Successful
mood enhancers can create positive moods but not by very much and not for
very long. Positive life events (PLEs), events and activities that occur
naturally, have a stronger impact. Positive life events (PLEs) include sport
and exercise, social events, success and recognition at work, Saturday
football or dances, concerts and church services, meetings of leisure
groups, and sexual intercourse. (They are very different from stressful life
events, which are like accidents, uninvited and unexpected.)
Some PLEs are accidental, such as gifts, invitations, unexpected meetings
with friends, success, falling in love. Other PLEs are quite infrequent, as
with summer holidays, or very rare, as with getting married or having a
baby; others happen all the time, such as watching TV or going for a run.
Some are intense, such as sexual intercourse, others are not intense at all,
as with watching TV. Some are more than intense, they are major life
changes, such as getting married, getting a new job, and religious
conversion; they will affect future PLEs.
Whilst most laboratory mood induction techniques are disappointing in
having a short-term impact, some of the other PLEs, such as exercise, are
much better. You can easily build some of them into your life to enhance
both happiness and self-esteem. Increasing PLEs has been used successfully
as a method of enhancing happiness both for depressed people and for normal
people. According to research it makes no difference whether you do 2 or 12
of them, as long as you do them frequently and regularly. The percentage of
time that individuals experience positive mood has twice as much effect on
happiness as average intensity of positive mood.
· Social events. There are many kinds of
these. Being in love is a source of intense joy, and increased self-esteem;
being with friends produces companionship and positive feelings, sometimes
admiration; family life is a great source of happiness. All these relations
involve regular and usually frequent encounters.
· Sport and exercise produce positive
moods and greater happiness when done regularly. A 10-minute brisk walk has
positive effects on mood, which last for 2 hours and the effect may last to
the next day in the case of more demanding exercise. The quality of experience is of increased arousal, and
self-esteem, as well as enjoyment of the social relations involved.
· Religion and music are quite
intense for those involved, including other-worldly feelings of loss of
sense of self, timelessness, glimpsing another world. And the groups in
question are very supportive.
· Leisure groups of other kinds are a
source of PLEs; sometimes several aspects of the experience combine, as with
dancing which involves music, exercise and social interaction.
· Work. Positive experiences here are
mainly reported for success and recognition, though job satisfaction studies
find that intrinsic satisfaction comes from use of skills and social
satisfaction from relations with workmates.
· Watching TV is a great enigma. It is
done so much that it must be rewarding, but research finds that it produces
only weak positive moods, and that watchers are often half asleep. However
the moods it produces are positive, and followers of soap operas may gain
some imaginary friends.
· Holidays, though not frequent, can be
looked forward to, and are great sources of relaxation, adventure, sex or
religious pilgrimage, according to taste.
