How To Change Your Life When 'Choosing Happiness' Isn't Possible

Sonja & Marc Raciti

Mon, October 16, 2023 at 6:30 AM UTC

7 min read

Woman running through desert, rejoicing in happiness

“Happiness is a choice” is something posted on social media often. It comes from a good intention and is meaningful to many, but you cannot be happy to try as you might.

People suffering from depression, anxiety, or trauma can’t snap out of it and decide to be happy.

Trust me, they would if they could; no one wants to stay miserable for no reason. However, depression is a biochemical disorder that affects your brain, hormones, and neurotransmitters.

Genetic influences are usually shown to account for around 35-50% of happiness — meaning that your genes may predetermine up to 50% of your emotional well-being.

In addition to this, the environment influences our mood. Being abused or victimized, working for someone narcissistic or hostile, or being in a bad marriage are all situations where your mood is constantly pulled down. All is not lost, though; if the environment changes, so may the relative impact of both genes and the environment.

Many things in life are outside our control, and the emotions involved are not conducive to happiness.

You can’t just choose to be happy when someone you love has died, or your heart is broken because you got dumped, or you just got fired and have no fallback money saved up, or a natural disaster hit like it recently did in Houston, Florida, and Puerto Rico or when a deranged mass murderer kills at least 59 people at a concert or a dozen or more children in a school.

You can’t choose to be happy when bad things happen or when you feel like the world is conspiring against you.

All of us have had those years where just everything we try seems to go wrong — someone hits your car, you have medical bills piling up, your roof starts leaking, your grandmother passes away, your dog runs away and gets run over, your partner asks for a divorce, your job demands are unobtainable... No matter how much you want to be happy, sometimes it's impossible.

With that being said, life is a journey, and several things can help all of us to have more moments of happiness and have the best quality of life possible.

Here's how to change your life when 'choosing happiness' isn't possible.

1. Develop good relationships

Strong, healthy relationships connect us with others to keep us happier and healthier, which helps our brains function longer. This makes our memory sharper and extends our life expectancy.

The top indicator at age 50 for who would live to be healthiest at age 80 is satisfaction in relationships, according to Robert Waldinger, MD, the current director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development.

2. Practice mindfulness

Mindfulness is the ability to be fully present in this very moment and to allow everything else to fade.

Online tutorials can help you with mindfulness, but taking a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course is the best way. There are presently over 500 studies showing the effectiveness of meditation, and anyone can benefit from cultivating the skills of mindfulness — particularly in our busy modern lifestyles that are often characterized by high stress, multitasking, and media-induced unhealthy behavior.

Mindfulness has been found to increase positive emotions and decrease feelings of depression, anxiety, and stress response.

3. Make a daily gratitude list

Daily gratitude can increase your level of happiness. Positivity grows by intentionally focusing on the good parts of our day.

It only takes 21 days of writing down three things you are grateful for to begin reaping the benefits.

4. Get adequate sleep

Ask any parent, and they can tell you the outcome of sleep deprivation on the child and themselves.

When we’re exhausted, our risk for depression increases, and we’re more likely to experience higher stress levels. It has also been linked to increased risk for severe physical disorders such as stroke and diabetes and linked to weight gain.

Who knew by sleeping longer, you could lose weight and be happier?

5. Pay attention to when you last ate

Who hasn’t heard of someone who gets "hangry" when they haven't eaten enough (or enough of the right things)?

Eating balanced meals makes us feel better and energized throughout the day to help us focus and think clearly.

Several studies have shown that the omega-3 fatty acid in fish is directly related to lower rates of depression, bipolar disorder, postpartum depression, and seasonal affective disorder, as well as helping to stave off cognitive declines. Eating fish or including fish oil supplements in your daily routine is an easy way to increase your happiness and boost your body against depression and dementia.

6. Do more smiling

Smiles are contagious; this is one of the first things babies learn to do.

Smiling increases your attractiveness and lifts your mood and the mood of those surrounding you. Stress levels decrease, and the world looks and feels better.

Your neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins are released and cause you to get a little extra zap of happiness. They also lower your heart rate and blood pressure and can lead to a healthier and longer life.

7. Spend time with animals

Pets of any kind bring us joy and happiness.

Recent studies have shown that having weekly visits by a therapy dog can help reduce loneliness and decrease the need for medications among elderly people.

People with animal companionship have fewer minor health problems, have better psychological well-being, and have decreased feelings of loneliness and isolation. Studies show increased self-esteem and increased cognitive deployment in children with pets. 70% of families report increases in family happiness due to having a furry friend.

8. Cultivate a giving spirit

A study on the relationship between kindness and happiness showed that kind people experience more happiness and have happier memories (Otake, Shimai, Tanaka-Matsumi, et. al., 2006).

By counting acts of kindness for one week, people appear to increase gratitude and happiness. Overall, happy people tend to be more kind in the first place, and being tasked with random acts of kindness can increase their happiness, kindness, and gratitude.

9. Project and practice positivity

Optimism has long been proven to be one of the leading factors in subjective well-being, especially in times of adversity.

As a result, optimism (the belief things will work positively and expect the best in all possible ways) is one of the top things to strive for due to its impact on almost everything in life. Positive-minded people tend to cope with life stressors actively and directly instead of avoiding their problems. Optimistic people tend to take care of their health, and in turn, they have better physical health.

Studies have shown that optimistic people have a more energetic, task-focused approach since they believe they can accomplish great things because they have more persistence in education, are more likely to have a higher income, and have higher chances of successful relationships with others.

10. Get some exercise

You will have increased energy, and physically active people will feel accomplishment in meeting their fitness goals.

Regular exercise helps improve sleep (think of little kids running around and then crashing at night), and research has shown that exercise mimics the effects of an antidepressant on the brain and can be as effective if done 3-5 times per week with none of the side effects.

Who doesn't want to look better and feel better?!?

The goal of pure lifelong happiness is unobtainable, and having this as a goal automatically sets you up for failure most of the time.

So instead of trying to will yourself to feel better by "choosing" happiness, set yourself up for happiness to become your reality. Hopefully, this advice will get you started on the right track.

Sonja Raciti, Psy.D., and Marc Raciti, PA-C are the authors of I Just Want To See Trees: A Journey Through P.T.S.D and the blog, HealingWounds

This article originally appeared on YourTango

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