Silm 1 Mikayla Silm December 4, 2013 English 212 Dr.

Beard Happiness Project I have never given much thought to the aspects of my life that bring me happiness, until I took this class. I never thought of happiness as something that you could control, and I didnt look for ways that I could actively improve my happiness. However, since Ive been enrolled in this particular course and focused on happiness, I have learned that even though a persons happiness level is constantly changing, it is something that they can control to some extent. After reading the New York Times best-selling author, Gretchen Rubins novel, The Happiness Project, I decided to conduct a happiness project of my own, in the hopes of improving the level of my overall happiness. After giving it a lot of thought the two main topics I chose to focus on were improving to improve my energy level by getting more sleep, and staying better connected with my family and friends back home. To begin my happiness project for the month of October I hoped to improve my energy throughout the day by getting more sleep, an idea I got from The Happiness Project. According to Gretchen, one study revealed that along with tight work deadlines, a bad nights sleep was one of the top two factors that upset peoples daily moods (Rubin, 18). She also revealed that, sleep deprivation impairs memory, weakens the immune system, slows metabolism, and might, some studies suggest, foster weight gain (Rubin, 19). After doing some additional research on this topic I found several other studies that exemplified the importance of getting enough sleep. According to experiments done by psychologist

Silm 2 David Dinges, people who get less than 8 hours of sleep per night show pronounced cogitative and physiological deficits, including memory impairments, a reduced ability to make decisions, and dramatic lapses in attention (Dinges). I have always loved staying up late and I struggle to force myself to go to bed at night. However, being a fulltime student and playing college basketball I have learned that it is important that I get a sufficient amount of sleep every night, so I do not have these lapses in attention. To help me accomplish my goal of getting more sleep I decided to try a few of the methods that Gretchen used such as turning off the lights, keeping the bedroom dark, and getting ready for bed well before bedtime. I started by getting myself ready for bed about an hour before I actually wanted to be in bed. I put my pajamas on, brushed my teeth and got everything I would need for the next morning out and ready to go. By doing this, I found it easier to go to bed when it was time because I did not have a list of chores I needed to do first, I could simply crawl into bed. I also used this time to cover up all of the things in my room that still emitted any amount of light after I had turned the regular lights out. I closed the curtains all the way, turned the backlight of my clock radio off, closed the bathroom door to hide the night-light, and covered the blinking light on the cable box with a sticky note. Doing this helped to make the room pitch dark when I went to bed and the blinking light no longer mesmerized me from across the room. Furthermore, for that hour before I went to bed I did not do any work that required alert thinking. I made sure I was simply relaxing by watching television or listening to music and talking with my roommates. In addition to the ideas I got from Gretchen, I also practiced a few techniques of my own such as meditating right before bed, kicking my roommate out by 11:00, plugging my

Silm 3 phone into a different outlet, and listening to soothing sounds. I wanted to try meditation before going to bed because I usually had so much on my mind that I could not turn my brain off. When we read a segment from the book Happiness by Thich Nhat Hanh a statement he made about meditation really caught my attention. Hanh stated that, sitting meditation is a way for us to return home and give full attention and care to ourselvesdespite the storms that arise in us, were still and calm (Hanh, 9). These statements stood out to me because I have been looking for a way to quiet my thoughts at night and get away from all the stress of the day. After reading this I figured that meditation could be a good way to relax before bed and help me to fall asleep easier. Moving my phone to an outlet farther away from my bed was also very successful. I was not tempted to scroll through Facebook, or twitter all night once I was in bed. I also found that listening to soothing sounds such as the ocean or a thunderstorm helped me to fall asleep quicker and I did not wake up during the middle of the night. Two of the techniques that did not work so well were meditating before bed and kicking my roommate out. I found the mediating was very stressful for me because it was not something I enjoyed. I often forget to do it, or I just did not feel like spending the time to do it the way it needed to be done. In addition, I found it very hard to kick my roommate out of my room by 11:00 because we dont get to see each other much during the day and I did not want her to leave. We were either in the middle of a deep conversation or watching one of our favorite TV shows, and I never ended up asking her to leave so I could go to bed. Despite having a few of these techniques fail, the month of October was very successful for me. Not only did I fall asleep earlier, but I also managed to sleep sounder and I didnt wake up multiple times throughout the night. I found that I was less tired when I

Silm 4 woke up in the morning. It was easier for me to get up and get ready for class, and I was happier while doing it. Plus, throughout the course of the day I had more energy and was more alert. This boost in energy made basketball practice easier and more enjoyable. I no longer dreaded going because it was going to be such hard work and I started to look forward to the challenge and spending the time with my teammates. Overall, I believe that getting more sleep each night allowed me to be a happier person because I was no longer sluggish. I was able to enjoy every part of my day and it helped put a smile on my face. To improve my happiness for the month of November, I chose to focus on maintaining a good relationship with family and friends who I no longer get to see as often. My decision to focus on strengthening these relationships came from a comment my mom made when she said she was worried about me because she had not heard from me in a week. I realized that since I had moved away and was busy with school and basketball, I was not very good at keeping in touch with my family and friends from back home. It wasnt that I didnt miss them or want to stay in touch, but I was just so busy and stressed that I simply would forget to contact them. This caused me to recall a statement from the book Happier by Tal Ben Shahar on how we get happiness from relationships. Shahar wrote, having people about whom we care and who care about us to share our lives withto share the events and thoughts and feelings in our livesintensifies our experience of meaning, consoles us in our pain, deepens our sense of delight in the world. I reflected on this for some time and decided that if I made an effort to stay in contact with my family and friends it would help relieve some of my stress and improve my overall happiness.

Silm 5 Before I added this goal to my project I decided to find out what others felt about the significance of close relationships and happiness. As I began researching the topic I found several examples of how close, meaningful relationships help to improve overall happiness. One of these examples was a blog by Jacob Sokol, which stated that, the happiest people on the planet are the ones who have deep, meaningful relationships (Sokol). I really liked this quote because it showed me that no matter how busy or stressed I am, taking the time to talk to the people I love will actually help me relax and forget about my problems. Another article I found by Gabrielle Leblanc stated that, according to Meliksah Demir, PhD, Assistant Professor of psychology at Northern Arizona University, compared with dashing around chatting with acquaintances, you get more joy from spending longer periods of time with a close friend (Demir). Reading this motivated me to include my four best friends from home into my happiness project. The five of us have always been very close and have the type of relationship where we can tell each other anything. I really want to keep this relationship as strong as it was when we were kids even though we have all gone our separate ways. After reading these articles and contemplating what I could do to make sure that I maintained the relationships that mean the most to me, I came up with a set of guidelines to follow for the month of November. The relationships I chose to focus on were my mom, dad, brother, two grandmas, and four friends from high school. These guidelines included some form of communication and a set number of times I wanted to contact each person in a given week. I planned to text both my parents everyday just to say hello and see how their day was going. I had to text each one of them randomly just to talk and it did not count if I texted them needing something or asking for a favor. For the most part this went

Silm 6 really well, especially with my mom. I managed to text her almost every day and let her know that I was thinking of her. However with my dad I missed texting him a few times, but still did a couple times a week. In addition, I also set a rule to call my parents at least four times a week, at night time when they would both be home. Talking on the phone gave us a chance to have a more in depth conversation than we could have through texting and I know it made them really happy to be able to hear my voice. In the first half of the month I was very good at calling at least four times, but as the semester progressed it started to be only twice a week. I looked forward to each conversation with them have the opportunity to share the past events of my life with them and hear how everything was going back home. The next person on my list was my older brother Greg, who I have always been very close to. He recently moved to northern Ohio for a teaching job and has been very busy. Since his move I do not get to see him very often and with both of our hectic schedules the amount of time we get to talk to each other has decreased significantly. He is in the middle of a big change in his life getting his first job, and living on his own, so I made it a goal to call him at least once a week to get caught up on all of the changes. I found it difficult to find a time where we both were free to talk on the phone so I only got to actually talk with him twice throughout the month, however I did get to see him at Thanksgiving and I also started texting him more regularly. I really enjoyed our conversations and it made me really happy to hear all about his new life. I also was able to open up to him and tell him things that I didnt necessarily feel comfortable telling anyone else. This was a very big help in relieving stress and helping to make me happier.

Silm 7 Next on the list came my grandmothers, two women who are very important in my life and who I do not get to see or talk to nearly enough. They are both widowed and live on their own, which I know gets very lonely. That is why I made it a goal to find a time each week where I could call them both and just talk for however long they wanted to. The first week I was able to call them both and we had a great conversation mostly about how school and basketball were going. They both said how much they enjoyed my call and that I had made their day. As the month went on I was unable to call each of them once a week so I started to call one of them each week. I got to where I really looked forward to our conversations and it felt really good to know that taking twenty minutes out of my day to make a simple call, could make them so happy, and hopefully feel a little less lonely. Finally, the last part to my November happiness project was to talk to one friend from back home each day. All of my friends are away at different colleges, and we are each playing a sport as well. Everyone has very busy schedules and we often struggle to keep in touch. This is why I was going to make an extra effort to stay connected to each of them by texting or calling each week. At first it was difficult to remember to do it. However, a week into the month I came up with a way to help me remember to text one of them. I set an alarm in my phone for every day of the week and I titled each alarm the name of a friend. This way when my alarm went off I would read their name and remember that sometime throughout the day I needed to text or call them. In addition, the alarm set for Friday was titled Group Text, which reminded me that every Friday I would come up with a new topic to discuss in our group text message. This system really worked well for me because as soon as my alarm went off I would text my friends to say hi and see how they were doing. We always ended up in an entire daylong conversation and got all caught up on each

Silm 8 others lives. This was my favorite part of my happiness project because my friends are very important to me and I hate not being able to see them every day. I can open up and talk to them about anything, which is a huge stress reliever. I absolutely loved being able to know what was going on in their lives and it helped me to feel like we were not so far apart. Having these conversations with my best friends meant a lot to me and brought back a lot of happiness to my life. Focusing on these two topics for just two short months has increased greatly increased my overall happiness. I am a lot less stressed in my day-to-day life and I find myself smiling a lot more throughout the day. I have learned to not stress about the small aspects of life and really enjoy the time that I get to spend with family and friends. Overall I have relaxed and a lot more laid back. The best thing that I have gotten from the happiness project and from this class is I have learned to better accept myself and be happy with who I am. I am so fortunate that I had the opportunity to be a part of this happiness class; it has truly changed my life. I plan to continue with focusing on a different aspect each month to hopefully increase my happiness level even more.

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Works Cited Ben-Shahar, Tal. Happier. [London, Eng.]: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Print. nh. Happiness: Essential Mindfulness Practices. Berkeley, CA: Parallax, 2009. Print. Rubin, Gretchen Craft. The Happiness Project. New York: HarperCollins, 2010. Print. Gabrielle Leblanc, Happy People: Joyful Things They Do, Huffington Post, October, 2012 Jacob Sokol 12 Things Happy People Do DifferentlyAnd Why I Started Doing Them, Huff Post Healthy Living September, 2013 American Psychological Association, More Sleep Would Make Most Americans Happier Healthier and Safer, May 12, 2004