Can't Get No Satisfaction?

by Chris Dunkerley

Some people try and try and try, and simply never feel content. HealthGate's UK correspondent looks at why these folks "can't get no satisfaction."

Why Is It That Some People Are Just Never Satisfied?

Psychologists have conducted a number of research studies trying to analyze what makes people happy, and the results are startling. Most of the time, it turns out that we're looking in the wrong places. Money, for instance, is only important until you have enough to meet your basic needs. After that, it has little effect on long-term, deep down happiness. Many people work extra hard to buy leisure time in an effort to make them happy, but you know what? Most people are actually happier when they're working, says Dr. John Howarth of Manchester University in the United Kingdom.

What elements are thought to bring happiness, and how can you integrate more of them into your life?

Cultivate Intimate Friendships

People with lots of friends tend to be happier, says Professor Michael Argyle, author of The Psychology of Happiness, but the friendships have to be substantive. People can have lots of friends and still feel lonely if those friendships lack intimacy. Dr. Dean Ornish, clinical professor of medicine at the University of California and author of Love and Survival, defines intimacy as the ability to be authentic with your friends—to be able to say "'Here's what I'm really feeling, here's what's going on in my life, here's who I really am,' and for the friend to be able to do the same with you."

People with intimate friendships are also more physically healthy, says Ornish. "Study after study shows that people who feel lonely, depressed and isolated are three to five times more likely to get sick and to die prematurely than those who have a sense of love and connection and community," says Dr. Ornish. "Spending time with the people we care about isn't what we do after the important stuff is done. It is the important stuff."

Building intimacy
To build more intimacy into your life, Ornish suggests that you:

• Help others.
• Communicate how you feel. Say "I feel angry..." rather than "I am angry with you..."
• Listen to others and show you've heard them.
• Get a dog. Some studies show that dog owners smile more and recover from illness quicker.
• Find spirituality. "In study after study, actively religious people are happier," says psychologist David Myers, author of The Pursuit of Happiness. A large survey in Psychology Today found that people who don't see a meaning in life are less happy with almost everything—job, home, income, sex life, where they live, and even their own physical attractiveness.

Go With the Flow

People are often happiest when in a state called "flow," according to Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Living Well.

Flow is the state that occurs when your body and mind are totally absorbed in a task that challenges you without overwhelming you. Hence, many people are actually happier at work than at play. The most expensive forms of leisure—such as lying on a yacht—often provide less flow than gardening, seeing friends, playing chess or reading.

The curious thing about flow is that you're so absorbed in it that you don't have time to think about whether you're happy or not. "But after the flow experience is over, you look back on it, and in retrospect, it feels like it was real happiness," says Csikszentmihalyi.

He suggests that to get more flow experiences into your life, you should pursue leisure activities that get you into a flow state, and find ways to transform the things you have to do—such as job and family tasks—into flow activities.

Get Married

People who marry are happier than those who don't, according to Argyle. One study found that men who never married were three times as likely to suffer from a mental disorder than those who did marry. Government statistics show that married men are less vulnerable to infectious and parasitic diseases, poisoning, injury and early death.

But a ring on the finger isn't enough in and of itself. It's the quality of the relationship that counts. Julia Cole, relationship expert and consultant to the UK marriage guidance body, Relate, says there are four important similarities among relationships in which the people are satisfied:

• The ability to talk openly.
• Respect. "Don't try to bend the other person to see things through your eyes," says Cole.
• A sense of humor.
• The ability to work as a team, utilizing each other's strengths and pulling in the same direction.

Travel to Ireland and Work as a Cleaner

A recent study found that workers in Ireland are the happiest in the world. Research in progress is starting to find that cleaners are much happier than drivers, and they're both a lot happier than white collar workers, says Mike Emmot of the UK's Institute of Personnel and Development.

Money is not the arbiter of job satisfaction that we often think it is. "For men, what brings job satisfaction is success, promotion, and status rewards—even without a salary increase," says Cary Cooper, professor of organizational psychology and health at the Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. "For women, it's more about having a good working relationship with colleagues and feeling valued by them."

But if you don't want to take up your mop and move to Ireland, take some tips from Professor Cooper to increase your happiness wherever you work:

• Don't just sit back and wait for opportunities to happen, be proactive in finding out what is available.
• Build up a good morale and camaraderie among the people you work with.
• Make sure you have a good "fit" between what motivates you and what you do each day.

RESOURCES:

Coghlan D. Phases of burnout among Irish professionals. Journal of Health and Human Services Administration. 1999 Summer;22:16-23.

David Myers Homepage
Hope College
http://www.davidmyers.org

Olds J and Schwartz RS. What is the psychiatric significance of loneliness?Harvard Mental Health Letter. 2000;16:8.

Ornish D. Love and Survival: Eight Pathways to Intimacy and Health. Harper Collins; 1999.

Ward RA. The never-married in later life.Journals of Gerontology. 1979;34:861-9.

Wright S. How to be happy at work.Nursing Times. 1999;35:26-8.

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