Real Simple Simplify Your Life

By Meredith Corporation

REAL SIMPLE Simplify Your Life will teach you how to master the little things in your life, make the most of your time, learn how to let go, and so much more. Over three chapters, titled "Essential Joy," "A Streamlined Space," and "Me Time Made Simple," you will learn that the smallest things will make you happy, 20 storage strategies to make life less stressful, and the single best advice for your heart, your bones, your immunity, your diet, and more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Meredith Corporation
• Release date: Aug 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781547859559

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

ESSENTIAL JOY

HAPPY IN SMALL WAYS / THE ART OF NO / REMOTE-LIFE ZEN

The Smallest Things Will Make You Happy

It’s the little moments that bring real joy, according to happiness researchers. From chatting up a stranger on the bus to gawking at clouds, here are easy ways to get your fill.

BY GINNY GRAVES

SURE, THE PURSUIT of happiness is guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence, but the Founders couldn’t promise that we’d know the right way to go about that pursuit. Those juicy rewards we think of as the happiness jackpot—a prestigious promotion, a new car, a winning lottery ticket? They make us happy temporarily, but the feeling doesn’t last as long as we’d expect, says Laurie Santos, PhD, a cognitive scientist and professor of psychology at Yale University.

Joy wanes naturally thanks to a phenomenon known as hedonic adaptation. That’s a fancy way of saying we get used to stuff, even great stuff, says Santos, whose popular happiness class at Yale has been adapted into a Coursera program called The Science of Well-Being. You buy a new house, and it’s cool for a little while, but then it becomes normal and it’s just your house.

More sustainable happiness lies not in those big exhilarating events but in the everyday moments that connect us to others, foster compassion and gratitude, and help us see ourselves as part of a larger whole. That feeling takes effort, says Jay Kumar, PhD, author of Science of a Happy Brain: Thriving in the Age of Anger, Anxiety and Addiction. Our brains aren’t wired to seek happiness, they’re wired to look for threats as a survival strategy, he explains. To overcome that built-in negativity bias, you have to actively register the good moments. And by doing so routinely, you can rewire your brain to be more upbeat overall.

Think of happy living as a daily practice—a scavenger hunt for "small j" joy. It’s something that you begin doing deliberately but becomes more automatic. Start with these eight science-proven ways to find joy in the most ordinary of days.

Greet a stranger in an elevator.

Or in a dog park. Or on the bus or train. Several years ago, researchers asked random people entering a busy coffee shop to do one of two things: have a friendly interaction with the barista or make the coffee-buying transaction as brief and efficient as possible. During interviews with participants as they left the shop, the researchers discovered that those who smiled, made eye contact, and had a brief interaction with the barista were in a better mood than people who sped through. Humans have a fundamental need to belong, to feel accepted and integrated into our communities—and having pleasant interactions with strangers fills that need, says Iris Lok, a doctoral candidate who worked on the study. If you intentionally avoid engaging with people you don’t know for fear a friendly foray might be rebuffed, there’s good news: Most people are more receptive than you’d think. In one study, researchers asked people taking public transit—not known as the friendliest setting—to strike up a conversation with a stranger, and nearly everyone responded positively, says Lok. Research shows that making eye contact and greeting strangers can bolster your sense of belonging and happiness—and give their mood a lift too.

Imagine you’ve lost something or someone you love.

You may be thinking, Wait, what? Stay with us. Negative visualization is an old-school happiness-boosting technique that dates back to the stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, says Santos, and modern science has validated its effectiveness. In one study, researchers found that people who wrote about the various ways in which a positive event might never have happened were happier afterward than those who wrote about how a positive event came to occur. In a similar study, folks who wrote about how they might never have met their romantic partner said they were more satisfied with their relationships after the exercise than those who wrote about how they met their partner. One reason negative visualization is uplifting: It fosters gratitude and appreciation for the good things in your life, and gratitude reliably promotes happiness. When you imagine you’ve lost things you value—your job, your spouse, your friends—it also helps you see that life is impermanent and recognize how fortunate you are for what you have in the moment, says Santos, who used the technique when she sprained her ankle last year and couldn’t walk for a few days. I started thinking about the time I broke my kneecap and was out of commission for six months, which made me appreciate what I could still do and lifted my mood, she says.

Knock off a menial task.

In a seminal study over a decade ago, researchers from Harvard Business School asked 238 employees at seven companies to respond to an end-of-day email survey for four months. After combing through nearly 12,000 diary entries, the research team made a revolutionary finding: When participants made progress on their work projects, they reported more positive emotions. Even small steps forward can help us feel great because progress bolsters self-efficacy—it gives us the sense that we can manage tasks, situations, and challenges that come our way, however momentous or trivial they might be, says Teresa Amabile, PhD, coauthor of the study and professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. You can put that idea into practice every day by setting small achievable goals, then recognizing and celebrating each accomplishment—even if the celebration is nothing more than a silent pat on your own back, says Amabile. Keep a checklist in Notes on your computer or smartphone, and mark off each thing as you do it. For a bigger benefit, connect with each task’s underlying meaning. If you love your dogs and value the joy they bring to your life, remind yourself of that fact when you’re feeding them, says Amabile. Just like that, a menial chore becomes meaningful, mood-lifting work.

If you love your dogs and value the joy they bring, remind yourself of that when you’re feeding them. Just like that, a menial chore becomes meaningful, mood-lifting work.

Daydream about having superpowers.

Sound silly? It’s estimated that we spend nearly half our waking lives allowing our minds to wander, and for the most part it makes us less happy, because we’re fretting about the future or chewing over something unpleasant from the past. (The title of a well-known study on the topic is A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind.) But new research published in the journal Emotion shows that if you think of a heartwarming memory or spin a playful fantasy, the act of getting lost in thought can bring you joy. It’s called thinking for pleasure. In a recent study, one group of subjects were instructed to write down eight things they’d enjoy thinking about when they had some free time—they were given prompts, like the memory of a first kiss, a vacation they were looking forward to, or imagining they have superpowers. A second group was told to think for pleasure but didn’t receive any examples of topics. And a third group was directed to spend their free moments planning what they’d be doing over the next 48 hours. When the researchers compared the groups’ results, they found that thinking for pleasure without examples was more enjoyable and meaningful than planning, but thinking for pleasure with examples was the most enjoyable and meaningful. So jot down some happy topics, such as funny things your cat does or cities you hope to visit one day, and when you need a lift, think of one of them. With a little practice, you can get better at enjoying your own thoughts, says Erin Westgate, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Florida and lead author of the study. There’s a profound pleasure to finding yourself deeply lost in thought. It can enrich the fabric of your everyday life.

Find little things that make you go, Wow.

You’ve probably heard that awe-inducing experiences have a slew of benefits. To review: Awe can decrease stress, make us kinder and more generous, increase compassion and altruism, and help us feel less strapped for time. It can also enhance well-being, according to University of California, Berkeley research. And you don’t have to see the northern lights or the pyramids of Giza to feel this jaw-dropping emotion. Everything from fluffy clouds to chirping birds can bring a