - Times Online

. . . Social factors, such as income and being married, contributed only about 8 per cent, he reckoned.

This fitted in with other work which showed that even when really good or really bad things happen to us — a big lottery win, say, or losing a leg — within a year we have usually returned to the level of happiness we previously had. So Lykken formulated his idea of the “set point” for happiness, rather like the one we are believed to have for weight. “It may be,” he wrote, “that trying to be happier is as futile as trying to be taller.”

Recently, however, in the wake of research by the positive psychologists, Lykken has made a U-turn. He says: “It’s now clear that we can change our happiness levels widely.”

One of the tools for such a transformation, being studied by psychologists at the University . . .