It's Easier to Be Happy than Sad

I know most people think that it’s easier to be sad than it is to be happy, and I have seen a lot of blogs back this thinking up, but what would you do if I told you that it’s actually easier to be happy than it is to be sad , and that I can show you how?

A few months ago, I got some bad news and I started to feel really sad. In fact, the more I thought about the sad news, the sadder I became. I kept talking about how sad I felt, hoping that this would somehow lessen my sadness, but it only made it worse. I finally decided to take a break from talking and just let myself sit in the discomfort of sadness. I felt that I deserved to have some time to myself to just wallow a little bit in self-pity. I really thought that I was doing myself a favour by allowing myself space to sit in this discomfort of sadness, but as I sat in my sadness, I noticed something surprising. I was exhausted. Like, really exhausted. After I noticed how tired I was from all my sadness I wondered how it would feel to have a happy thought, and I was curious to see if this would just further my exhaustion or maybe somehow raise my spirits a bit. So I thought of just a tiny happy thought and lo and behold! I felt my whole body relax! I felt so much better from just one small happy thought and then I recalled this quotation from 'Abdu’l-Bahá:

“Joy gives us wings! In times of joy our strength is more vital, our intellect keener, and our understanding less clouded. We seem better able to cope with the world and to find our sphere of usefulness. But when sadness visits us we become weak, our strength leaves us, our comprehension is dim and our intelligence veiled.”

Positive Psychology seems to be drawing from this wisdom. It is built on the concept that by focusing on the positive, or strengths, a person can live the “good life”. Dr. Martin Seligman, considered the “father of positive psychology”, has written many articles on the effects of positive thinking and shows how negative thinking has been linked with depression, stress, and anxiety (Kamen and Seligman, 1987). Further studies have shown that depression and stress also lead to physical ailments showing that optimism ultimately protects the individual’s health and well-being. Not really a surprise when you think about it. The story I shared above is a brief example of how sad feelings can start down a path to stress and depression. The trick to optimism, especially for those of us who can be prone to depression, seems to be mindfulness: the simple act of noticing when you’re feeling sad and to acknowledge the sadness, but not getting stuck in it. By paying attention to how long you allow yourself to wallow in self-pity, and retraining your brain to think differently. After all, Hebb’s axiom, “the neurons that fire together, wire together” seems to be proving true.

If you’re up for it, I suggest you engage in a thought experiment. The next time you feel upset about something take a minute to first notice how your body is feeling (this alone can take practice as many of us are not used to listening to our bodies). Then call to mind something that you’re grateful for. Focus on the feeling of gratitude and feel it course through your entire body (sometimes it can be helpful to first visualize the feeling of gratitude as a colour that moves through each part of your body). After a few minutes practising this, notice if you feel a difference in your body when thinking about something that upsets you versus the thought of gratitude. The more you practice the easier it will become. Another great exercise is keeping a gratitude journal where each morning you write down one thing that you're grateful for. This can be as simple as just making a quick note on your computer or phone. There are also many apps available to help you with this exercise and one can be found on my resources page or by clicking here.

Now, maybe you’re thinking to yourself, “Wait a minute…this doesn’t seem easier. Rezal, you started this blog off by telling me that it was easier for me to be happy than sad, but now I just feel overwhelmed with everything you’re asking me to do.” To that I say, I understand and I’ve been there. In some ways being sad is easier than being happy. It is easier to let our minds and feelings wander in the moment, but allowing such feelings and thoughts to take over takes a surprising amount of effort in the long run. For example, imagine that you have a car that has a small chip in the windshield. Initially, it seems like nothing and it’s easier to just ignore it and be mildly annoyed. However, over time, this chip grows until the windshield has a large crack running all the way through it, which ends up being more expensive to fix than if you’d just taken the time to fix the little chip. In a similar way, by taking small steps to rewire the brain into thinking more positively each day, we’ll find that we’ll be more prepared when we experience extreme difficulties.

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