How to be happy through the ages

What makes you happy when you’re young can be very different from what makes you happy as you get older. As you progress through life, your thoughts, feelings, opinions and priorities in life keep changing. Many of those things that mattered to you and contributed to your happiness as a child may not matter as you get older. Similarly, things that didn’t matter to you as a child may become very important to you and to your happiness as you age.

Baby smiles

Babies smile around 400 times a day, but as we get older there’s a general tendency to smile less. So what makes babies happy? At an initial glance, it may seem that their happiness depends on whether their immediate needs are being met — they’re happy so long as they’re not hungry, ill, tired or uncomfortable or not receiving the attention they want. More interactive babies of six months seem to show even more obvious signs as to whether they’re happy or not: their face lights up in a heart-warming smile when mum enters the room or they wail when someone takes their favourite toy and they quickly flip from smiling to crying and back.

Are these observations merely those of a baby’s mood or a reflection of their happiness? Carrie Masia-Warner, child psychologist and associate director of the Anxiety and Mood Disorders Institute at New York University School of Medicine, warns that you shouldn’t read too much into a baby’s moods. “I wouldn’t call babies happy or unhappy,” she says. “They’re content or not content based on something in their immediate environment.”

There are those who would disagree with Masia-Warner, who believe that a baby is born innately happy, that it is the embodiment of happiness and that although changing, its moods are just on the surface, not affecting  its inner happiness. Trish Bragg, mother of three, believes her daughter, Madeline, now seven, is an inherently happy child because she’s been visibly happy since birth. Such babies who appear to be innately happy smile effortlessly, sometimes almost constantly, often for no apparent reason, and those who come into their presence often find they too feel happier as the baby’s bliss rubs off on them.

Young children

In April 2009, a University of Western Australia research project sought the views of a broad spectrum of 959 young people, including Indigenous children and young people and those from vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds including children in care, children with disabilities and children with health concerns.

Results showed that all children and young people needed the following aspects in order to live a full life: a loving, supportive family, good friends, fun and activity, being safe, a good education, the basics (such as food, clothing, shelter and enough money to live), acknowledgement, freedom and independence. Also, those who owned iPods, mobile phones or other such possessions enjoyed them without believing they were more important than having good relationships, achieving the best results possible at school and being with their friends and family. Most of them agreed that although money may contribute to it, it cannot buy them happiness.

Teen time

Worried parents might imagine that the answer to what makes their teenager happy could be something to the effect of “sex, drugs, a little rock’n’roll, with some cash thrown in and, of course, the car keys, good parties to go to and all the latest technological gadgets with which to keep in touch with my mates”.

However, according to an extensive American survey in which more than 100 questions were asked of 1280 people between the ages of 13 and 24, the top answer to the question “What makes you happy?” was “Spending time with family” followed by “Spending time with friends” followed by “Time with a significant other”. It also showed that those who drank alcohol were less happy than those who didn’t and, surprisingly, almost none said money makes them happy. Close to half of them said that religion and spirituality are very important for their happiness and most of them thought that, when they got older, marriage and having kids would make them happy.

Middle sage?

Many adults conceive of happiness as the end-product of material wealth, the successful achievement of career goals and family harmony, but what really makes adults happy? Is it a vibrant social life, the pitter-patter of little feet, retaining your youthful appearance, your healthy lifestyle, the acquisition of stuff: your house, your car, your television etc? If we look to the older generation, it would again appear that only temporarily do we peg our happiness on these things.

The golden years

People moving towards old age may well lose many of the things they treasure, including their vitality, mental sharpness and theirs looks, but research has shown that old people are also gaining that which people spend their lives pursuing: happiness.

While old age is often looked upon with unease and worry, studies on people aged up to their mid-90s suggest that as they grow older most people get happier. Despite worries about ill health, income, changes in social status and bereavements, later life tends to be a golden age, according to psychologists. One of the main reasons for this is that because adults generally want to make the best of the time they have left, they avoid engaging in situations that will make them unhappy.

One of the better-known studies, based on a large Gallup poll conducted in 2008, shows that wellbeing increases steadily to the age of 85, when people are happier than they have ever been before.

Studies show that people behave differently at different ages. Older people have fewer rows and come up with better solutions to conflict, are better at controlling their emotions, better at accepting misfortune and less prone to anger. In one study, for example, where subjects were asked to listen to recordings of people supposedly saying disapproving things about them, the older people, while saddened, were less angry and less inclined to pass judgment than the younger people. The view point of many of the older people was contained in the comment made by one of them: “You can’t please all the people all the time.”

How to be happy irrespective of your age

While research does seem to point towards an increase in happiness as we get old, is it also possible to be happy at any age? Here are a few ways in which you can increase your chances of being happy before you reach old age.

• Your state of mind: To be happy at any stage of your life, you have to choose it. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Founder of the Art of Living Foundation, suggests you can choose happiness at any given moment, irrespective of your situation or of the people around you. It does require a certain amount of awareness for you to able to choose happiness when things are tough, but it’s possible to cultivate such awareness, irrespective of your age.
• Look inwards: As they go through life, many people continue to make the mistake of attaching their happiness to various people, events and things outside of themselves: job, car, house, partner, friends, family etc. The things they attach their happiness to may or may not change as they age, but what remains unchanged is their persistence in allowing their happiness to depend on things outside themselves. If you’re dependent on anything outside yourself for your happiness, in losing it you’re likely to become miserable. True happiness lies in your ability to be “happy with or happy without”. Irrespective of your age, if you want to be happy, let those externals be bonuses to your happiness, not prerequisites for it.

Observe yourself: Self-study or swadhyaya is part of the yogic philosophy. It refers to your ability to observe your mind, your thoughts, how you behave, how you act and how you feel in any given moment. The skill of self-study lies in your ability to become the silent observer of what’s happening in your inner world. Without this skill you will be more inclined to reel in negative thoughts and emotions as they arise inside you, but with this skill you can gracefully move though the negatively and put yourself back on track to being happy.

If you don’t have this skill, when you’re unhappy you’ll be inclined to push any associated negative feelings away because inside you there’ll be some resistance to experiencing them. Instead of going into them you’ll probably distract yourself, take your awareness elsewhere — basically, go anywhere but inwards to the core of the discomfort you’re experiencing. However, if you’re feeling unhappy, by simply observing the corresponding feelings and sensations in your body, the negatively starts to dissolve. This skill, which often comes as a by-product of meditation, can be learnt from a young age and can hugely impact your ability to be happy.

Everything is changing: People of all ages inhibit their ability to be happy by not being aware of the fact that everything is changing. When you feel unhappy there’s often a subtle, underlying feeling inside you that things are not going to change. In those moments you feel as though your unhappiness is permanent, but in reality nothing in life is permanent except change itself. Everything is constantly changing. Your thoughts, your opinions and your feelings, whether good or bad, are constantly in a state of flux. You cannot be continuously happy and you cannot be continuously unhappy. Next time you’re feeling unhappy, remind yourself that your state of unhappiness cannot last forever.

Know that opposites are complementary: Whether old or young, we have a tendency to resist unpleasant and disturbing experiences and to crave only positive ones. However, you simply cannot know one without having experienced the other. Your experience of happiness is only possible because you have experienced unhappiness; therefore, both happiness and unhappiness enrich your life. Instead of pushing unhappiness away, embrace it, give it space, allow it and, if at all possible, be grateful for it, knowing that the extent to which you have experienced sadness or unhappiness mirrors your capacity to experience joy and happiness.

Keep giving: “There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life — happiness, freedom and peace of mind — are always attained by giving them to someone else.” — Peyton Conway March, US Army Chief of Staff.

Whether young or old, those with a tendency to ask “What do I have to give?” instead of “What can I get?” are more inclined to be happy. Your happiness does not lie in what you get but in your ability to give. More specifically, it lies in your ability to give unconditionally, with no expectation of getting something back, and that includes the expectation of receiving appreciation or increased happiness as a reward for giving! So give, and when you have given, give some more, and more. If you’re not sure where to start, join a charitable organisation, get involved with their projects and experience what it’s like to give your time and energy to those less fortunate than yourself. You can do this whether you are a child or an aged person.

Manage or eliminate stress in your life: When you don’t feel loving towards others (and yourself) your happiness is reduced and it’s often the stress in your system which prevents you from connecting with that love. Anything which helps you let go of your stress and tension will enhance your ability to get back in touch with the love and happiness that are always present inside you. One of the ways to manage or eliminate stress in your life is the through the practice of prananayama (breathing) and meditation. Such practices can be learnt at any age from seven years upwards.

Increase your prana: Sadness or depression is strongly associated with low prana (life force energy) while happiness is synonymous with high prana. In the same way that it’s inevitable you’ll feel sad when your prana is low, it’s almost impossible for you to be unhappy when your prana is high. The reason for this is that prana affects your state of mind and your emotions. By simply controlling the level of prana in your system, you are able to affect your level of happiness. There are four simple ways to increase your prana which can be practised at any age (if your child is too young to implement these practices themselves, you can make choices on their behalf):

• Ensure you get enough sleep.
• Eat foods which are high in prana (fresh fruits and vegetables, pulses, grains, nuts) and avoid or reduce significantly those which are low in or have negative prana (meat, eggs, tinned food, processed food, garlic, aubergines, onions).
• Cultivate a positive state of mind. Whenever you get stuck in complaining, this negative mind state reduces your prana as well as the prana of those around you. A positive state of mind is one which sees problems as challenges and, rather than complain, looks at how to improve a situation instead.  A negative state of mind decreases your prana and leaves you and the people around you feeling depleted and exhausted. Conversely, a positive state of mind comes hand in hand with high prana and is a gift not only to yourself but everyone you come in contact with.
• Regularly practise yogic breathing techniques as a way of positively impacting your state of mind and your emotions. Because your breath is so intimately connected to the state of your mind and emotions, this is one of the most powerful ways in which you can affect your level of happiness. Whenever you work with your breath in a conscious way, you are in fact working directly with your mind. And anything you do which positively impacts your mind will automatically increase your state of happiness and contentment. Breathing techniques can be taught to children from an early age.

Happy for no reason: You often find reasons for your unhappiness; you blame it on something or someone. For example, a young child could blame his sibling or friend for taking away his toy, a teenager may blame her parents for not allowing her to go out and an adult may blame a partner for having said something to upset them. There are always many reasons we can find for our unhappiness, but to be happy needs no reason.

Very young children seem naturally capable of being happy for no particular reason and are able to return to being happy shortly after an unset. But as we get older we need a reason to be happy and then when we’re upset we hold onto that upset for days, sometimes weeks. To increase your happiness, become like a child again; cultivate your ability to be happy for no particular reason and to let go sooner of things which inhibit your happiness. Make a commitment, starting just with today, that you’re not going to let anyone take away your happiness, irrespective of what they say or don’t say, what they do or don’t do.

Living in the present: If you observe a newborn or a young baby you will notice it’s completely anchored in the present moment. As we get older we tend to move away from this state, focusing more on our future and the happiness it may bring us. If you ask a young child what they need to be happy, they may say they’ll be happy when they reach the age of an older sibling, able to do the things they can’t do yet or have the things they’re not yet allowed to have. Already they subtly believe that happiness is somewhere in the future. When they start school they may feel they’ll be happy when they pass their exams and get into high school. As a teenager, they think they’ll be happy when they get into university. Once at university, they think they’ll be happy when they graduate, get their ideal career and meet their soul mate. Ask someone who’s met their soul mate when they’ll be happy and they may reply, “When I get married and have children.” Those who have children think they’ll be happy when their children are grown up, settled and responsible … and on it goes.

You may have noticed yourself doing this. Perhaps you currently have your own happiness mantra: “I’ll be happy when I have more money … when I’ve travelled the world … when I’m in better shape.” The ever-elusive “when” can continue forever — this magical point in the future where, when you reach it, you honestly believe you’ll be happy — but it’s just an illusion.

Gurus and sages, for aeons, have emphasised the relationship between happiness and living in the present moment. Whether you’re young, old or in between, your happiness is directly connected to your ability to be in the present moment. One theory says older people are happier because they’re better at living for the present moment as they know they’re closer to death. Instead of focusing on long-term goals, their attention is much more on things that matter now. Ultimately, irrespective of age, those who are most happy are often those who believe that there’s no better time to be happy than right now.

It’s not that you shouldn’t plan for your future; you have to. However, to a large extent, your ability to be happy lies in your capacity to make plans while keeping your focus in your present. Irrespective of your age, don’t wait a moment longer: choose happiness now, because you don’t know how much time you have left on this planet.

Meggan Brummer is an internationally published freelance writer, corporate wellness consultant and yoga teacher. She is currently channelling her passion for writing into capturing her journey through parenthood. To read more about how she balances heath, happiness and mamma-hood, visit www.megganmamma.com.