The Happiness Experiment: Lessons in gratitude and irony
By Alex Fayle

In this month’s guest post by Joely Black, she explores the idea of gratitude.

At the beginning of August, the scientist and magician Richard Wiseman launched the Happiness Experiment. It tied in with the launch of his book, 59 Seconds, which blasts a nasty hole through much received wisdom in the personal development and self-improvement fields. The Happiness Experiment ran for a week, and participants were given an exercise that took 59 seconds. Our happiness was measured before and after the experiment.

I was given the task of being grateful for a minute a day. The idea behind the exercise comes from research that suggests people who appreciate what they have tend to be happier than people who spend all their time complaining about what they don’t. It’s simple enough logic, belonging in the glass-half-full approach to thinking.

Having blogged about this early on, I found reactions differed. Some people said that they liked the idea, while others said that they couldn’t really do ‘forced gratitude.’ That’s entirely understandable. It’s rather like being given a present you don’t want – my grandmother’s jumpers designed for three-armed aliens with no discernible head or that sack of pot pourri that obviously came from a car boot sale – when you have to smile and say it was just what you wanted. Nobody wants to do that.

Perhaps a better word for what Wiseman has in mind is ‘appreciation.’ Taking a moment, every day, to appreciate what’s going well, without needing to be thankful for it or put on a display, seems like a very healthy thing to do. This was how I approached it. I could appreciate the fact that my landlady is incredibly understanding of my dire financial circumstances, or that these particular circumstances have pushed me to explore new avenues I would never have considered. I have even been appreciative of the fact that my current situation has revealed so much about why I’ve struggled with life in and success in the past it has undone a great deal of pain and unpleasantness.

So, did it make me happier? Unfortunately, I can’t give you an answer with any scientific rigour behind it. Those who read my blogs will know that I suffered sudden and very painful bouts of depression this month, one right in the middle of the week the Happiness Experiment took place. There is no way on earth that Wiseman intended for a minute of appreciation to combat anything that serious. As it turned out, the depression has an entirely physiological cause, which is currently being treated. That treatment included doing things that also contribute to happiness, like doing meditation and a lot of exercise. Since I wasn’t just sitting around being grateful, it’s hard to say that this was what made me end the month feeling a great deal better than I started it.

Richard Wiseman’s research, presented in both 59 Seconds and The Luck Factor (which I’m also reading), suggests that people who are happier and more successful in life tend to think in certain ways. Being grateful for what they have is something that comes naturally to them. Those people also tend to put a positive spin on anything that happens to them, whether others would see it as negative or not, view themselves as lucky and generally have an upbeat attitude to life. The idea behind a lot of personal development is to get people who don’t think and act in these ways already to do so. The question is: Does it work?

I find being appreciative relatively easy. Others remarked that the expectation to feel gratitude made them feel ungrateful, as though they were guilty of previously ignoring things for which they should now feel appreciation. That, I think, is a form of psychological self-harm and twists the exercise in a manner that isn’t intended. The mind is a fascinating and complicated thing, and its set-up will often dictate how effective such a simple exercise will be.

It is, however, how I have managed to stay relatively stable through one of the most difficult times in my life. Had I not taken the time to really sit back and appreciate what I do have at a time when I am struggling so much in other areas, I would probably have completely lost it by now. My own experience tells me that minds can be changed, adapted, altered and adjusted in many incredible ways, and this was one that has made me a far more emotionally stable human being. The other day, for example, Coronation Street came and used my apartment to do some filming. One of the crew remarked that he had never seen anybody smile as much as me.

“Well,” I said, “my book’s at number one in the Podiobooks chart, I’ve just been fed a really great dinner thanks to your catering team and ‘’m learning all about making TV tonight. It’s very exciting!”

That is appreciation. It is learning to see the value in what you have, and enjoy it to the fullest.

About Joely Black

Joely is a writer, artist and general lover-of-life. She has been all over the world, written seventeen books in the last five years, have a PhD and is the creator of a huge world known as Amnar.

Besides being a writer, she helps writers and artists find their way back to their creativity when it all gets messy.  She can be found at her blog In These Heels? or on Twitter as @TheCharmQuark.

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