An ambitious Australian TV show is proving that happiness can not only be measured, it can easily – and permanently – be improved. Now it hopes to do the same to the rest of the country. Liz Hall discovers how
If you type “happiness” into a Google search, almost 72 million results come up. And in the past 12 years more than 4,200 academic articles on happiness have been cited on psychology database, PsycINFO.
The pursuit of happiness is clearly something that interests us all. It’s one of the reasons last November’s Australian TV show Making Australia Happy, its website and movies such as last summer’s Eat, Pray, Love, based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, did so well.
The idea is not new. Bhutan, a tiny Buddhist nation in the Himalayas, judges its government’s programmes by the happiness they produce rather than the economic benefits. And in October the UK announced that it, too, is to measure its population’s wellbeing levels.
Making Australia Happy is successful because its approach to improving wellbeing and happiness is evidence-based, drawing on areas such as Positive Psychology and mindfulness.
By December, around 40,000 people in Australia had completed the measurement questionnaire (http://makingaustraliahappy.abc.net.au). Of these, 28,000 were female. To date, around 45,000 have taken the Happy 100 Index constructed by Dr Anthony Grant of the University of Sydney, a composite of these measures:
- Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS)
- Positive and Negative Affect Scales (PNAS)
- The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS)
- The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS).
Research1 has suggested that although genetics may account for 50 per cent of the difference between people’s happiness levels, and circumstances for 10 per cent, the other 40 per cent is down to what we do and how we think.
We all have the ability to nurture happiness but it takes work, say Italian geneticists Luca and Francesco Cavalli-Sforza: “Happiness does not come automatically…. happiness is constructed, and that requires effort and time. In order to become happy, we have to learn how to change ourselves2.”
Making Australia Happy’s experts consisted of team lead Dr Grant, director of the Coaching Psychology Unit at the University of Sydney; Russ Harris, a general practitioner and mindfulness expert and author of The Happiness Trap3 and Anna-Louise Bouvier, a physiotherapist and mind-body specialist.
Going viral
One aim of the show was for it to become the start of a national happiness epidemic. Research published in 2008 suggested that happiness could spread like a virus through people’s social networks. Analysis of data from the Framingham Heart Study by Harvard Medical School professor Nicholas Christakis, with James Fowler from the University of California looked at nearly 5,000 individuals over 20 years. They found that when an individual becomes happier, the network effect can be measured by up to three degrees (ie, as far as friends of friends of friends).
Eight volunteers were picked from Sydney suburb Marrickville, one of Australia’s unhappiest areas4.
“This was one of the reasons we wanted all our volunteers to come from one area, as possibly the happiness would ripple through an even broader community, and hence contribute to our rather ambitious vision of making Australia happy,” says producer Jennifer Cummins on the website.
At the beginning of the show, the volunteers scored well below the Australian benchmark for happiness. By the end of the eight weeks, they reported a dramatic increase and were all within, or well above, the benchmark level.
The experts were looking for both psychological and physiological changes. Tests showed decreases in levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and an overall increase in the hormone melatonin, which helps with sleep and immune function.
The scores
Volunteers with unhealthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels showed a significant drop, comparable to what would be expected if they had taken medication. Their pain thresholds increased and after a day of charity work, they recorded a boost in Immunoglobulin A (IgA), a common antibody considered to be a marker of overall immunity.
All the volunteers recorded a significant reduction in the level of neural activity after the eight-week period (around 50 per cent) – less activity is better in neuroscience.
When participants’ scores were first measured, the average was 48, with 50 as neutral. Nearly two months later, it had gone up to 72, then to 84 at the end. And 24 weeks on, it was still at 80.
“Overall, these results indicate that the programme was indeed effective, and not just during the period that the programme was being run. The positive effects seemed to be present 24 weeks later. This is truly remarkable,” said Dr Grant.
“You can’t fake blood tests and brain scans. I was quite sceptical that it would work with all these people.
“I think the biggest part of the programme was not just about the Positive Psychology interventions but about the interventions being framed in a supportive way with coaching,” he said.
He gives the example of Ben: “He was very much in the contemplative stage of change and his scores reflected that. Then after some user-friendly confrontations, his scores really changed.”
Dr Grant says one of the big surprises for him was the importance of the physical aspects of the programme, helping the volunteers change their diets, get exercise and get more sleep: “We’re a sleep-deprived society.”
A customised approach
It was also clear that interventions needed to be customised.
“It was definitely a case of one size not fitting all. The main thing for coaches is to tailor-make interventions to suit the individual. We tried to put them all through the same thing, but it didn’t work like that.”
For some, mindfulness was more important. Research abounds showing the positive impact of mindfulness. For example, research by Richard Davidson, a director of Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behaviour at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, famous for scanning the brains of meditating Buddhist monks, has shown that profound neural changes can occur after only eight weeks of mindfulness training.
One of the most powerful approaches in mindfulness is awareness of breath, according to research, which included a study of various practices used in a mindfulness-based stress reduction programme5.
Keep smiling
To assess the impact of the show on volunteers’ brain functioning, their brains were scanned using MEG technology at Macquarie University.
Neuroscientist Mark Williams was amazed at what he found.
After the eight-week period, all showed a significant reduction in neural activity of around 50 per cent. He said the size of the effect was “significant”, offering two explanations: “One is that the volunteers became happier and more relaxed as the programme went on. The other is that our volunteers have actually become better at focusing their attention and maintaining that focus,” he says on the ABC website.
Time will tell whether the happiness seeds sown through the ABC show will flourish widely. At the time of writing, the average Happy 100 Index scores for all the territories on the Making Australia Happy map were below the benchmark of 70.
The happiest people lived in New South Wales and the unhappiest in Queensland.
If it’s true that we tend to find what we seek, then moves to measure happiness, including the Australian one, as well as UK and other countries’ initiatives, could be just what the doctor ordered.
Tips for promoting happiness and wellbeing
- Cultivate gratitude. For example, every night write down three good things that have happened that day or write a letter of gratitude to someone
- Do daily exercise, preferably outside
- Practise mindfulness and meditation regularly, particularly awareness of breath
- Perform spontaneous acts of kindness and charity (and gratitude)
- Work using our strengths
- Get more sleep
- Remember we’re all different – one size does not fit all
References and further info
- Study in 2008 at the University of Edinburgh and the Queensland Institute for Medical Research, Australia
- Cited in M Ricard’s Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill, Atlantic Books, 2007
- The Happiness trap: www.thehappinesstrap.com
- As measured by the Deakin University Annual Wellbeing Index
- P L Dobkin and Q Zhao, “Increased mindfulness – the active component of the mindfulness-based stress reduction program”, in Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 17, pp22-27, 2011
Further reading
- The Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness
- A Grant and A Leigh, Eight Steps to Happiness
- G Rubin, The Happiness Project (see also Reviews, Coaching at Work, Vol 5, issue 6)
- “Be positive? Bah! Humbug!”, Research Matters, Coaching at Work, Vol, 5, issue 4
- “Smile or Die”, Reviews, Coaching at Work, Vol 5, issue 2
Coaching at Work, Volume 6, Issue 2