Joy to the world: having a happy and mindful Christmas

We call it the most wonderful time of the year, and it's easy to see why as Christmas gives us the opportunity to connect with family and friends. But you can do plenty to increase your happiness levels all year round through practising mindfulness, kindness and self-compassion

Christmas Tree From Yellow, Blue And Purple Neon Streaks. 3D Illustration.

Christmas is the season of wishing joy to the world. Yet this year, with Covid lingering,

climate change looming, and worry about housing and the ever-escalating cost of living, many of us are feeling anxious. Despite such challenges, experts say that happiness is available to us if we learn how to reach out and grasp it.

Clinical psychologist and founder of Jigsaw, the National Centre for Youth Mental Health, Dr Tony Bates, believes it’s closer at hand than most of us realise.

“For me, it’s becoming aware in the moment of how amazing life is and experiencing the miracle of it all,” he says. “When you start looking for it, you get better and better at seeing it.”

It may be when life gets difficult that we need to hold on to happiness the most. “Happiness is not a luxury, but a necessity,” says Bates. “We had better experience it every day. Otherwise, why would we get out of bed in the morning? Holding on to happiness is what motivates us to keep going. In many ways, happiness is a choice.”

This ties in with the psychology of happiness and the theory that our thoughts determine how we feel. Dr Denise O’Dwyer, a chartered principal psychologist, talks about this in her new book, Psychology with a Sparkle.

“In so many ways, we are responsible for our own happiness and the various factors that impact it in positive or negative ways,” she says. “From the company we keep to the food we eat, our work, exercise
habits, hobbies, connection to others, and how authentically we live our lives, our happiness is very much influenced by our activities and daily choices as well as our thinking styles.”

O’Dwyer refers to a pie chart created by American researchers in 2005, which found that 50% of happiness is determined by our genes, 40% by our activities, and 10% by our life circumstances. “There’s little we can do about our genes, but we can do something about our activities and our circumstances,” says O’Dwyer. “That means we can affect some control over our daily happiness.”

Changing our mindset can be an effective way of doing this, says psychologist Margaret Forde. “People often think they’d be happy ‘if only’,” she says. “If only they had a new house or new husband. But it’s not true — once you get beyond a certain level of financial and material comfort, happiness levels don’t change. How you view things is what’s important.”

This 2015 study highlights how mindset can determine our happiness. Using data from 27,397 people, it compared people who were happy and optimistic with those who were
depressed.

“There was no difference in the circumstances of their lives,” says Forde. “What was different was that the latter group tended to overthink and self-criticise a lot. This shows that happiness has a lot to do with the way we think.”

The role the mind plays in our happiness levels makes sense biologically. “Your body can’t tell if what your brain is visualising is real or not,” says Forde. “If you’re thinking negative thoughts, your body will respond by releasing stress chemicals, making you feel bad.”

Psychology with a Sparkle by Dr Denise O'Dwyer

Retrain the brain

Thankfully, our brains can be trained to think differently. Habits we have learned can be unlearned through mindfulness, meditation, and cognitive behavioural therapy.

“We may not be able to control the thoughts that enter our minds, but we can control how much airtime we give them,” says O’Dwyer. “Through conscious awareness, thought redirection, reframing, and practice, we can rewire our brains to think in a more self-supporting manner.”

A 2021 study illustrated how successful this approach could be. It found that mindfulness training could lead to
increased subjective wellbeing, reduced psychological symptoms and improved regulation of behaviour.

“This shows that happiness is a practice that we can get better at over time,” says Bates.

However, this focus on inviting more happiness into our lives doesn’t mean denying our more negative emotions — they are natural responses to the slings and arrows of life.

They may even help us in the long run, connecting us to others, driving us to solve problems and helping us to do better. Research carried out at the University of New South Wales found that sadness can increase our perseverance, promote generosity and make us more grateful for what we’ve got.

“Instead of trying to suppress difficult emotions, we should allow them to speak to us,” says O’Dwyer. “We should become curious about what they are trying to teach or tell us. It will serve our mental health better.”

The modern-day focus on positivity is problematic, says Bates. “Forced happiness isn’t grounded,” he says. “We have to accept hurt and pain. We shouldn’t fight ourselves for feeling the negative, but we don’t want to be overwhelmed by it either.”

The key is to confront these negative feelings. “If we can name our feelings, we feel more connected with ourselves afterwards,” says Bates. “It helps us to accept who we are and where we are in our lives, and it also helps us to believe we can face our problems.”

Holding on to the negative is what’s negative, according to Forde. “Missing the bus or having your work criticised needn’t affect your whole day. You don’t have to pretend it didn’t happen, nor do you have to let it define your day. Go with the flow and move on from it.”

Online course in happiness

Another step to increase your contentment is to take an online course with the University of Berkley. This free eight-week course delves into the psychology of happiness to uncover various strategies for everyday life.

One of the main things highlighted in the course is how much happiness depends on strong social connections. A landmark Harvard study tracked 724 men for 75 years from 1938 and found that what impacted happiness the most was having good relationships with other people.

Kindness can also lift your spirits. The University of Berkley carried out a study that found that if you perform five acts of kindness one day every week, you will experience a boost in your happiness levels.

This doesn’t surprise Bates.

“We all know that doing something for someone else is a natural antidote to unhappiness,” he says.

“It may be a small gesture like ringing a neighbour to see how they are doing, but it creates an authentic connection with another person and makes us feel great.”

Kindness is linked to self-compassion, which means being understanding of ourselves in times of pain or failure. A 2011 review found that it has consistently been linked to wellbeing.

“Self-criticism is the opposite of compassion and a major component of unhappiness,” says Forde. “If we talked to our friends the way we talk to ourselves, we’d have no friends. One small mistake and we’re down on ourselves like a tonne of bricks. It’s better to learn to be non-judgemental of ourselves and our thoughts, accept them, and not identify with them as extensions of ourselves.”

The practice of gratitude can also affect our happiness levels.

“It alerts us to what is good in our lives, and over time it primes our brain to look for these small miracles even when things are difficult,” says Bates. “It’s an approach that makes happiness robust enough to sit inside the storm of our lives. It doesn’t depend on everything going smoothly and right. It’s something we can train our minds to see and to grasp at any moment.”

Exercise boosts happiness too. Of the 1,158 studies included in a 2021 review, 89% found a statistically significant positive association between physical activity and mental health.

This science of happiness may be new, but many of its findings are age-old. Religious figures and philosophers have long preached mindfulness, kindness, and self-compassion.

“We lost sight of the wisdom of those ancient traditions, but we may be coming full circle and realising how much we need it,” says Forde.

There is much to be gained from putting this wisdom into practice. Studies show that happy people live longer, have more stable marriages, stronger immune systems, and more creative ideas than their less happy peers.

Such outcomes are possible for us all, says Bates.

“Happiness is to be found in acts of self-compassion, kindness and gratitude. It’s to be found in seeing all that we have and in celebrating it.

“My wish is to give people hope that they, too, can be happy this Christmas. And beyond.”

If you do one thing... 

We asked our experts to recommend one thing we can all do to usher more happiness into our lives. Here are three simple activities we can practice in our everyday lives.

Margaret Forde suggests making time for a hobby that you enjoy. “Unhappiness can stem from overthinking things,” she says. “If we can get into a flow state while we’re involved in an activity we love, we can lose ourselves in that activity and become happier in the process.”

Science backs up her viewpoint. A 2015 study [exa.mn/flow] found that being in control of a task and receiving ongoing positive feedback was highly self-rewarding.

Denise O’Dwyer urges us to spend more time with our friends. “Putting effort into creating three, four or five people who really nourish you is arguably the most powerful thing you can do to add happy years to your life,” she says.

Tony Bates reminds us not to be frightened by our negative thoughts. “Sitting with problems won’t make them go away but if we infuse our awareness of them with kindness, we change our relationship with the problem,” he says. “We might become less afraid of it, more accepting, and less inclined to jump to the most negative outcome. We will feel better in ourselves.”