Gretchen Rubin's "The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year... Having More Fun"

There may be no more perfect book for the LifeTwo audience than Gretchen Rubin's new book "The Happiness Project". Rubin spent a year as a one person focus group testing every possible way to increase personal happiness. Part memoir and part "how to fix your life", "The Happiness Project" is a joy to read.

While other writers have similarly used themselves as happiness guinea pigs, none have immersed themselves in the subject matter to the level that Rubin has. For those of you who don't know, Rubin is an accomplished author having previously written well-received tomes on JFK and Churchill. In this book, Rubin applied the same level of detailed research explaining the scientific reasoning behind conventional wisdom. Despite its scientific underpinnings, it is written in a first-person, conversational style that is fun and honest.

The book begins with an explanation about what happiness is and why it can be changed even when our life circumstances cannot. It then follows Rubin's year-long happiness endeavor. Each month has a different focus ranging from parenting to work and leisure. For example, January was about boosting her energy levels because, she reasoned, "more vitality would make it easier to stick to all of her happiness-project resolutions." She then zeroed in on five steps to do so: 1) Go to sleep earlier; 2) Exercise better; 3) Toss, restore, organize; 4) Tackle a nagging task; and 5) Act more energetic. Now one might consider #5 to be trite and something a nagging mother might say, but in the book Rubin notes that "studies show that een an artificially induced smile brings about happier emotions." She even mentions an experiment that suggested that "people who use Botox are less prone to anger, because they can't make angry faces."

Other months tackle love, work, parenthood, leisure, friends, money, eternity, books, mindfulness, attitude and finally happiness itself.

Whether or not you agree with every idea, study or conclusion is beside the point. Personal happiness is such a broad concept that different people will often require different approaches. And if there is ever a topic that is best served by an overview of the full spectrum of theories then happiness is it. (More than one reviewer seemed to miss the point of the book stating that Rubin's book consists largely of "rehashed" ideas that have been around for decades. But, to me at least, the best part of the book was Rubin's testing and analysis of such commonly-held beliefs. In short, does the advice of grandmother, Dr. Phil, or Dear Abby stand up to scientific testing, not to mention help Rubin?)

While I loathe to label Rubin's book as "self-help", the fact is that it will help individuals help themselves both by inspiring them to explore ways to increase their own happiness and also by giving them numerous tips and insights to help them along. For example, Rubin notes that "Studies show that if you reward people for doing an activity, they often stop doing it for fun." In essence, paying for something makes it "work." So if you are looking for a way to increase doing something that you already enjoy doing then setting up a reward system might be self-defeating.

In a section on marriage, Rubin observes that "it's less important to have many pleasant experiences than it is to have fewer unpleasant experiences ... our reactions to bad events are faster, strong, and sticker than our reactions to good events. Because of this negative bias, "it takes at least five positive marital actions to offset one critical or destructive action." Continuing on we learn that "letting off steam is neither healthy nor particularly constructive." Quite the opposite actually. "Studies show that aggressively expressing anger doesn't relieve anger but amplifies it." I wouldn't have expected that.

As of this writing, "The Happiness Project" is one of the top selling books on Amazon and it's not surprising. It is a pleasant, witty read with applications to just about everyone in every situation.

Amazon link: The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun