Happiness In the Present

Happiness in the Present:

Happiness in the present is what most people refer to when they say they want to be happy. It is a very different state compared to happiness in the past.

It consists of

Pleasures: The pleasures have clear sensory and strong emotional components. ecstasy, thrills, orgasm, delight, mirth, exuberance, comfort.  They are evanescent and involve little thinking.

Gratification: The gratifications are activities we may much like doing. They are not necessarily accompanied by raw feelings. They engage us fully and we become immersed and absorbed in them. They last longer than pleasures, involve a lot of thinking and they do not habituate easily.

Pleasures:

There are a 2 main groupings for the pleasures and these are described below.

Bodily Pleasures

Immediate, through the senses, momentary. Our sense organs are hooked to positive emotions.

It is difficult to build a life around bodily pleasures. They fade once the stimulus is gone. We become used to them quickly (habituation) thus requiring bigger doses to get the same effect.

Higher Pleasures

These like the bodily pleasures are momentary, habituate easily but are more complex in their external triggers.

There are fewer than 100 positive emotion words in both bodily and higher pleasures and they can be grouped according to their intensity.

• High Intensity: rapture,bliss, ecstacy thrill,hilarity, euphoria, elation, excitement.
• Moderate Intensity: ebullience, sparkle, vigor,glee, mirth, gladness, enthusiasm, attraction, fun
• Low Intensity: comfort, harmony, amusement, satiation, relaxation

Enhancing the Pleasures.

Concepts to help increase the momentary happiness in life.

Habituation: also known as adaptation

Rapidly repeated indulgence in the same pleasure does not work to maintain happiness. This is because our nervous system is built to adapt to novel situations. It is a fact of life, you cannot escape it. But you can work with it.

Use as many events that produce pleasure as you can, but spread them out. Let more time elapse than you normally do.

Try to find the optimal spacing.

Surprise keeps pleasures from habituating. Try to surprise yourself, or get others you live with or see frequently to surprise you with “presents” of the pleasures eg unexpected cup of coffee, note of affection etc. Do the same for them. This builds happiness currency over the long term as well.

Savouring: Is the awareness of pleasure and the deliberate attention to the experience of pleasure.

There are 4 types of savouring

• Basking (Receiving praise, Congratulations)
• Thanksgiving (Expressing Gratitude)
• Marveling (Losing oneself in the wonder of the moment)
• Luxuriating (indulging the senses)

There are 5 techniques for increasing savouring

• Sharing wth others

Seek others to share the experience

Tell others how you  enjoy and value the moment

(strongest predictor of level of pleasure)

• Memory building

Mental Photographs

Souveniers

Reminecsence with others later

• Self congratulation

Have pride in what you have done

Tell others

• Sharpening perceptions

Focus on certain elements, block out other elements

• Absorption

Get immersed, just sense, be Mindful, this occurs in a slow state of mind and can be found in forms of meditation

The Beautiful Day exercise

Put all the above into practice – have a beautiful day, set aside a day and indulge in your favourite pleasures.

Write down what you will do each hour using the techniques above.

Carry out the plan

The Gratifications

About enacting personal strengths, virtues and values and we will discuss this in further posts.