Re-Wire for Happiness

I’ve been listening to a podcast called the Happiness Lab. As the title promises, it’s about the science of happiness. Taught by Dr. Laurie Santos, it’s based on her very popular Yale psychology course on the same subject.

Turns out that to become happier takes dedication. Like in the Yoga tradition, it’s important to have a sadhana, or regular practice. Yoga practices, including asana and meditation, as well as “pro-social” practices like gratitude practice and metta (loving-kindness meditation) work to re-wire us neurologically. These re-wirements have a clear correlation (via brain study research) to increased well-being, both physical and psychological. They work. There’s no doubt about it. But the increased happiness, kindness, gratitude, physical well-being and mental-emotional clarity that these practices produce don’t happen overnight or because you’re wishing for them (or because you listened to a great podcast). You have to practice them. They take work and dedication. They are forms of sadhana.

Practice – in the Yoga tradition – is called sadhana and is defined as the work, dedication and discipline of regular activities such as asana, meditation, yoga, chanting or prayer. Sadhana re-wires the individual practitioner to a greater Light, within and without, each day.

Sadhana requires consistent time, effort and even devotion. Think of a new mother. She doesn’t tend to her infant occasionally, some days on some days off. She is doing a deep form of sadhana – steady, consistent, devoted – in order to grow Life and protect Light. Gradually but inevitably her infant grows. Just as, gradually but inevitably, with steady practice over time, you grow your own Life and Light.

But if you can’t quite get motivated to do it for yourself, do it for the benefit of others. Have you ever been walking down the aisle of a grocery store and someone catches your eye and smiles? Not one of those social gesture, automatic smiles, but a Real smile from an open and undefended heart? And if so, did it not lift your own heart and light your own eyes and lift the corners of your own smile? That is one example of a simple, humble, powerful way in which practice (whatever the happiness practice of that stranger was) benefits an “other” (you in that case).

Here’s a quote of Dr. Laurie Santos from the first episode of the Happiness podcast:

“Happiness is a very deliberate act. Women’s magazines ask me all the time ‘Can you give me some 5-minute happiness strategies’?” And I say, ‘there are no 5-minute happiness strategies.’ It’s true with any kind of goal in life, it’s not going to happen in 5 minutes on Thursday, it’s going to be a life-long effort. It’s important to create habits, habits that you maintain over the course of your life. There’s no quick fix for happiness but science shows there is a fix if you put in consistent time and effort.”

If you’d like to become happier, commit to regular Yoga and meditation; engage an ongoing “pro-social” re-wirement like gratitude journaling or metta meditation. These are time proven and powerful sadhanas. But don’t just do them on your own.  Happiness is deeply correlated to relationship and connection. Come to classes to connect with other practitioners. It is great happiness medicine. And do check out the Happiness Lab Podcast. 

Listening to a great podcast will not make you happy overnight but it might, if you’re open, offer you inspiration and motivation to deepen your life-long practices of re-wirement to the Light.