The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People: What Scientists Have Learned and How You Can Use It

Experts have spent their careers investigating what makes people happy. While their methods are sound and their conclusions valuable, the results often remain hidden in obscure scholarly journals.At last, social scientist and psychologist David Niven, Ph. D., has cut through the scientific gobbledygook.After examining over a thousand of the most recent and important scholarly studies into the psychological traits of happy people and uncovering their most promising discoveries into the causes of happiness.Dr. Niven presents 100 easy-to-digest nuggets of advice: `Enjoy what you have.' `Believe in Yourself.' Grounded in science, his approach is fresh, useful, and inspiring.

Amazon Review:

I can understand why some reviewers are quite frustrated with the author's so claimed secrets. If you go through the content page here, you are very likely to get the impression that they are "common sense" or "cliche" repeated regularly in all self help books. What makes this book better is the short conclusions in the end of each "secret" summarizing research findings of social scientists per that "secret", many with statistics quantifying impact of individual factors, say,

The average unhappy person spends more than twice as much time thinking about unpleasant events in their lives, while happy people tend to seek and rely upon information that brightens their personal outlook. Lyubomirsky 1994 (2 Use a strategy for happiness)

Shifting between pre-sleep thoughts was found to be related to difficulty in sleeping and lower sleep quality, which, in turn, were related to unhappiness. Better sleepers are 6 percent more satisfied with their lives than average sleepers, and 25 percent more satisfied than poor sleepers. (10 Limit yourself to thinking about one subject when you lie down to sleep)

An experiment was conducted with a group of women having low life satisfaction…. Those who interacted with others saw a 55 percent reduction in their concerns over time, while those who were left on their own showed no improvement. Hunter and Liao 1955 (18 Dont face your problems alone)

Eating fruit is associated with a number of positive life habits that contribute to both health and happiness, and eating more furit is associated with an 11 percent higher likelihood of feeling capable and satisfied. Heatey and Thombs 1997 (44 Eat some fruit every day)

Perceptions that life is meaningful, and therefore worthwhile, increase 16 percent with concrete thinking. Lindeman and Verkasalo 1996 (46 Think in concrete terms)

Those who viewed changes as inevitable and remained open to the possibility that changes would be positive were 35 percent more likely to be satisfied with their lives than those who did not. Minetti 1997 (57 Be flexible)

In my opinion, the references in each "secret" and their bibliography provided do help. The book is good and concise enough to be placed on a working desk as a tool or first aid kit. In short, well worths the time and the price.

p.s. I had read the author's second book "The 100 simple secrets of successful people" as well. Surprisingly the two books are quite different or not repetitive. If you like this "happy" one, you should get the "successful" one as well.


Amazon Categories
Conduct of life
Happiness
Inspiration & Personal Growth
Motivational & Inspirational
Personal Growth - Happiness
Psychology
Self-Help
Popular psychology
Self-Help / Motivational



About the Author:

David Niven, Ph.D., is the internationally bestselling author of The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People, The 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People and The 100 Simple Secrets of Great Relationships. He is a psychologist and social scientist who teaches at Florida Atlantic University.

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David Niven, Ph.D., es el autor de los bestsellers internacionales Los 100 Secretos de la Gente Exitosa, y Los 100 Secretos de las Buenas Relaciones. Es psicólogo y científico social, y enseña en la Florida Atlantic University.