The Science of Well-Being

This 10-week course is really inspiring. In this course, Professor Laurie Santos introduces misconceptions about happiness and why our brain has these misconceptions.

Our mind has many annoying features and biases, including having strong but wrong intuitions, being unable to think in terms of absolutes, being so used to stuff but unable to realize it.

Though our genes and circumstances impact our happiness in the contribution of around 50%, another 40% of our happiness is under our control, fortunately! That's why happiness can be learned. But most of the goals we think will make us happy don't really make us happy.

Healthy physical practices like exercise and sleep can basically boost our mood. Exercising 30 minutes a day is enough for our happy mood. Also, having over 7 hours of sleep per day is going to make us feel better both physically and mentally.

Kindness and social connections are things we often ignore but are very necessary to our happiness.

We can also use meditation to control our wandering minds., which can bring unhappiness to us. Personally, just a few minutes of focus on a deep breath is helpful for me.

This is an insightful course introducing practices to increase your well-being, sense of fulfillment. As my life style significantly changed during the pandemic, this course helped me answer what can improve my happiness.

For sure, some of the practices were rather common sense. I knew from my experiences that regular exercise, meditation and good sleep improve my well-being. Still, what was interesting with this course is that all of the suggestions were based on evidence on psychological research. So, this increases my confidence and motivation to put them into practice.

On the other hand, some of the findings were counter intuitive. For example, investments on experiences will make you happier than purchasing materials. While I can get accustomed to my new fancy car, a nice vacation will end well before I get used to it. Furthermore, what is important to make your job a dream job is to use your signature strength, which is more important than money beyond a certain level of income.

Overall, I really enjoyed this course. The teaching style was very engaging full of insightful material. The recommended reading on signature strength was eye-opening, giving me the courage to confront the root causes of my personal problem. Because the course introduces many practices to raise your well-being, I am sure you can find something that would meet your preferences. Above all, my happiness score improved over the course. Highly recommended!

This is the science that proves that less really is more when it comes to a fulfilling and happy life. Most of us, especially in the West, have been deluded into believing "if only I had more money, all the best stuff, a perfect body and a perfect relationship", etc, I'd be happy. Then we kill ourselves trying to get those things. It's a fool's game, as this class shows. But the class doesn't stop there. The teacher helpfully goes on to show how we can rewire our brains to want the things we should want - like time affluence, and how to create more meaningful connections with those around us...

She also has great resource lists.

It's been immensely helpful to me and something I'm sure I'll return to again and again.

Great course which I find myself suggesting to many friends because of it's positive impact on my own life.

The course is a series of lectures with slides detailing specific psychological studies and their main points which are relevant for a every day people in every day life. The course has a big focus on practicing habits which have been shown to increase your happiness. The idea is to not only understand the science, but give the tools and the structure to try them out so that you can help yourself feel better. There are many different habits and practical techniques covered, so there's something for everyone. At the end of the course, I feel more aware with how my actions impact my happiness and have already gotten a few habits down so that I just feel better overall. I'm grateful things like this exist!