Anyone who has ever struggled with depression knows get happy advice is all bullshit.
Yes there’s things we can do to help improve our mood. But improving your mood and being made happy are two very different things. A distinction nobody seems to understand.
I really think that thinking about depression as a “mood” is a dead end avenue to begin with. It’s better to think of it as a physiological condition, like being hungry, tired or hypothermic. You can be happy AND depressed!
I agree. But good luck explaining that to someone who has never had the wrong amounts of neurotransmitters in their brain.
No they don’t automagically make every single person happier, but breaking up monotony, providing at least neutral distraction, and opening up the door to directly interesting activity all can have a huge impact on someones’ happiness. Even getting healthier with exercise does help … eventually, if you stick with it and don’t despise the activity.
Just because they’re not a silver bullet shouldn’t reflect too poorly on the general advice. Though it IS important to remember that many peoples’ sadness absolutely cannot be solved so simply, and giving basic advice for troubling problems can be down right insulting.
The point of general advice is not to make people happy, but to open the door to enjoyable experiences that can. Analyzing them as direct happiness is of course far, far too subjective. Analyzing them as direct sources of happiness kinda’… misses the entire point on why these activities are so commonly recommended.
I’mma say from personal, and ongoing experience: Nature, exercise, and socializing does not make me happier. What it does is it disrupts my emotional state and gives me a different one. It’s not happiness, but it’s not unpleasant either. It, however, also doesn’t give me the motivation to seek it out of my own accord.
They can if you want them to and under the right context, but none of these things automatically make people happy.
If you’re grinding away on a treadmill with no motivationto do so, then you likely won’t be happy. If you’re on a scenic bike ride in beautiful weather, then it would likely make you happy.
If you’re "in nature " getting destroyed by mosquitoes you’ll hate life. But enjoying a cool breeze while watching the sun set by the lake could be incredibly joyful.
If socializing is something you enjoy, then it could make you happy. If you’re an introvert who hates people then socializing wont change that.
Personally, spontaneous socializing while on my bike while out in nature makes me really happy.
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I’m gonna agree with the other comments so far. They’re just healthier things to distract you than you’d get with drugs or alcohol or self abuse. I’m going through a rough patch right now that is a little worse than my meds can level out for me. I’m going over to someone’s house today and I’m looking forward to playing with their puppies. I’m expecting that will relax me for a bit, but tomorrow my situation isn’t really changed. But it gets me through one day.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
As an immigrant to Canada, Ali says she knows a lot of people who also left family and friends behind in their home countries and she sees how losing those social connections impacts them.
But a recent review of research on the subject suggests that despite decades of scientific studies, experts still don’t know whether some of the most common happiness-boosting strategies — such as socializing — actually work.
They began by searching phrases such as “scientifically proven ways to be happier” on Google and looked at the activities recommended within the links in the first 10 pages of results.
“If you’re somebody who, for example, works out every day and really enjoys it — absolutely, you should stick with it, and if you find that it makes you happy, that’s fabulous,” said Elizabeth Dunn, a psychology professor at UBC.
The review’s lead author, Dunigan Folk, says that while people shouldn’t stop doing what makes them happy, the findings are important for those who sink time or money into trying to feel good.
“It can be frustrating if you’re trying something that at least the consensus suggests is strongly scientifically backed and it doesn’t work for you, and that can lead to feelings of hopelessness,” said Folk, a PhD student in psychology at UBC.
The original article contains 1,606 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 87%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This summary suggests all the researcher did was a google search. This is not true. Researcher only did a google search to identify the keyphrase, then surveyed the result relating to these keyphrases.
Paper here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01651-4
