In Libby Seery's Science of Happiness course, she helps us apply many practical exercises that will help us measure and enrich our happiness. This includes many practical acts that will help bring happiness into our lives like hugging, random acts on kindness, showing gratitude, following a plan in a thoughtful and achievable manner, as well as others like the HAPPY POWER points to achieving happiness. Below is a more detailed summery of Libby's course. Thank you Libby for putting such a life enriching course together! :-) -Aaron

The first exercise is the happiness true and false quiz. This is a downloadable resource found as a link located in the second lecture. After we complete the happiness quiz, Libby helps us rate our happiness, tells us what different happiness ratings reflect on our actual lives. Libby stresses that it is important to take the happiness quiz on an ongoing basis, about once a month, to see if our happiness level has changed. She also encourages getting involved with the online learners of this course for support in the process of achieving and maintaining happiness.

The next lecture talks about hugs as a way to support our happiness. Scientific research has indicated that a good hug will release a hormone known as “the love drug.” This hormone stimulates and sharpens the senses, strengthens our connection with the other person, has a calming effect on the nervous system, boosts positive emotions like happiness, releases endorphins and serotonin into the blood vessels causing pleasure while reducing pain and sadness, reduces stress, improves sleep, and benefits from an increased sense of belonging and self worth. A good hug lasts at least 20 seconds.

Libby goes in depth into the science of hugging comparing its effects to that of meditation and laughter for treating disease, anxiety, stress, lift depression, and loneliness. Hugging like laughter and meditation encourages us to let go and be in the present. When hugging we disconnect from circular patterns of thought and connect to emotions and the breathe. Endorphins and serotonin are released into the blood vessel which help us to feel great, muscles relax which lets go of tension in the body, and leaves us feeling calm. Blood pressure is also lowered and the risk of heart problems are reduced. Romantically holding hands and cuddling pets are similarly beneficial. The deeper the hug and with greater connection to the person that we are hugging has additional benefits like strengthening the immune system. Hugging encourages trust, safety, empathy for others, helps communication, and builds self esteem.

Hugs-2-Happiness is a campaign that Libby and her colleagues at Renaissances Self Betterment launch to bring about awareness of the positive benefits of hugging and to combat Seasonal Affective Disorder. One of her colleagues stood in public areas dressed up in a bear costume with a sign that read “I give good hugs.” This bear could be seen either hugging or standing with this sign. The campaign was a success and had several other occurrences in different parts of the UK.

As part of the research for this course Libby asked people to share who they love hugging the most and why. We can contribute to the Hugs 2 Happiness global campaign by sharing our own hugging moments. The handout on the 7th lecture gives us details on how we are able to do so. There is a video of Chloe from the Philippines expressing this very thing. And after the video we can find a document that has a selection of others response to the hugging campaign.

There are some suggested activities for boosting your happiness including mindfulness activities, benevolent acts, 3 positive things exercise, letter of appreciation, utilizing your talents, and looking for the best in others. Libby recommends practicing a mindfulness activity like meditation for at least 10 minutes a day for seven consecutive days in order to start gaining the life enriching benefits like greater awareness of real events, lowered stress levels, etc.

Libby suggests being grateful about being positive or witnessing positive things to boost one's happiness. Keeping a journal for several days where we record a list of three positive things and why we felt grateful for them. She has a downloadable resource in this lecture.

The next exercise, sometimes called the bulls-eye, will help us identify our values. This will help us interact with the word and follow our values in a clearer more consistent way. Libby recommends doing this exercise every four to six weeks, and we can find a resource for it as a pdf as a download for this lecture.

Another suggestion is doing benevolent acts for at least seven consecutive days to seven different individuals. These acts are contagious, meaning that the good feelings you impart from your act will make someone more likely to want to do a benevolent at for someone that they come across. These acts can be big or small like giving up your seat for someone or buying a meal for a homeless person. There is a list in the downloadable resources of the benevolent acts lecture if you would like suggestions. She also suggests keeping a benevolent acts journal. Libby shares a number of acts of kindness that she herself has done, and provides guidelines for sharing your own random acts of kindness in the downloadable resources for the random acts of kindness lecture. Some of the acts of kindness she share are:

1) leaving money in a library book,

2) providing seagulls with a meal,

3) offer some extra change for those that may be short on money for the parking meter,

4) leaving lottery tickets in a telephone booth and at a bus stop,

5) leaving doggy care products in the park,

6) leaving together some small gifts for children,

7) offering a banana and water to hikers, and

8) giving away some Christmas crackers.

Scientific studies have shown that happiness comes from how much gratitude that we show. Libby proposes an experiment to see if this is in fact the case. Each part must be done in sequence to get as true result as possible. The first step is to rate your happiness from 1-20. Write that rating on a piece of paper then turn it over. Write the name of the person in your life that has had the most impact and influence on you on another piece of paper and turn this page over as well (do this in 25 seconds). Second, you will complete gratitude experiment resource part two page one (turn this page over) and two in the downloadable resources for this lesson (complete within 7.5 minutes and then turn this page over). This includes information about the person who has inspired you the most. Part three is to give that person a call and let them know about the study that you are taking part in and what you have written on the pages that you turned over. After this experiment is done re-rate your happiness level. Scientific evidence shows that happiness levels raise from anywhere between 2-19 percent, and those that are particularly unhappy have the greatest increases from this gratitude experiment. Libby asks us to only take a brief time in choosing and writing about the person we have chosen so that the feelings of gratitude and thanks are as authentic as possible.

Scientific studies also show that utilizing our strengths and talents in new ways helps to boost our happiness. In lecture 42, Libby talks about an approach that will aid us in doing this. First we will identify these strengths and talents. Then we will explore how often we use these. There is another downloadable template provided to help this exploration. Then we will go through the list we have made to try and see how reliable our view on what our strengths and talents are. After this we will try to apply them to our daily lives for seven days consecutively. Lecture 43 concerns taking time to appreciate our partner or friend through a process of journaling, mindful awareness of how spending time with them is enjoyable for us, and reflecting this research in acts and words of appreciation. Once we get the hang of that, we can bring what we have learned into improving our other relationships. Lecture 44 is about knowing ourselves better, our likes and dislikes, so we might have a better relationship with ourselves and appreciate ourselves similarly to how we were learning how to appreciate ours in the previous lecture.

The next section contains more people sharing their hugs to happiness stories, including Steve from Connecticut USA, Mondie from Mumbai Africa, Anna from Ireland, April and Steve from San Diego California, and Monika from Indonesia.

The science of smiling, lecture 51, talks about how over 30 years of research proves that smiling not only makes us happier but those around us as well. Libby tells us about the happy hormone serotonin, and how smiling authentically or not will still benefit us by giving us pleasure. It has to do with the tightening of the Zygonaticus major muscle, which results in the flow of blood to the brain being altered and a sensation of pleasure. The next lecture talks about giving and receiving a smile, and how we can overcome any trepidation that we might experience in this exchange. By sharing this connection with someone, Libby herself attested to feeling more alive. Lecture 53, is about the Oxford happiness questionnaire, which is included as a download with this lecture. We are also reminded that this will be most helpful if it is something that we do regularly. Studies have show that self improvement practices are most effective if done regularly because our attention will be draw to ways to improve ourselves on a regular basis in our every day to day.

The next section is about goal setting. If we are to find a way to arrive at whatever happiness is for us it is important to have a goal to achieve this. It is important to make our goals achievable but something that would inspire passion. Libby follows the model, Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time Based or SMART goals to aid us in achieving our goals to happiness. Specific has to do with choosing a goal that is important to who you are, and what you want to achieve. A helpful exercise is to think of what you would like to do if you were going to die in three months, if you had wishes from a genie, or if you had all the money in the world to do what you would like. It is helpful to develop your goals in a broad way at first such a health, relationships, finances, etc. then develop sub goals that will be stepping stones to these larger goals. Even more specific to time based goals that will lead us to these steps are intermediate goals. Intermediate goals will be written down, and will be achieved in a certain number of weeks, months, or years according to your circumstances and what the goals pertain. It is important to make out goals achievable for us, and not something that is someone else's goal. If confidence is a problem, we can make our goals simpler and more achievable until our confidence builds to the point where we can start to work on larger goals.

Next, we hear about some helpful sets in achieving our goals. One, set up smaller goals to see your progress to the larger goals. Two, goals need to be challenging, but also achievable. Otherwise we might not feel that we can meet the challenge. Three, set yourself along a realistic yet inspired path of objectives that suit your abilities right now while gradually pushing them further to new levels and goals that had seemed somewhat impossible before. Four, replace negative self talk with positive. For example, replace “I don't want to be so shy” with “I want to be more confident.” Five, replace the tense in your statements “will” with “am” in order to help reprogram your subconscious, and have yourself working toward your goals in the present instead of dreaming about them. Six, make specific goals. For example, If you want a better job, what kind of job is it. Seven, involve all your senses in imagining what it is like to achieve your goal. Eight, always write your goals down in order to firmly fix them in place. Nine, all goals should be time based, all actions and steps to achieving that goal. This helps you to stay focused, motivated, and able to track your progress. Ten, make your goals measurable. What is the evidence that shows you have achieved your goal. Eleven, sharing what you are doing with others helps you celebrate your progress as well as have a way to stay accountable. Twelve, review your goal as much as possible in order to reassess what the best next steps are to achieving it. Thirteen, maintain a good life balance. Set goals in all life areas in order to ensure that you are the happiest in all areas of your life.

The next section contains more people sharing their hugs to happiness stories, including Carson from Minnesota USA, Arkesh from Deli India, Zhanna from Baku in Romania, Fia and Lugano India, and Christy from Charlotte North Carolina USA.

In lecture 64, Libby reviews the 10 principles of Happiness, which are based on the latest scientific findings. While each of our paths in life are unique, we do share these qualities in our happiness journeys. HAPPY POWER. The first part of the acronym HAPPY (Helping, Associating, Physical, Perception, and Yearn to learn) expresses the first five, and are concerned with how we interact with the outside world. Next, POWER (Planning, Optimism, Well-being, Embrace, and Reason) relates to our attitude towards life, which come from within.

1) Helping others makes the world a better place, but it also helps us find happiness within ourselves. If it is difficult for you to help others, you might try listening to them and their needs. The first question to ask is: can my expertise help fill this person's need? The second question is: can someone else be more helpful in this situation? Selfish motivations such as status or favors is unlikely to give good results in the long run.

2) Associating refers to the benefits of positive social interaction. Studies have shown that having friends and family that are of a high quality relationship will help one have a healthy mental and physical being. Reflecting on our behavior in being selfless as well as the others that we are associating with will depend on the quality of our relationships. Helping others is a great way to find a high quality relationship.

3) Physical refers to how a healthy physical body is connected to a healthy mind, which will lead us to happiness. A positive attitude, good eating habits, and a good amount of physical activity each day are the two main factors in our physical well being.

4) Perception is about how we see reality. Perhaps we are trapped in memories of the past whether enjoyable or not. We could also worry about the future. Both of these perceptions have a damaging effect on our understanding of the present. We can only find true happiness in the present and the way to live in the present is through living mindfully. There are many practices in mindfulness such as meditation, yoga, mindful awareness and observation, etc.

5) Yearn to learn concerns life long learning and adapting to life's circumstances. In fact, our brains are made healthier by this process, and happiness is experienced through exercising ourselves in this way because we are designed to do this. This can be formal or through self teaching and study in whatever way that works best for us. Thinking and growing is the important activity here.

6) Planning directs us toward goals that will save us from the energy draining effects of aimlessness. Research shows that intrinsic goals like making a good friendship are more effective toward finding happiness than extrinsic goals like getting a new car. In fact, it is been found that extrinsic goals like buying a house are formed around intrinsic goals like having a feeling of peace and security. A big goal like a college degree should be broken down into smaller stepping stone goals like how to pay for tuition, transportation, and study habits.

7) Optimism is important to direct your emotions toward the positive, and intern good things like health, interpersonal exchanges, good solutions, to be trusted with material goods, etc. Changing our thinking patterns toward optimism over time is possible with bringing things into our lives that make us happier like exercise for health, positive thinking, surrounding yourself with positive sources of information from media, rewards for meeting goals, etc.

8) Well-being means being well with positive thinking and emotions. This requires us to teach ourselves that all is right with the world and everything will work out OK. Negative thoughts are natural, but it is our decision whether to only see a negative point of view. Likewise, it is possible to decide on a positive point of view. Deciding one or the other has to do with the thoughts, actions, words, company, etc. that we decide to keep. We can set ourselves up to make positive decisions on a regular basis if the for mentioned reflects the positive.

9) Embracing self concerns our self awareness, and more particularly or self judgment. We can either love ourselves or not. A key to happiness has everything to do with our ability to love the entire package of who we are perceived positive and negative. Once we have accepted everything then we can start reminding ourselves of our positive qualities, breaking the illusion of negative states of mind, becoming naturally positive over time through the above mention points like planning, optimism, etc.

10) Reason or meaning is something that guides us through life. When we have little meaning to our life it becomes terribly difficult to even get out of bed in the morning. However, a strong reason to live can help us live fully through the best and worst times. Finding meaning can be something we come to through asking the question “What is important to me?” “What would I do with all the money I would ever need?” “What would I do if I had only a little longer to live?” In lecture 77, Libby also includes a “You're Awesome 5” which tells us how reason and uniqueness is built right into every fiber of our being. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐