“You can learn to be happy,” assures an expert in the science of happiness

Sandra before did not have time. She was jittery, slept little or almost nothing, and did not eat well. Immersed in work, there was no break. Believe me, I even loved what I did. But what does stopping mean anyway? I only found out when she was caught between life and death due to health issues caused by stress.

Rushed to the hospital, Sandra fell into a coma and was admitted to the intensive care unit. The chances of survival were slim. “When they tried to fix the bleeding, it sucked in my blood and I almost drowned. My lungs were full of it. When you talk about a near-death experience, you can imagine someone being able to remember that moment was unconscious and mine was, with a tunnel and a pink light,” he recalls.

Bayana, Business Director, Graduate in Neuropsychology and Certified Chief Happiness Officer from Florida International University. Sandra Tishner is also the founder of Instituto Happiness do Brasil, a center for studies and projects on intentional happiness, which has already affected more than 500,000 people in the past two years over nearly a decade. In this track, I have participated in major international events such as the World Happiness Summit (Miami), Wellbeing 360 (Tecmilenio Mexico) and more corporate happiness management consultancy, including Grupo Center Norte (SP), Picadilly Calçados, Sebrae, Morumbi Shopping and Grupo AD Shoppings and Avatim.

Sandra came back from her coma two days after being hospitalized, determined to understand, or rather to learn, how to be happy. It also spreads happiness. The goal is to make a million people happy by the end of 2022. “I just thought about changing everything I could change, accepting everything I couldn’t change, and above all, knowing how to differentiate the two situations. You can learn to be happy on purpose.”

And if anyone is now wondering: Is it possible to be happy in the face of the many losses that the pandemic has brought? The answer is yes. And she guarantees, that she even has a recipe. See the interview:

Is happiness really the path or the destination? After all, what is happiness?

Happiness is a lifestyle, a science, a decision. It’s the road, not the access, because if the destination, when I was there, would have ended. Soon the next desire will come and we will always be in debt. So yes, happiness is the way. You might think, for example, that you are incapable of having a plant, but if you start taking care of a succulent and watch it grow, you will be glad you do.

What makes us happy?

Among the pillars of happiness is communication, that is, how it is related and its quality. Determine how toxic relationships are, when I am toxic to others and strive to be surrounded by those who make us experience our best self.

The second pillar is having a meaningful life. This ranges from being your goal, to acting for the right reasons, to being someone who gives, to having proactive attitudes. Don’t just complain, but what do you do about it all? The third is positive emotions.

Having a good laugh, the aroma of coffee you like, a little notice that a dear person has left her. Think about the reality of waking up and living another day. There we have a basic triad of happiness with an exponential effect.

How do you cultivate happiness and what can this bring to yourself, others, and the world?

All happiness is an internal decision, but it only happens collectively. what does that mean? No one is happy alone, nor individually. This is not a possible way for anyone to feel truly happy. So whoever was happy spreads. It is a multiplier. Promotes happy infection. We sow and reap happiness and see the result in others.

Between doing what you love or trying to learn to like what you do, how can work make us unhappy?

Work makes us unhappy when we lack positive emotions, sociability, and meaning. Does what you do make you happy? Is the place where you work a source of stress? If we can’t answer these questions in a positive way or make a difference in that work environment, no one will love what they are doing. But it is necessary to determine this.

You consult with large corporations in which you advocate “Happiness Management”. Why should it be a concern for organizations?

Emotional education begins to have a very large weight. A happy person is more creative and finds solutions to problems more easily. She gets along better with people, has a higher degree of immunity, gets sick less often. Therefore, they are less deficient in companies, they connect better with others and become a motivating factor. In other words, the advantages of a deliberately happy, emotionally educated person to be happy are numerous, yield results and greatly affect productivity.

How can we be happy with our own experiences?

I do social work as a godmother to children and young adults with multiple amputations, serious illnesses that are very rare. I will tell a very true story. At the age of 11, Jessica lost all of her limbs to meningococcal meningitis, as well as part of her hearing. I heard from the doctors that she wouldn’t survive.

There’s no way Jessica would be happy if she asked her life to continue to have the same legs and arms. But, Jessica could be just as happy as she is today. Jessica Oliveira, Jesseburg (Tweet embed), is a parathreite, writer, and speaker.

Today, at 17, she swims, surfs, works with prosthetics, and is a pre-qualifier for the 2024 Paris Olympics. It’s all a lot of struggle, with a lot of difficulty, but it’s a choice.

And when you make a decision and start to rejoice in it—not with all the losses you’ve had—that’s when you start to reframe your days..

How did science contribute to understanding the path to happiness?

First, deconstruct the myth that happiness is a gift. When people say this happiness, a person is born with it or not, I usually say that this is half the truth: 50% is a gift. The remaining 10% is situational and 40% is learnable. What are the attitudes and habits and how do I put this into my daily life, and what forms of behavior do I need to change and transform to achieve. It’s an internal decision: I need to feel good.

We live in a time of restrictions, distance, mourning and loss. The smile is hidden behind the mask. How has the pandemic reshaped what people define happiness?

During the pandemic, I also lost my mother. it was hard? It was very difficult. Happiness is about how to face difficulties, let’s move forward. I cried, and I’m still crying and I’ll spend my life missing her. However, I try to make my grief something better for others, which I bring from my mother’s experience, because I respect the life she lived.

Most of the changes that cause us to happen occurred during pain. The big difference is that happy people are sad, but they don’t stay there. We have to understand that during the pandemic, there have been losses, yes.

I can’t change the history of an epidemic, but I can change the way I act on it. What have I become? How did you collaborate and contribute to a better time for people?

So happiness is learned?

Before, I did not know that happiness has to do with a peaceful heart and containing a vicious and negative cycle of sensations. I didn’t even know there was a science that says your well-being is always, your happiness too, even if you’ve had difficult, sad, uncomfortable, negative moments.

I have no way of conveying happiness, but how people got infected by the positive way. I studied happiness, and ran after it to understand it, and it made a huge difference in how my vision would be from there, but in what way I would act as a whole. I begin with myself, my family, my neighbors, a citizen, at work, as a person in a social network, in life. And yes, happiness is teachable.

A practical guide to happiness

. Happiness is always on the bright side
Being happy is a way of life, a decision we make. Who are you in this scenario and what changes can you make?

. Happy people live the daily journey
Happiness is nowhere, it is a building. In hugs, in positive interpersonal relationships, in emotional memories, in the lightness possible nowadays, lies happiness.

. It’s not ease it’s happiness
Start by choosing to be happy, and remember that there is no easy way out of your comfort zone. What makes you happy? If you don’t have an answer ready, stop thinking and write it down. Read, reread aloud to that person who knows you well, cross out, doodle, and change your mind.

. face pain
Negative emotions reduce our view of the world, leaving us unable to find a way out of what threatens us. Knowing this, neutralize them.

. evoke positive emotions and all the “inas”
Serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins, dopamine. Contemporary studies show that smiling, liking (a person or something), thinking, and playing evoke harmonious feelings.

. Be grateful, be thankful, be appreciative, be grateful
This has nothing to do with the hashtag #gratitude. I should be really grateful: Thanks to the other, to those who do us well, help us and make us smile.

. Solidarity and happiness
Helping those around you seems like a perfect idea, but it isn’t. The greatest beneficiary of your good deeds is yourself. This fact is agreed upon in contemporary science.

Source: Excerpted from The Recipe for Happiness, by Sandra Teschner, in the Plantando Happiness Project.

International Day

Even the United Nations (UN) recognized the importance of happiness for the world and people when it chose March 20 as the International Day of Happiness in 2012.

Are Brazilians happy?

In the 2021 Gallup Word Poll’s World Happiness Report for the fourth year in a row, Finland ranked first on the list of the happiest countries in the world. Next come Iceland and Denmark. Brazil did not even enter the top 20 in the rankings. In the assessment by city, only São Paulo was featured in the study. Of the 186 municipalities in a snapshot, the capital of São Paulo ranked 53rd.

Who is this

Sandra Tishner Business Director, Graduate Graduate in Neuropsychology and Chief Happiness Officer Certified by Florida International University. Sandra is also the founder of Instituto Happiness do Brasil, a center for studies and projects on intentional happiness. Author of Jessyborg: Desista de Desistir (Profashional Editora, 2020, R$35), Sandra is a speaker and has already advised on happiness management in organizations for companies such as Grupo Center Norte (SP), Picadilly Calçados, Sebrae, Morumbi Shopping Group, AD Shoppings and Avatim.