WGN Morning News Blog

The great thing about January in Chicago is that you have a multitude of reasons to feel miserable: weather, post-holiday blues, and your credit-card bill should arrive any day now with a bulk of your debt for 2007. Happy New Year, indeed.

But there is some good news in there. People are getting serious about their happiness.

While psychologists have typically focused on the fact that you’re miserable because your mother didn’t give you enough creamed corn as a child, this new movement focuses on the positive.

According to U.S. News & World Report, psychologists used to believe that life satisfaction levels remained generally stable over time. But a recent study from the University of Illinois suggests that this "set point" can shift over the years. What’s more, there are ways to push your happy point further away from "mediocre" and closer to "elated."

"How to be happy" sounds like the subject of pop psychology books, but it’s gaining credibility at universities around the country. More than 200 colleges in the U.S. now offer classes, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, according to a story in the New York Times.

Dr. Martin Seligman, of the University of Pennsylvania, is a leading authority on the psychology of happiness. He’s developed exercises that he says work.

You can try the exercises at his Web site, www.reflectivehappiness.com, where you can work with virtual partners. He claims 92% increase in happiness if you do the exercise.

One might argue this is just New Age B.S. Seligman has said the difference is that he and his colleagues are coming up with hard data to support some advice and debunk others.

Here is one exercise that some experts advise: "Fake it until you make it."

In research at Wake Forest University, scientists asked students to act like extroverts for 15 minutes. The more assertive and energetic the students acted happier than they were. More extroverted individuals reported having a good day on the job, which made them happier at home.

Here’s my analogy for "fake it until you make it." It’s sort of like golf. You have to understand the fundamentals of the swing. At first, you’re thinking elbow in/arm straight--you feel stupid, but you do it. But with practice, the swing becomes instinctive.

Here’s another tactic. Some of the pioneers in this movement say their research shows that we should focus less on "stuff" and more on "giving back."

Cool cars and the latest fashions feel great at first, but they don’t have much staying power. We get accustomed to them. Perhaps that’s why we keep buying more stuff. It’s like the crash after the caffeine high.

The New York Times profiled one happiness class at George Mason University where students did something they loved and then performed an act of selflessness.

Sex, beer and The CW’s "Smackdown" all proved to be titillating, but students seemed surprised at how much more gratifying it was to give a waitress a big tip or volunteer at a shelter.

Conclusion? Doing good is good for you.

"Research shows that people are much happier if they feel they live in a harmonious world and are surrounded by people who are trusting," clinical social worker Ronda Bresnick Hauss told me, "this would imply that as a society, we have a lot more work to do."

-- Larry Potash