What great timing as we just finished viewing the documentary "Happy" by Roko Belic. Within the documentary, Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky of UC Irvine discussed how random acts of kindness can improve the happiness of the person performing the kind act.
According to Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, 50% of our happiness level is genetically determined and is what she call a "happiness set point". It may surprising to hear that only 10% of happiness is associated with life's circumstances (money, lifestyle, materials, job, etc.) She speculates that up to 40% of our happiness is under our control and can be increased through intentional activities.
Dr. Lyubomirsky has researched how committing random acts of kindness influences a person's happiness. Research conducted which tracked random acts of kindness suggests that the randomness of the acts has a greater influence on sustaining happiness levels than doing the same kind act(s) regularly. Dr. Lyubomirsky shares that our body has a way of diminishing our responses over time to the same or similar stimuli. Doing the same act of kindness on regular basis won't produce the same amount of happiness as a novel random act of kindness will.
In another study, they had the participants perform 5 random acts of kindness each week. The people who performed all 5 in one day had a greater increase in happiness than those who performed one per day. Her theory is that the people who performed 5 in one day were very intentional about performing a random act and those who spread them over the week may have seen the kind act as part of their normal daily behavior.
So get out there with your kids this week and test Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky's theory! Practice many random acts of kindness and increase you and your children's feelings of happiness.
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