Boost Your Happiness

2012-11-26T15:25:00.000-08:00

A little uplifting motivational video I just made:

2012-09-26T10:14:00.002-07:00

Earlier I gave visual representation of how I see the complex web of happiness.
To analyse this complexity we need an equally complex tool, artificial neural networks.
I am sure you'll appreciate from the picture below the similarities between the web of happiness and the neural network.
Just imagine all the input cells on the left to be located on a circle and the output cell on the right in the middle, with all the connections and nodes in the middle as the additional threads and strings. The neural network would like like a spider web too!

2012-09-22T21:44:00.001-07:00

For fun I analysed the first 450 completed surveys for gender differences.
And let me start by putting your mind at ease, self-assessed happiness itself is not different between men and women.
Each of the following things are significantly different between men and women.
Strongest difference is ranked at the top.

How often you dance. ***** ♀>♂
Time spent on hobbies. ***** ♂>♀
Involvement in own food preparation: ***** ♀>♂
Quality of sex life. ***** ♀>♂
Love received from partner. ***** ♀>♂
Engagement in community. **** ♀>♂
Books read per year. **** ♀>♂
How grateful you feel. ** ♀>♂
How relaxed you feel. ** ♂>♀
Level of education. ** ♀>♂
Responsibility for family. ** ♀>♂
Trust in partner. ** ♀>♂
Hours of sleep. ** ♀>♂
Dietary supplements. ** ♀>♂
Kindness received. ** ♀>♂
Usefulness highest education. * ♀>♂
Level of risk. * ♀>♂
Time spent with parnter. * ♀>♂
Chronic pain. * ♀>♂
Spare time. * ♀>♂
Time spent volunteering. * ♀>♂

Happiness is the spread on the bread of life.

2012-09-22T20:45:00.001-07:00

Web of happiness

2012-09-22T09:29:00.002-07:00

This is how I see the the web of happiness. Some of the radial strings are the main components of happiness. The rest of the thread connect all the main components of happiness. We set out to understand exactly how everything in this web is connected.
Imagine that you pull on one of the nodes and let it go. The web will start vibrating, right? That'll be felt in the whole web, a metaphor for your overall happiness.
So, after our project will clarify all the connections. After we know the structure of the web, we'll use that knowledge to predict how your personal happiness will be affected by modifying whatever can influence your happiness, the nodes.

2012-09-21T14:34:00.003-07:00

We are conducting a scientific study to analyse human happiness.

The project is designed to give a greater insight in the complex interactions between factors contributing to happiness. In a second phase, the project aims to predict what changes would most quickly lead to a higher degree of happiness. Not just in general but based on unique personal situations.

The likely benefit of this study is a better understanding of happiness or as psychologists like to call it: subjective well-being. More specifically, the contribution of the different contributing factors and their complex interactions to the level subjective well-being will be revealed. It is expected that the neural network approach will provide a way to capture the complex interaction to help increase happiness in a personalized way.

2012-09-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

Would eating more home-cooked meals affect your well-being?
Would more recognition at work really make you more content? Would taking more risks lead to more inner-peace? Would increasing your literacy make you feel more accomplished?

2012-09-21T12:44:00.001-07:00

This happiness project is now in its 3rd week. We are happy to say that we are currently at 370 participants from all over the world. We had a low but steady buy-in from the twitter community. We had an enormous spike coming from the reddit community! With 170 participants in a single day. However, as the post grows older its slips away into the background. Not sure yet how to prevent that except for trying a new post.

Let us also share the first little bit of data from this survey. But know that our goals are much loftier than getting little clues about happiness. We want take into account all the interactions and contributing factors which influence happiness. As explained in here.

the pursuit of happiness is on!

2012-08-28T10:18:00.002-07:00