Literature Review On Savoring

In her article “How Happy Are You and Why?,” Sonja Lyubomirsky argues that people have control over their own happiness. Lyubomirsky supports her claims with her interviews with happy people and scientific studies. Her purpose is to consider steps that people can take in order to become happier. She establishes an informal relationship with her audience of unhappy people.

Happiness is an essential goal for most people. From books and expensive classes that teach people how to achieve happiness to the fundamental right of “the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence, the importance of happiness is evident in society. This causes the rise to two fundamental questions: “How does one attain happiness?” and “,How does happiness create a meaningful life?” Both happiness and living a meaningful life are achieved simultaneously. The search for happiness and the factors that make it brings meaning to life. Happiness can stem from several factors such as wisdom and knowledge, savoring life and its experiences, and even suffering and pain. Analyzing these factors brings meaning to one’s life.

Yet, older adults appear remarkably adept at maintaining positive affect in the face of pain. For instance, older and younger chronic pain patients do not differ in their level of positive psychological wellbeing, despite older adults experiencing pain longer and more intensely (Boggero, Geiger, Segerstrom, & Carlson, under review; Edwards & Fillingim, 2001; Sorkin et al., 1990). Relative to younger pain patients, older pain patients report better quality of life, marital and social satisfaction, and mood (Cook & Chastain, 2001; Rustøen et al., 2004). Additionally, changes in pain appear unrelated to changes in psychological wellbeing (Phelan & Heidrich, 2007), and older adults who reported “extreme” pain had similar levels of satisfaction with life than those who reported having “no” or “moderate” pain (Lohmann, Heuft, Schneider, & Kruse, 1998). Taken together, the extant literature suggests that older adults maintain positive affect in the face of pain at least as well as their younger counterparts. Still, little is known about how older adults maintain positive affect in the face of pain, or what makes some older adults better able to cope with pain than others (Keefe & Williams,

In “Happiness 101,” Harvard professor Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar presents his ideas pertaining to the achievability of happiness. He begins by discussing how individuals must give themselves permission to be human, so that they can feel the negative feelings before they reach the positive feelings. If negative feelings are held back without release, then they only intensify eventually blocking out the positive feelings. Ben-Shahar continues his presentation to the topic of managing stress on the micro, mezza, and macro levels. These levels include the ideas of meditation, sleep, taking time off, vacations, and the “three deep breaths.” Simplifying agendas and practicing quality over quantity has a positive effect on stress levels as well. At the conclusion of his presentation, Ben-Shahar discusses the positive effect of practicing gratitude on health, happiness, and well-being. After listening to Tal Ben-Shahar’s presentation, I completely agree with every point that Ben-Shahar uses over the topics of giving permission to be human, stress management, and practicing gratitude covered throughout his presentation over happiness.

Achor utilizes a meta-analysis, or the combination of different findings, of over 200 scientific studies to prove his overall theory that happiness leads to success in almost every aspect of life from family to friends to careers and businesses. He does not rely solely on the data or information from a few relevant case studies, but instead relies upon experimental research to support his claim. He utilizes his findings to create “The Seven Principles”, which are “patterns that predict success and achievement” (Achor, 17), which is headed by “The Happiness Advantage.” He utilizes the concept of positive psychology and neurological activity to showcase the point that we can “retrain our brains to

Happiness is one of the most significant dimensions of human experience. Many people can argue that happiness is a meaningful and desirable entity. Studies indicate that everyone pursues happiness in various aspects of their life. Our four fathers saw happiness as a need, so they made the pursuit of happiness as one of the three unalienable rights branded in the Declaration of Independence. There is a sense of complexity behind the meaning of happiness; its definition is not definite. Think of happiness as a rope; there are many thin fiber strands bonded together to become the strength of the rope. Like the analogy of the rope, there are numerous factors that can contribute to an individual’s overall happiness in life. This study is going to

According the article “A Balanced Psychology and a Full Life” by Seligman there are three routes to happiness which are pleasure (or positive emotion), engagement and meaning. In this article Seligman states “Within limits, we can increase our positive emotion about the past (e.g. by cultivating gratitude and forgiveness), our positive emotion about the present (e.g. by savoring and mindfulness) and our positive emotion about the future (e.g. by building hope and optimism).”(Seligman 418) This helps further explain that if we forgive for the things that we did in the past that made us unhappy and try to help move past it, if you want to increase your positive emotion about the present just be mindful, then lastly the increase your positive

There are many distinctive definitions when it comes to the word happiness. Two psychologists, in particular, are thoroughly investigating the science behind this feeling. Barbara Fredrickson, who wrote the essay, Selections from Love 2.0: Love, Our Supreme Emotion, focuses on formulating positive connections with people through micro-moments. She believes that these conscious interactions are beneficial to positive resonance and to our mental well-being. On the contrary, Daniel Gilbert, who wrote the essay Immune to Reality, discusses how our brain exploits the ambiguity of bad experiences and unconsciously “softens its sting.” By doing so, we become immune to reality. Even though Fredrickson believes that accumulating conscious

Although it is sometimes perceived to be an act of illusion, happiness is a feeling of compassion and joy that can still be found in the lives of many people. We live in a world full of pain, ignorance, hate, despair, sickness, and death. To find even a ray of hope and happiness in our inconsistent lives, can be a difficult task of its own. While it may seem that one day is very focused and productive, compared to another when it may seem to be lazy and stressful. Although, our high days and low days are out of our control, we can do certain things to maximize the amount of positivity we allow in our lives. Karen Armstrong, in her “Homo Religiosus” and Barbara Fredrickson, in her “Love 2.0” offer similar ideas but different methods to achieve the satisfaction and happiness that we desire. As Armstrong develops the idea of putting compassion for others before one’s self desires and Fredrickson introduces the idea of looking at love from your body’s perspective by sharing positive emotions to create “positivity resonance”, both Armstrong and Fredrickson work towards serving a mutual goal of happiness and contentment in people’s lives.

Following Malcolm Gladwell’s idea on “the story of success”, Sonja Lyubomirsky put happiness to the test. Happiness has many great advantages that some may not think about. Studies shown happiness leads to stronger relationships, higher work performance, and even living longer with many health benefits.

People can not survive without consuming food which is a vital part of the human’s life; they get benefits from food which gives them strength and continues life. The demand increasing on food caused the growth of the number of the food industries who provide products for people. It’s common knowledge that the food industry is a business which seeks profits at first. According to the article “The Pleasures of Eating”, the author Wendell Berry who “is among the first public’s attention to industrialized farming and the ethical and environmental problems of our system of producing food”(36), says that the food industrialists persuade people to consume foods which are already processed, and “they will grow, deliver, and cook your food and beg you to eat ... Because they have found no profitable way to do so”(37). Wendell also claims that the food industry’s “overriding concerns are not quality and health, but volume and price”(39). Nowadays, many food

According to Seligman, the first step in the journey to happiness, “pleasure and gratification,” can be accomplished by having a positive outlook on life. This includes being more receptive of the belief that negative past experiences can be helpful learning opportunities and by having positive expectations for the future. Seligman also suggests that expressing gratefulness and forgiveness while holding back from expressing and dwelling on negative emotions can lead to a

According to authors Kottler and Chen, domains for enhancing happiness are relationships, environment, physical state, productivity, recreation, and distressing emotions. In addition, strategies that are related to these enhancements of happiness are finding a romantic partner, securing reasonable physical and financial safety and comfort, periodically enjoying fine weather, living in a stimulating environment (based on one’s value), eating healthy, engaging in regular physical exercise, achieving success and approval at work that is interesting and challenging, working towards a coherent set of goals, making leisure activities a priority, diversifying one’s life with multiple interests, experimenting with new and exciting options, avoiding distressing situations when possible, focusing on the positive as much as one can and practicing compassion and empathy toward others.

The pursuit of happiness and being free from suffering has always be the ultimate goals of humanity (Dalai Lama, 2008). The emergence of Positive Psychology made it possible for (positive) psychologists to make a major breakthrough in getting closer to this goal. Through the application of Positive Psychology Interventions (PPI), it is now possible to manage levels of well-being, while also diminishing the risk of depressions. Sin and Lyubomirsky (2009) defined PPI as methods or activities other than medical treatment that can improve positive emotions, behaviours, and acknowledgement. A large amount of research with different types PPI activities has been conducted, some meta-analysis journals from these studies (e.g. Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009

We began this course with the question “What is happiness? and Can we all achieve authentic Happiness? In our life we are taught many things, but we are not taught how to achieve our own happiness. Over the last five weeks we truly learned what happiness is and I believe we all can achieve authentic happiness in our life. In Authentic Happiness, Martin Seligman uses happiness and well being as the terms to describe the goals of Positive Psychology. The desired outcome of Positive Psychology is happiness and well being. We learned from this course how to embrace both our positive feelings and activities to achieve authentic Happiness.