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yahoo!Books to help you smile
Robert Emmons is serious about happiness. The author of Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier (Houghton Mifflin, $25) has been doing research on happiness and subjective well-being for almost 25 years. He says the benefits of practicing gratitude are tangible—emotionally, physically and interpersonally. But how much control do we really have over our happiness? Emmons, a psychology professor at the University of California, Davis, says research indicates that roughly 40 to 50 percent of our happiness is under our control. “When people are grateful, they experience calm energy and feel more alert, alive, interested and enthusiastic.” He says they also feel more connected to others. “Highly grateful people have a worldview in which everything they have in life itself is a gift, which likely fosters greater happiness over time.” He adds that gratitude serves as a stress buffer. “Grateful people are less likely to experience envy, anger, resentment, regret and other unpleasant states that produce stress and thwart positive emotions. So whether things are going well or poorly, gratitude is an effective approach to life.”
Emmons recommends books that taught him something. “They caused me to stop and reflect. When a book causes me to say to myself, ‘I’ve never thought of that before,’ then I believe the author has been successful.” Here are his picks:
He praises The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want (Penguin Press, $25.95) by UC Riverside professor Sonja Lyubomirsky as “the single best book on happiness written by one of the world experts in the science of well-being.” Beginning with a short, diagnostic quiz to quantify our individual “happiness set point,” Lyubomirsky explains that the set point determines about 50 percent of our happiness while just 10 percent can be attributed to our life circumstances or situations. Based on scientific research, this comprehensive guide to what happiness is, and isn’t, details what we each can do to get closer to a happy life.
He describes In a Cardboard Belt!: Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage (Houghton Mifflin, $26) by Joseph Epstein as a book that’s both “hard to put down and one that will make you laugh out loud.” Epstein, a prolific writer who has been editor of The American Scholar for 23 years, has a brilliant way with words. “This is an entertaining collection of essays on a variety of topics from the always insightful and witty Joseph Epstein.” Emmons says he’d read a few essays at night before bed and end up laughing out loud. Sounds like a great way to end the day.
Emmons calls Gregg Krech’s Naikan: Gratitude, Grace, and the Japanese Art of Self-Reflection (Stone Bridge Press, $14.95) his second favorite book on gratitude. “With wonderful suggestions for putting gratitude in practice, this book will cause you to re-evaluate all of your most significant relationships.” He says Naikan can help you focus on what is truly important to you. The book’s inspiring poetry, quotes and practical exercises can be transformative for anyone seeking to improve one’s self in general, or one’s emotional well-being in particular.
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