This is the final part of our life spring clean series, after health and wealth. Happiness underpins so much of life, yet it is the thing we most often take for granted. We assume it is a given until it slips away. It is worth understanding what actually drives it, and being realistic about what we can and cannot change. In this article, we explore what the science says about happiness and a few simple ways to maximise yours.
What Do We Mean by Happiness?
Happiness is harder to pin down than it looks. A useful working definition is a sense of wellbeing that comes from a life that feels meaningful and satisfying. It is not a permanent state, and it never was meant to be. Periods of unhappiness and discontent are a normal part of the picture, not a sign that something has gone wrong. In fact those dips are part of what lets us recognise and appreciate the good stretches when they come.
What Actually Determines Happiness?
A lot of factors feed into it: health, relationships, security, freedom, personality and genetics among them. One of the best-known attempts to weigh them up is the “happiness pie”. It is a model from positive psychology that splits our differences in happiness into three rough slices. About half of this is due to our genetic set-point. Around 10 percent is put down to life circumstances. The remaining 40 percent or so is put down to intentional activity, meaning the things we choose to do.
It is worth being honest about this model. The exact percentages are popular rather than settled, and researchers have since questioned how clean the split really is. What the underlying research does support is more modest and still useful. A meaningful part of our baseline happiness is inherited. Our day-to-day circumstances matter less than we tend to assume. And our habits and choices have real room to move the needle.
The genetic part is the set-point idea. We each seem to be born with a baseline tendency that we keep drifting back towards. It is why two people in very similar circumstances can have quite different default moods. Studies of twins raised apart point the same way, finding a shared tendency towards happiness even across different environments. The encouraging flip side is that a set-point is a tendency, not a sentence. It is a bit like a genetic leaning towards high blood pressure. Knowing it is there lets you work with it rather than against it.
How Can You Spring Clean Your Happiness?
You cannot rewrite your genes or control every event life throws at you. What you can do is be deliberate about the part that is truly yours to shape. Below are three simple questions to help you get there:
- Should You Start With a Happiness Check? Just as you might take stock of your health or finances, it helps to gauge where your own baseline sits. Knowing you lean one way or the other is useful. It lets you steer clear of the things that pull you down, and lean into the ones that lift you. You cannot change the underlying tendency. You can, though, shape the lifestyle around it, just as you might with any inherited risk.
- How Much Can You Influence Life’s Events? Big life events, the marriages, births, losses and career changes, carry real weight in how we feel. Some of them you can influence and some you simply cannot. The trick is to be clear about which is which. For the things within reach, break the path towards them into small, manageable steps that add up. For the things outside your control, such as bereavement or redundancy, the work is different. There the focus shifts to building the coping mechanisms that carry you through.
- How Do Your Values Fit in? Your values are the quiet foundation under all of it. The ones that come up again and again are faith, family, community and work. Faith here does not have to mean religion. It is simply having a set of values that makes sense of the world, in a way you are at peace with. Family and community are the backbone of our social lives. They are the people who root us, share our joys and lighten the load when things are hard. Work, whatever form it takes, gives a sense of purpose and worth. What matters most is that it feels meaningful to you and leaves you feeling useful and valued.
These three areas are more connected than they first appear, and small efforts across them tend to reinforce each other. None of this is a cure for genuine low mood and nor is it meant to be. If you are struggling, please speak to your GP or a mental health professional, who can offer proper support. For everyday wellbeing, though, a little self-awareness and a few deliberate habits go a long way. To complete the series, our spring clean for your health and wealth cover the other two pieces of the puzzle.
Happiness sits well outside what we treat and for this the best place to start is your GP. At City Skin Clinic our doctors can however help with concerns like hair loss, acne, hyperpigmentation and skin ageing with personalised treatments built around you. You can book a virtual video consultation or use our online consultation form to access our service. The journey to great skin and hair starts here.
This article is intended for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult a qualified medical provider for any medical concerns or questions you might have.
