Psychological Nutrition: 16 Tips For Greater Happiness & Life Satisfaction (Part 1)
"The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests."
— Epictetus
In the long run, hitting the lottery won’t make you happier (in fact, 50% of people feel worse after just 3 years), moving to the perfect climate won’t guarantee perpetual bliss, and the high from that promotion will be gone in no time. So what will bring happiness?
As unsexy as it sounds, true and lasting happiness comes from cultivating "psychological nutrition"—essential habits and knowledge that nourish your mental well-being. Happiness is not a destination; it's a direction. Instead of striving to attain happiness, we should focus on enhancing our overall sense of "happierness" and embrace the journey along the way.
Welcome to part one of a two-part series aimed at redefining what it means to live a satisfied life. In this series, we'll debunk common happiness myths, explore the psychology behind evolutionary practices that influence our well-being, and delve into practical strategies for establishing psychological nutrition hacks and habits. Join me as we uncover the keys to improved life satisfaction and lasting happiness.
How to Improve Life Satisfaction
1. Redefine a “Happy Life”
To know if you’re living a happy life, you must first know what one is. If you were to ask anyone on the street, they would describe it as avoiding sadness, pursuing fleeting pleasures, or achieving wealth, power, or fame. This sounds great but this is not a recipe for a happy life. Instead, we look to Aristotle to help us identify a good life.
Aristotle offered a deeper concept: Eudaimonia. Eudaimonia goes beyond temporary happiness. It's about living a life that fulfills your potential through reason and virtue, using your skills for meaningful pursuits, and ultimately achieving a sense of well-being and flourishing.
Eudaimonia suggests that true happiness arises from a life lived in accordance with one's highest potential and values, rather than fleeting moments of pleasure.
Beyond superficial happiness, a truly happy life involves cultivating virtues such as courage, wisdom, justice, and compassion. These virtues guide ethical decision-making, promote personal growth, and contribute to a sense of inner harmony and integrity. While they’re not sexy or marketable, it’s these virtues that separate the superhuman figures in history like Jesus, MLK, and Gandhi from the subhuman. While we may never be remembered as the world's savior, living virtuously allows us to be better versions of ourselves and navigate life's storms with resilience and grace.
Continuously reflecting on Aristotle’s thoughts on happiness is important as we move through life because it’s not something that I would have truly understood as a kid or young adult. It requires reflection and a lot of experience to know that the things we may think we want are not the things that are going to align with a regret-free deathbed kind of moment.
Do this: Redefine your concept of success to focus on living a meaningful and virtuous life, you can align your goals with true happiness (Eudaimonia).
2. Own Your Phone, Don’t Let It Own You
Smartphones play a dual role: they promise connectivity and convenience but research shows that they contribute to more anxiety, depression, and loneliness as well as decreased happiness and satisfaction with life. Research suggests that this constant connection is harming our mental health in a variety of ways:
Social Comparison: Social media feeds are curated highlight reels, showcasing the best moments of other people's lives. This can trigger social comparison theory, leading to feelings of inadequacy and dissatisfaction with our own lives, fueling anxiety and depression.
Negative Reinforcement Cycle: The constant barrage of notifications and quick hits of dopamine from social media, news, and games creates a variable reward schedule. This unpredictable reinforcement cycle keeps us checking our phones for that next dopamine hit, fostering compulsive checking behaviors.
Attention Fragmentation and Technostress: The average person gets 146 notifications a day. The constant stream of dings and notifications disrupts our ability to be present in the moment, hindering our focus and working memory. This information overload can also lead to “technostress,” a feeling of anxiety and frustration associated with technology use.
Sleep Deprivation: Incredibly, the average person is now on their phone more than they’re asleep. Screens can create a vicious cycle where the blue light emitted and the stimulating content on our phones disrupts sleep patterns and then when we wake up we grab our phone because we can’t fall asleep.
Do this: The answer starts with using your phone less. Remove tempting apps, prioritize real-life interactions, silence notifications, unsubscribe from emails, avoid blue light at least an hour before bed (ideally 3), and keep it in another room while you sleep. Also, if you need to use your phone in front of someone else who is talking to you, then walk away and tell them why. Give the person 100% of your attention or 0% but never 60%.
3. Recognize the Value of Boredom
Today, boredom is seen as an unwelcome enemy, something to be eradicated with a constant stream of stimulation.
Evolutionarily, boredom served a crucial purpose. If our hunter-gatherer ancestors were too content for too long it meant stagnation and death. Boredom, on the other hand, drove them to explore new territories, seek novel food sources, and develop innovative tools—all behaviors that enhanced survival and adaptation.
Today, I’d argue that the average person doesn’t get bored. When we even come close to a sensation of boredom we whip out our phone, turn on a TV, or in many cases, do both. Even in the rare moments where we’re forced to wait for something, like the checkout line, we whip out our phone which helps explain why checkout line gum sales have dropped 32%.
While uncomfortable, however, boredom is a catalyst for creativity, self-reflection, and personal growth. When we allow ourselves to step away from constant stimulation and distractions, we create space for introspection and the discovery of new interests or insights.
Psychological research supports the notion that moments of boredom stimulate brain regions associated with daydreaming and problem-solving. This mental wandering not only enhances creativity but also allows us to process emotions and gain clarity on personal goals. Befriending boredom involves cultivating a mindset that values quiet reflection and the exploration of inner thoughts without the need for external validation or stimulation.
I’m not waving a sign saying that I’m a boredom tolerance pro as I’m always ready to put on a podcast or audiobook when I have free time, however, I’ve also become friendly with boredom tolerance. I’ve reframed my relationship with it, recognizing the benefits, and I now make a point to practice it regularly. Here are some of the strategies I use.
Do this:
Turn off the audio in the car for stretches of time
Identify the most boring moments and challenge yourself to embrace them. I make a point to have a conversation with the checkout person and not be on my phone for that time.
Practice meditation and/or breathwork
Keep your phone in another room or out of reach when not in use, put it away as soon as you walk in the door, and store it in a different room while you sleep.
Recognize those above-average moments and stay in them, soaking them up, for a bit longer. For me, the things that usually evoke this are acoustic music, sunsets, nature, and many moments with my kids.
4. Become Other-Oriented
When you look at the happiest people, you find that they are other-oriented. Research consistently shows that those who prioritize acts of kindness, empathy, and altruism experience greater levels of life satisfaction and emotional well-being. Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."
Do this: You can do this through donating your money or volunteering but you can also embrace it by just being more social. At the most basic level, sending a thoughtful text, grabbing coffee with someone, spending more time with family, and smiling at strangers have all been shown to improve happiness. Take it a step further and learn to be a better listener and ask better questions that go beyond the superficial, invest in your relationships, or even consider a career shift.
5. Live Aligned With Your Core Values
Those who live a life aligned with their core values tend to be significantly more happy and fulfilled than those who live a life that is not aligned. Researchers looking at the link between life satisfaction and core values found,
“…that respondents prioritizing religion (i.e., spirituality) were the most likely to be happy, followed by those prioritizing social relationships, including family, friends, and neighbors. Those who prioritized extrinsic achievements (money, power, educational attainment, work, and leisure) as well as health were least likely to be happy.”
Whether it's integrity, creativity, compassion, or personal growth, living in accordance with your values provides a sense of purpose and authenticity. Pursuing your core values fosters deeper satisfaction and alignment in life, whereas neglecting them can lead to a sense of emptiness and frustration. This might look like someone who values creativity feeling stifled in a monotonous job, or a person who values compassion but is stuck in a career that feels disconnected from helping others.
Do this: Begin by reflecting on what truly matters to you. Identify values that resonate deeply and guide your decisions, relationships, and pursuits in life. Not sure exactly what your values are? Take this free quiz. My top five were health, discipline, peace, financial stability, and growth.
5. Optimize for Time Affluence
In our modern world, a new form of wealth is emerging: time affluence. Just as financial wealth allows us choices and freedom, time affluence grants us the precious commodity of time—the ability to control how we spend our days. Research has shown that those who feel they have ample time on a daily basis experience greater happiness, lower stress levels, and more engagement in meaningful activities.
The classic example of this is the child who is being shuttled from activity to activity after school and has no time for play. When their calendar is jam-packed with structured extracurriculars the hedonic adaptation kicks in, the enjoyment decreases, and the intrinsic awesomeness of it decreases, only to be replaced by extrinsic validators.
On the contrary, the child with time affluence has options and opportunities for play, rest, socialization, and spontaneity with the benefit of intrinsic motivation and joy. You know, being a kid.
This extends to the adult who spends most of their time working and and use the remaining time on daily tasks, leaving no opportunity to engage in activities they truly enjoy. As the author Stephanie Land puts it, "Time isn't money; it's more valuable than money. You can't earn more time."
This “time poverty” extends to about 48% of Americans who say that they don’t have enough time to do what they want to do, according to a Gallup poll. Being “time rich” means having the opportunity to actually do the activities for the sheer pleasure of them, leading to a more fulfilling life.
Do this: Finding time affluence requires intentionality. Start simple by food shopping, batch cooking, setting up automatic bill paying, watching less TV, and saying no to things that don’t get you excited. If you can afford it, pay for services you don’t like doing that take up your time like lawn care, house cleaning, or hiring a virtual assistant. As importantly, don’t use that extra time to scroll your Instagram reels. Plan ahead to do something you actually want to do.
6. Embrace Imperfections
Brené Brown, author of Atlas of the Heart, writes,
“Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame.”
Perfectionism is divided into three different boxes:
Self-Oriented Perfectionism: Setting extremely high personal standards, leading to self-criticism and stress if these standards aren't met. Those with this perfectionism are conscientious, meticulous, and self-critical.
Other-Oriented Perfectionism: Expecting perfection from others, often leading to strained relationships due to being overly critical and demanding. This is often seen in parents with their kids (sports, school, etc.) or the jerk boss scenario. This type of perfectionism can create significant interpersonal tension and conflict.
Socially Prescribed Perfectionism: Perceiving that others expect perfection, which leads to feeling immense societal pressure and fear of judgment. One review described it as “a chronic source of pressure that elicits feelings of helplessness and hopelessness at extreme levels.” This dimension of perfectionism is becoming more common in the age of social media where you have to take 20 pictures, edit the best one, and post it as a way to indicate your value. It makes you feel like your worth depends on things that don’t really define you. This can cause constant stress and a pervasive sense of inadequacy as they strive to meet the perceived expectations of society, family, or peers.
Between 1989 and 2016, there was a notable increase in all three subtypes of perfectionism: self-oriented perfectionism rose by 10%, socially prescribed perfectionism surged by 33%, and other-oriented perfectionism increased by 16%. This is startling, especially because perfectionism goes beyond being unhappy. It is linked to anxiety, depression, social phobia, eating disorders, and suicide.
Do this: Here are strategies to combat the negative effects of perfectionism.
Seek support: Perfectionism is difficult to overcome as it’s typically a cultural or long-instilled belief that is a part of your identity. Any single approach to resolving it may prove futile. I recommend reaching out for professional help and undergoing a type of therapy such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) if you, or others, find your perfectionism to be severe or you find yourself suffering from the symptoms of this personality trait.
Practice self-compassion: Accept that mistakes and setbacks are a natural part of the human experience.
Use cognitive reframing: Teach your mind to view mistakes and failures not as setbacks, but as valuable opportunities for learning and growth. This reappraisal strategy emphasizes that errors are critical to developing resilience and gaining new insights.
Set realistic goals: Aim for progress, not perfection, and celebrate small achievements.
Challenge negative thoughts: Replace self-critical thoughts with positive affirmations.
Limit social media use: Read The Anxious Generation as you take three weeks to uninstall your apps and step away from all social media, noting how you feel after that time period.
7. Navigate the Happiness U-Curve
The U-curve of happiness is now a well-accepted notion that life satisfaction correlates with age. This phenomenon which occurs in nearly all countries, finds that our happiness peaks at two points in our lives, around 23 and 69 years old, and dips to its lowest point around 48 years old before slowly coming up, creating a chart that smiles back at you, almost saying “it’ll get better.”
Scientists aren't sure exactly why this happens but they theorize that it's influenced by a combination of internal and external factors. During early adulthood, the pursuit of career goals, establishing relationships, and personal achievements often contribute to optimism and fulfillment. Psychologists like Laura Carstensen, who studies the psychology of aging, suggest this is because younger adults tend to have a more expansive "future time perspective," feeling like they have a lot of life ahead of them to achieve their goals.
As these adults navigate midlife, however, they often encounter challenges such as career stagnation, family responsibilities, or existential questioning, which can impact happiness levels. This dip in the U-curve might be due to a dawning realization that time is finite, and we may not achieve everything we set out to do. Things like reduced stress, emotional maturity, and job security may help us come out of this hole and toward greater life satisfaction.
Whether or not your happiness follows this trajectory, it’s important to remember that life satisfaction is not linear and can fluctuate significantly. If we zoomed in on the happiness curve, we would see considerable variations from year to year, month to month, and even minute to minute.
Do this: Use this knowledge as a source of empowerment, recognizing that fluctuations are a natural part of life. Practice radical acceptance, embrace the winding journey, and seek meaning and fulfillment in each stage of life.
8. Find Joy in Experience Over Material Possessions
Influencers, commercials, and the allure of your friend's latest Amazon purchase prime our brains to pursue material possessions as a means of enhancing our lives and boosting happiness. This phenomenon, known as the "materialism mindset," leverages the psychology of consumerism to foster the belief that getting and having more stuff equates to more happiness. The anticipation of purchasing new things triggers dopamine release, creating a temporary sense of euphoria, however, this feeling is short-lived as our happiness wanes, leaving us yearning for the next quick hit—a process known as hedonic adaptation.
Do this: To curb this roller coaster, seek out experiences over material possessions. Experiences as small as a new haircut and taking a new route home from work or as big as travel or concerts create lasting memories and enrich our lives more than buying material goods. Research has found that people consistently report greater happiness from spending money on experiences rather than on material items, reinforcing the concept of "experiential advantage."
And that comes with an added happiness bonus. Experiences are novel and stand out in our minds, allowing us to reflect on them later, giving us additional spikes of happiness. Try this now: think about an awesome experience from your past, like a vacation, a great night with friends, or that memorable date night. Now, compare that to the clothes, vacuum, or face serum you bought that gave you a brief happiness boost. Feel that contrast for a moment. and note which led to a richer and more fulfilling life.
This article was reviewed by Courtney Comly, PsyD.
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