Focus: Are you happy?

Can you learn to be happy? With 13 million prescriptions a year written for new-generation anti-depressants in Britain, this is no longer a question just for philosophers. Neuroscientists, sociologists, economists and public policy experts are increasingly focusing on the nature of happiness, and how to increase it. Positive psychology, a new school at the cutting edge of the discipline, claims that not only can science identify the components of a happy life, but also that we can all "learn" how to be happier.

Earlier this year, in the biggest social experiment of its kind, six happiness experts from these various disciplines took on a daunting task: to make the people of the Berkshire town of Slough happier. They worked with 50 volunteers, attempting to raise their capacity for joy through a programme of experiments and community-based activities - everything from workplace counselling to meditation in a graveyard (awareness of death makes all of us keen not to waste life) and a smile campaign. The results will be screened next month on BBC2 in the series Making Slough Happy.

The volunteers were a mixed bag, including a DJ, a landscape designer and a teacher. Slough was chosen because it is such a multicultural community (and possibly because of Ricky Gervais's The Office). The volunteers' happiness levels ranged from people who had battled serious depression to those who considered themselves averagely happy. They worked to a manifesto of 12 points similar to the ones shown here, drawn up by the experts, who included the Radio 2 psychotherapist Brett Kahr and Dr Richard Stevens, former head of psychology at the Open University.

While there was some scepticism (Slough Council has reserved judgement throughout the project), the feedback from the volunteers has been very positive. According to musician Graeme Nash, "Everyone has immersed themselves in the project and taken something away, even if it's 49 new friends. Every morning I get up now and think, 'Start each day as if on purpose'."

Positive psychology - or the science of happiness - emerged in the US in the late 1990s. It turned the traditional discipline on its head by focusing on how people flourish rather than how they become depressed. In the past the goal was to bring patients from a negative state to a neutral normal. Positive psychologists believe they can increase our happiness by identifying and using many traits we already possess - kindness, originality, humour.

Underpinning all of this is a new consensus that our capacity for happiness is not dominated by our genetic inheritance and our experiences before the age of five. In fact, these factors contribute only around 50 per cent to our happiness potential. The rest is under our control. The brain can be "programmed" for a higher base level of happiness using techniques such as fast-forward thinking (where you screen "a film" of a negative event faster and faster in your mind until it dissolves) and cultivating "flow" activities. These are hobbies or skills where we completely forget about time and are most uniquely ourselves (as in "in the flow") - anything from cooking to rock climbing.

Very happy people, psychologists say, are more sociable and more agreeable than the average, but otherwise they are not particularly extraordinary. They are neither more beautiful nor more successful than the rest of us, and they do not appear to have more pleasurable life experiences. If you want to be like them you need to pinpoint exactly what makes you happy and incorporate more of it into your life.

And that doesn't mean asking for a pay rise. Once our basic material needs have been met, additional money and status have little effect on reported levels of happiness. (Researchers found virtually the same level of happiness between the very rich on the Forbes 400 list and Masai herdsmen. The reason for this is that the human brain becomes conditioned to positive experiences.) Nor do youth, education or a high IQ contribute to happiness. Illness doesn't exclude you from happiness: a US study found that more than 80 per cent of people who were paralysed in all four limbs considered their life to be above average in terms of happiness. They could enjoy their meals, their friends, watch the news. The factors that reflect most strongly in surveys, over and over again, are family, community and trust in fellow human beings.

If you want to be happy, get married. Smug marrieds enjoy better mental and physical health and live longer. If you're single, cultivate a "para-family" of friends, ex-lovers and colleagues. Have as much sex as possible, but be choosy. Psychologists have calculated that the optimum number of partners in a year is one. Having a child can bring joy, but it can also wreck a relationship. More important are friendship, fulfilling work (paid or unpaid) and pets.

Relationships are crucial, but they need to be intimate. Talking only about impersonal topics does not prevent loneliness. You need to let go and engage in high levels of self-disclosure. And be warm - people won't think it's odd or weird. Happy people are good communicators who use every available channel to convey their positive nature. Even touch is part of their armoury because it prompts chemical changes in the brain.

Giving is a clear road to happiness. The founding father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, has identified three distinct components of happiness: the pleasant life (a glass of wine), the good life (work, romance, hobbies) and the meaningful life (using personal strengths in the service of something larger than you, such as politics, religion or community action). All contribute to wellbeing but it is the meaningful life that is the key to long-term joy. Without it, sooner or later, you will look in the mirror and ask, "Is this all there is?"

Work on your mind. We assume our darkest thoughts are gospel truth, but pain, fear, boredom, embarrassment are merely different types of information stored in the brain. If you can learn to interpret this information differently - seeing that it is sometimes partial or biased - you can train yourself to "think" happier. Our reflexive habits - what we say to ourselves when something goes wrong - are usually distortions: bad habits of thought produced by unpleasant experiences in the past. Change them by thinking about what goes right on a daily basis. It could be anything from a great haircut to a compliment.

Dark thoughts are often overreactions. Is there a less destructive way to look at this? If, for example, someone rejects you, try saying, "He finds me annoying" (a specific explanation) rather than "I am annoying" (a universal explanation). Of course, reframing - learning to recognise and dispute pessimistic thoughts - takes practice. Research shows that it takes 21 days to create a new habit pathway in the brain, and a further 63 days to consolidate what you have learnt. It sounds corny, but the other mantra of positive psychology is to count your blessings. Make a deliberate attempt at least once a day to reflect on some of the good things in your life and your brain will become happier.

Stop comparing. In the West, what sociologists call "reference anxiety" has become a disease. We constantly compare what we have with others and find what we have wanting. Start looking at people who have less instead of more. Olympic bronze medallists have been shown to be happier than silver medallists - they have got into the top three rather than just missed the top slot.

Sometimes positive psychology sounds like the art of the blindingly obvious. Be nice to people and they'll be nice back. Count your blessings. But it works. The simple truth is people who care about others are happier than those who are more preoccupied with themselves. As Slough volunteer Graeme Nash observes, "There's one thing that's equal to all of us: and that's the amount of time we have available. We've got to make sure that 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour a day is spent on some sort of positive action, connecting with the community around us. You can't just sit back and wait for the knock on the door for happiness to walk in. You've got to go out and find it."

'How to Be Happy: Lessons from Making Slough Happy' by Liz Hoggard is published by BBC Books, £14.99, on 20 October

TEN STEPS TO HAPPINESS

Have sex. It makes us feel wanted and admired, also increases production of endorphins (natural opiates) by up to 200 per cent. Works with a partner or solo.

Switch off the TV. The average mood watching sitcoms is one of mild depression. Things that get you moving make you happier.

Eat carbohydrates. Research shows they increase levels of serotonin, which regulates your mood. Good-mood carbohydrates are found in pasta, oatcakes and fruit.

Spend an hour talking to your partner. Happy couples exchange emotional information hundreds of times a day. It might be a look, a gesture, a text.

Smile. It releases feel-good chemicals, and other people will be attracted to you.

Phone a friend. Think of friendship like a bank account in which you need to invest as well as borrow.

Savour life's joys. Take "mental photographs" of good moments to keep you going in more stressful times.

Walk a mile. Exercise produces a feeling of euphoria.

Choose a 'happy' profession. Hairdressing topped a recent survey. Next happiest were the clergy, chefs, beauticians, plumbers and mechanics.

Volunteer. Sing in a choir, start a community garden.

A C Grayling

Our idea of happiness is thin

Our modern idea of happiness is rather thin. For Aristotle, happiness meant well-doing and wellbeing, flourishing, satisfaction and achievement. It was a very rich notion. Today people think about winning the lottery and sitting on a beach all day. In the past, people thought of happiness as an epiphenomenon added on to something you were engaged in, like leading an honourable life. It's the thing that happens while you're busy doing something else, like raising children.

A C Grayling is professor of philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London. His latest book is 'Descartes - The Life of René Descartes and Its Place in His Times', published by Free Press

Saira Khan

People want to feel they belong

People crave recognition and responsibility, not money. They want someone to say "Well done", to feel they belong to a community, and I don't think many corporations understand that. People email each other two desks down because they're too scared to talk to each other. Having confidence, knowing where I'm going in life - they make me happy. Faith is important. The Muslim community isn't particularly homogenous, but when you go to a place of worship, you know you're sitting next to someone who shares the same belief.

Saira Khan was runner-up in the BBC2 series 'The Apprentice'. She is writing a self-help book, 'Push for Success'

Nigel Planer

It comes from achievement

This morning I was happy because I was at home and up early, and for an hour while there was silence in the house I got on with a rather complicated book about Plutarch. To disappear into something - that is good. I think that happiness has something to do with feeling in control. Self-esteem is important, but that can only come from having achieved something. The mistake we've made in the West is trying to have self-esteem without the achievement. This idea that there are no winners or losers - the end of competitive sport, for example - means nobody ends up with any self-esteem.

Nigel Planer is a comedian, author and playwright

Justin Cartwright

A sense of rightness in yourself

The "pursuit of happiness" is enshrined in the US constitution. But pursuit in those days meant "following" the path of happiness, not making it the object of life. Americans have come to think they have a right to be happy, and that someone else should help them. There is still a lingering feeling in Europe that happiness is associated with evil - that you will have to pay for it - but we are becoming more like the Americans. I think happiness is a sense of rightness in yourself - that you are doing what you should be doing. Obeying your conscience. You can't defer happiness.

Justin Cartwright is a novelist. His latest book is 'The Promise of Happiness'

Virginia Ironside

Being relaxed is important

Happiness is never something you are going to have permanently. You glimpse it out of the corner of your eye while you are doing something else, usually something nice for somebody. Being relaxed is important - I don't think it is possible to be happy and tense. Accept who you are and that you're just as horrid and nice as other people. And try to live in the present - one of the most difficult things known to man, but I think that is happiness. I'm not happy very often and I'm very aware of it when I am. It is not something extraordinary or blissful, simply a feeling of "I am here and I am me".

Virginia Ironside is an agony aunt and author

Lionel Blue

People who can give are happy

I think of the medieval theologian Peter Abelard's definition: heaven is when you get what you've always longed for and, when you've got it, it will be as nice as when you still wanted it. When I visit hospitals, the people who can give are happy. If you look into the world with hate, then the world will be hateful, but if you look into it with a reasonable amount of trust, people will justify your trust. Most religions try to answer why people should be good. And what most people really want is the answer to "how can I be happy?". The two questions end up by being the same.

Rabbi Lionel Blue is a writer and broadcaster

TAKE OUR HAPPINESS TEST

How healthy is your life balance?

1. Money is the most important thing in my life. More specifically getting it, keeping it and not letting any of my so-called friends get their grubby little hands on it.

Agree (a) Disagree (b)

2. I feel valued at work. My colleagues welcome my pithy contributions to water-cooler debates, and my boss thinks I am a genius. And I hardly ever get asked to do the tea run.

Agree (b) Disagree (a)

3. My life seems stuck in a rut. I am bored, stupefied, fed up and jaded. If there were a prescription for ennui I would be on 10 a day.

Agree (a) Disagree (b)

4. My friends never disappoint me. They also think I am pretty cool. They are smart people.

Agree (b) Disagree (a)

5. Nobody knows the real me. Kurt Cobain did. But then he died.

Agree (a) Disagree (b)

6. I dread Mondays so much my mood sinks by teatime on Sunday night. The Antiques Roadshow has acquired Ibsenesque qualities of gloom.

Agree (a) Disagree (b)

7. I often find myself doing things that totally absorb me. Sometimes I find myself so involved in my napkin collection that I clean forget to eat.

Agree (b) Disagree (a)

8. I argue with my partner but I respect his or her point of view. WE like philately, baking bread together and long walks by the sea.

Agree (b) Disagree (a)

9. Things usually work out for me the way I want. This is because I deserve it, of course.

Agree (b) Disagree (a)

10. I have the capacity to change my life. On the other hand, why would I?

Agree (b) Disagree (a)

Mostly As

You keep trying to change the external conditions of life - new car, new house - but find nothing works. Remember that in experiments, people who feign high self-esteem begin feeling better about themselves. Try to put greater intimacy into your friendships: you may think nobody understands but people actually enjoy sharing confidences. After all, it worked for Morrissey, didn't it?

Mostly Bs

Congratulations, you have a healthy life balance - but then you knew that. You invest energy in friends and family rather than status and fill your time with pleasing activities. Optimistic people often think they are more powerful than they really are, which is no bad thing. You're probably a fun person to be around. Just not for the poor buggers who answered mostly As.

Katy Guest