Science Of Happiness

In Shawn Achor's video "The Science Of Happiness", he talks about how important happiness is in ours lives. He analyses students at Harvard university and how the high expectations placed on them from the inside and out leads to 80% of the students becoming depressed. He stated that these are some of the smartest students in the world but most of them lack the ability to be happy. I thought it was interesting and surprising that the depression rates are 10x higher today then they were during the great depression, because over time humans have evolved to be more productive and smart but lack the important aspect of happiness.  I agree with Shawn on how happiness is more important than intellectual success because in order to succeed at a task you need to be happy first.


As a future teacher these statistics about happiness affecting the success rate of a task being performed is really important. It is important as a teacher to not put extra stress on children to make them frustrated or increase their anxiety. It is more important to concentrate on the students happiness and positive behaviour then constantly drilling the students with expectations and marks.


Shawn Achor gave interesting ways to achieve happiness which include:
Journaling  one positive experience a day
Exercise
Meditation
Finding your strengths
Not multitasking
Writing 5 things you are thankful for every morning


As a future teacher it would be important  too incorporating some of these techniques into the classroom to  improve the overall happiness and success within the students. Knowing the hardships that children face these days I think it is important to incorporate activities like these to make children feel happiness and to encourage positive attitudes throughout life.