7 things the world's happiest people do every day

1. They devote a great amount of time to their family and friends, nurturing and enjoying those relationships.

2. They are comfortable expressing gratitude for all they have.

3. They are often the first to offer helping hands to coworkers and passersby.

4. They practice optimism when imagining their futures.

5. They savor life's pleasures and try to live in the present moment.

6. They make physical exercise a weekly and even daily habit.

7. They are deeply committed to lifelong goals and ambitions (e.g., fighting fraud, building cabinets, or teaching their children their deeply held values).

8. Last but not least, the happiest people do have their share of stresses, crises, and even tragedies. They may become just as distressed and emotional in such circumstances as you or I, but their secret weapon is the poise and strength they show in coping in the face of challenge. [The How of Happiness]

One paper published by a Duke University researcher in 2006 found that more than 40 percent of the actions people performed each day weren't actual decisions, but habits. [The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business]

1. Anticipation2. Recollection3. Gratitude

People prone to joyful anticipation, skilled at obtaining pleasure from looking forward and imagining future happy events, are especially likely to be optimistic and to experience intense emotions. In contrast, those proficient at reminiscing about the past — looking back on happy times, rekindling joy from happy memories — are best able to buffer stress. [The How of Happiness]

…the more a person is inclined to gratitude, the less likely he or she is to be depressed, anxious, lonely, envious, or neurotic. [The How of Happiness]

You can think about rituals that you yourself might engage in prior to consumption experiences. What they do, they make us a little bit more mindful about the consumption experience that we are about to have. Because of that, we end up savoring the food or whatever we are drinking more, we enjoy the experience more, and in fact, we're also more willing to pay higher prices for whatever it is that we just consumed. Once again, rituals are beneficial in the sense that they create higher levels of enjoyment in the experience that we just had.

Their findings confirm what had been found previously: happiness is high during sex, exercise, or socializing, or while the mind is focused on the here and now, and low during commuting or while the mind is wandering. [Engineering Happiness: A New Approach for Building a Joyful Life]

A massive Dutch study of 19,288 twins and their families published in 2006 showed that exercisers are less anxious, less depressed, less neurotic, and also more socially outgoing. A Finnish study of 3,403 people in 1999 showed that those who exercise at least two to three times a week experience significantly less depression, anger, stress, and "cynical distrust" than those who exercise less or not at all. [Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain]

We figured that if a Terman participant sincerely felt that he or she had friends and relatives to count on when having a hard time then that person would be healthier. Those who felt very loved and cared for, we predicted, would live the longest. Surprise: our prediction was wrong… Beyond social network size, the clearest benefit of social relationships came from helping others. Those who helped their friends and neighbors, advising and caring for others, tended to live to old age. [The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study]

Every day, do something selfless for someone else that takes under five minutes. The essence of this thing you do should be that it makes a big difference to the person receiving the gift. Usually these favors take the form of an introduction, reference, feedback, or broadcast on social media.

Then I looked at the other end of the spectrum and said if Givers are at the bottom, who's at the top? Actually, I was really surprised to discover, it's the Givers again. The people who consistently are looking for ways to help others are over-represented not only at the bottom, but also at the top of most success metrics.

In his studies, the psychologist Jonathan Freedman claimed that people with the ability to set objectives for themselves — both short-term and long-term — are happier. The University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Richard Davidson has found that working hard toward a goal and making progress to the point of expecting a goal to be realized don't just activate positive feelings — they also suppress negative emotions such as fear and depression. [Engineering Happiness: A New Approach for Building a Joyful Life]

1. To the degree you can, do things you're good at. We're happier when we exercise our strengths.2. Make note of your progress. Nothing is more motivating than progress.3. Make sure to see the results of your work. This gives meaning to most any activity.

Contrary to the belief that happiness is hard to explain, or that it depends on having great wealth, researchers have identified the core factors in a happy life. The primary components are number of friends, closeness of friends, closeness of family, and relationships with co-workers and neighbors. Together these features explain about 70 percent of personal happiness. – Murray and Peacock 1996 [The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People]

After examining studies of more than three thousand adults, Chaeyoon Lin and Robert Putnam found that what religion you practice or however close you feel to God makes no difference in your overall life satisfaction. What matters is the number of friends you have in your religious community. Ten is the magic number; if you have that many, you'll be happier. Religious people, in other words, are happier because they feel connected to a community of like-minded people. [The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More]

By the end of the day, individuals who spent money on others were measurably happier than those who spent money on themselves — even though there were no differences between the groups at the beginning of the day. And it turns out that the amount of money people found in their envelopes — $5 or $20 — had no effect on their happiness at the end of the day. How people spent the money mattered much more than how much of it they got. [Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending]

Don't have the cash for that? No problem. Take turns paying. Duke professor Dan Ariely says this brings more happiness than always paying half.

For example, in one study researchers interviewed men who had had heart attacks between the ages of 30 and 60. Those who perceived benefits in the event seven weeks after it happened — for example, believing that they had grown and matured as a result, or revalued home life, or resolved to create less hectic schedules for themselves — were less likely to have recurrences and more likely to be healthy eight years later. In contrast, those who blamed their heart attacks on other people or on their own emotions (e.g., having been too stressed) were now in poorer health. [The How of Happiness]

A substantial number of people also show intense depression and anxiety after extreme adversity, often to the level of PTSD, but then they grow. In the long run, they arrive at a higher level of psychological functioning than before… In a month, 1,700 people reported at least one of these awful events, and they took our well-being tests as well. To our surprise, individuals who'd experienced one awful event had more intense strengths (and therefore higher well-being) than individuals who had none. Individuals who'd been through two awful events were stronger than individuals who had one, and individuals who had three— raped, tortured, and held captive for example — were stronger than those who had two. [Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being]

1. Wake up and say ARG!2. Savor your morning coffee3. Sweat your way to joy4. Do a five minute favor5. Make work a game6. Friends get appointments too7. Find meaning in hard times