| In Association With... |  |
|
|
|
The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want | 
 enlarge | Author: Sonja Lyubomirsky
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $14.79
You Save: $11.16 (43%)
New (27) from $14.79
Avg. Customer Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 1390
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.5
ISBN: 159420148X
Dewey Decimal Number: 158
EAN: 9781594201486
ASIN: 159420148X
Publication Date: December 27, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Absolutely Brand New & In Stock. 100% 30-Day Money Back. Direct from our warehouse. Ships by USPS. 1+ million customers served-In business since 1986. Happy Customers is Our #1 Goal. Toll Free Support
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
You can change your personal capacity for happiness. Research psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky's pioneering concept of the 40% solution shows you how
Drawing on her own groundbreaking research with thousands of men and women, research psychologist and University of California professor of psychology Sonja Lyubomirsky has pioneered a detailed yet easy-to-follow plan to increase happiness in our day-to-day lives-in the short term and over the long term. The How of Happiness is a different kind of happiness book, one that offers a comprehensive guide to understanding what happiness is, and isn't, and what can be done to bring us all closer to the happy life we envision for ourselves. Using more than a dozen uniquely formulated happiness-increasing strategies, The How of Happiness offers a new and potentially life- changing way to understand our innate potential for joy and happiness as well as our ability to sustain it in our lives.
Beginning with a short diagnostic quiz that helps readers to first quantify and then to understand what she describes as their "happiness set point," Lyubomirsky reveals that this set point determines just 50 percent of happiness while a mere 10 percent can be attributed to differences in life circumstances or situations. This leaves a startling, and startlingly underdeveloped, 40 percent of our capacity for happiness within our power to change.
Lyubomirsky's "happiness strategies" introduce readers to the concept of intentional activities, mindful actions that they can use to achieve a happier life. These include exercises in practicing optimism when imagining the future, instruction in how best to savor life's pleasures in the here and now, and a thoroughgoing explanation of the importance of staying active to being happy. Helping readers find the right fit between the goals they set and the activities she suggests, Lyubomirsky also helps readers understand the many obstacles to happiness as well as how to harness individual strengths to overcome them. Always emphasizing how much of our happiness is within our control, Lyubomirsky addresses the "scientific how" of her happiness research, demystifying the many myths that unnecessarily complicate its pursuit. Unlike those of many self-help books, all her recommendations are supported by scientific research.
The How of Happiness is both a powerful contribution to the field of positive psychology and a gift to all those who have questioned their own well- being and sought to take their happiness into their own hands.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 28 more reviews...
 Happiness for Dummies July 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
By titling this review, "Happiness for Dummies" I don't meant to insult readers or the author. I am thinking of that series of how-to books "_____ for Dummies". That is what this book reminds me of. It is an extremely tightly organized book. You can just see the outline format the author must have used peeking thourgh every few pages. Every idea has a number associated with it. There are twelve big ideas, two cross-references, X further activities, etc. It is also full of short quotes and brief references to scientific studies. Again, I could just see index cards with quotes on them and notes about this or that study being put to work by the author. In contrast, Jonathan Haidt's "The Happiness Hypothesis" with its various references to literary works, religious and philosophical thinking throughout the ages and more generally discursive style seems to me to be a more sophisticated work and may be better suited to some readers. Also, although I loved the 50/40/10 idea that is one of the book's principal arguments and the one that has probably attracted the most press, I wasn't as sold on the strength of the inference as I had hoped I would be.
A WOW of a book July 5, 2008
I haven't even finished this and I am already happier. I consider myself to actually be pretty happy and I know enough to know that happiness is not in material things. Nonetheless, I am pretty cynical, not very forgiving and I don't have that many friends. A lot of other happiness books and articles I've read insist that if you just look on the bright side, have a big social circle, and learn to forgive other people you will be happier. According to this book that is all good advice but it is not the only way to achieve happiness. There is plenty of room for lots of different approaches to happy. This evidence based book explains them all and give you concrete and specifics steps to work on all of them. Very very worth reading!
The Bible of Happiness June 29, 2008
I must agree with the previous reviewer who said that reading The How of Happiness will not make you happier. The How of Happiness is an emotional how-to manual. Reading it will no more make you lastingly happier than merely reading a car-repair manual will tune your engine and change your timing belt. You have to do much more than read. You have to take action.
Fortunately, the book helps you identify for yourself the actions to take. Because it is grounded in evidence gathered from thousands of studies and systematically analyzed by researchers like Ms. Lyubomirsky, it can be trusted by even a diehard empiricist like me. Everyone throughout history has sought to be happy, many of them in misguided ways. But now science, in just the same way as it has uncovered the causes of good and bad physical health, has revealed many of the root sources of happiness, and, still more encouragingly, has revealed that they are greatly in your control.
This book will help you plot your course and steer you clear of many of the common pitfalls on the road to happiness. In my case, though I've read many of the ideas in this book before, I would try to apply them all at once, get overwhelmed, and end up back at square one. But The How of Happiness has helped me focus my initial efforts on the two or three happiness-enhancing activities that would work best for me.
Before I began applying these strategies, I was mildly depressed and every day seemed overburdened with nuisances. Where have they all gone? Since I began, on the book's recommendation, keeping a weekly gratitude journal, I find much more to appreciate in life, and have many fewer complaints.
I've also chosen to work on my optimism, using the book's "Best Possible Selves" exercise. I wrote of a future ten years from now in which I had the life I dream of. I was blissed out just forming a picture of this ideal future. But the book doesn't just leave the reader there, hoping for the possible. The next step for me in the exercise is to "remember" from the vantage point of that future how I got from here to there. It provides not only hope, but also a road map, so I can *act* optimistically too, and realize the best life I can. This simple exercise makes concrete the words of Thoreau: "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. There is where they should be. Now put foundations under them."
Inspired by The How of Happiness, I've also taken time to volunteer at a hospice service and begun sponsoring a child. Being happy, as Sonja Lyubomirsky shows in this book, both results from and results in greater generosity to others. Happiness isn't just a personal pursuit, but also a moral and spiritual one.
In the religious tradition in which I was raised (Mormonism), there is a teaching about happiness by the founder Joseph Smith: "Happiness is the object and design of our existence." Whatever else in this tradition may or may not be true, this teaching cannot be wide of the mark. Spreading happiness helps to fulfill the purpose and promise of human lives, and helps people transform themselves into kinder, more generous, more productive human beings.
This book is the Bible of happiness. And its work of empowering people to build happier lives is, even in my skeptical eyes, God's work.
Don't Worry, You Can Be Happier June 19, 2008
I had my misgivings when I picked up this book becuase I've read before that happiness is one of those things that becomes elusive when you try to pursue it intentionally, kind of like humor becomes unfunny when you try to analyze it. Anyway, I think I'm wrong. The author presents a number of techniques that have been verified via psychology experiments to increase your happiness levels. Some of these we've heard of before, like "count your blessings", and others may be unfamiliar. In some ways, this book is a compilation of prior psychological, self-help and religious wisdom, but backed up by scientific studies. I do believe that applying the techniques should help the reader improve their happiness levels and I'm looking forward to applying them myself.
I do have some concerns, however: first, sometimes the author gives personal anecdotal evidence of how the techniques she recommends helped her in her own life. That's all well and good, but a detached, scientific advocate should not engage in this. In an odd way, this detracts from the evidence: why bolster good scientific data with your own personal stories? Second, in a few instances the author includes studies that have a very small sample or have not been run long enough. Again, why include this? Nevertheless, from my layperson's point of view, there appear to be enough solid studies to back up the claims. I highly recommend the book for anyone who is seeking to increase their everyday happiness levels.
A fantastic book about happiness! June 14, 2008
Reading "The How of Happiness" became really an event in my life. It is written in a remarkably clear, clever and human the way. I read a lot of self-help books related to achieving a meaningful and happy life, but this one is an absolute champion. It is due to the scientific evidence behind it, witty and human writing style of the author and really practical advice and tricks on changing your habits to become happier. And achieving happiness seems so realistic after reading the book! I underlined nearly every second sentence in it, so now I can reread it comfortably to remind myself of the content. It is really worth having read and owning this book.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
