What activities truly make people the happiest? How can you maximize your daily joy through deliberate choices?
In his book Don’t Trust Your Gut, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz reveals that the most effective happiness activities aren’t passive pastimes but active engagements. The data further shows that these activities compound when they’re combined, creating an even stronger positive impact on your life.
Keep reading to discover the five activities that can make you happy, and learn how to blend them for maximum joy.
The Top 5 Happiness Activities
Analysis of the Mappiness data as well as other studies concur that there are clear and relatively direct ways to improve your overall happiness. In general, what the top-ranked happiness activities have in common is that they involve being active in some way rather than passive forms of recreation.
(Shortform note: In addition to active engagement, there’s another common thread to the activities below that Stephens-Davidowitz doesn’t mention—they all evoke feelings of wonder and awe. In Awe, Dacher Keltner writes that of all the primary emotions, wonder is the one that quiets the ego, fosters togetherness, and gives life meaning. Though not always enjoyable—you can feel awestruck by a catastrophe—your sense of wonder ties your individual experience to something bigger than yourself, sparking creativity, community, and often joy.)
1. Sexual intimacy easily tops the list of things that make people happier. Therefore, the data-driven methods Stephens-Davidowitz provides to empower you in your romantic life may arguably have the largest impact on your life satisfaction overall. (Shortform note: Despite its high ranking on this list, sexual desire tends to decline over time in most relationships. In Mating in Captivity, Esther Perel says this is normal, and that if you want to rekindle desire, it’s better to focus on the quality of your intimacy rather than just how often you have sex. Finding ways to make sex creative and playful is more effective than simply turning up the frequency.)
2. Cultural events and demonstrations, such as concerts, theater performances, and museum exhibits, are next on the happiness list. While these may not seem “active” at first glance, Stephens-Davidowitz points out that they all involve more deliberate engagement than staying home and staring at a screen. (Shortform note: There may be a deeper evolutionary reason why events and exhibits increase happiness that Stephens-Davidowitz overlooks. In What Is Art For?, Ellen Dissanayake argues that in the distant past, the arts probably helped our species to survive by making daily activities pleasurable while preserving cultural knowledge.)
3. Physical exercise and other active hobbies scored higher in the happiness data than study participants expected. Stephens-Davidowitz attributes this discrepancy to the energy cost these activities carry, but once you engage in them and afterward, your happiness undergoes a measurable boost. (Shortform note: In Energize, Simon Alexander Ong confirms that exercise releases mood-lifting hormones, but unlike Stephens-Davidowitz, he admits that physical activity won’t lift your spirits if you dread it. Therefore, he recommends finding forms of exercise that you actually like and giving yourself a variety of options so that you don’t feel stuck in a routine.)
4. Socializing with others boosts happiness, but with a certain caveat—not all social interactions are created equal. Stephens-Davidowitz explains that socializing’s effect on happiness depends on how strong your relationships are. Spending time with loved ones and friends gives you a stronger boost than interacting with strangers. (Shortform note: These cautions about socialization are especially true for introverts. In Quiet, Susan Cain explains that while extroverts thrive on stimulation from social activities, introverts find such activities exhausting—they greatly prefer one-on-one conversations, as well as spending time alone.)
5. Being outdoors improves happiness, especially in conjunction with any other activity on this list. (Shortform note: Nature’s mood-boosting effects can be attributed to the outdoors acting as a biological release valve. In The Nature Fix, Florence Williams argues that since we evolved in natural environments, urban life comes at a biological cost, such as ever-present noises that keep our bodies on alert and diminished access to sunlight that causes vitamin D deficiencies. Not only do natural settings remove the stressors of city life, but spending time outdoors improves cognitive function simply by relaxing our overtaxed minds.)
Compounding Happiness
To make things even better, Stephens-Davidowitz argues that happiness is additive, so combining different pleasurable activities magnifies their impact. In other words, if attending a concert makes you happier, attending a concert with friends does even more. The Mappiness data backs up this argument by correlating people’s reported mental state with what they’re doing, where they are, and who they’re with. This compounding effect also helps alleviate situations that make you unhappy. For instance, being sick isn’t quite as terrible if you have a loved one with you giving support.
(Shortform note: If happiness adds up, as Stephens-Davidowitz suggests, does that mean it’s easy to combine pleasurable activities? It might be, if you exploit the Diderot Effect—a psychological phenomenon in which acquiring one possession triggers the acquisition of more. In terms of fiscal responsibility, this is usually seen as a negative, but in Atomic Habits, James Clear explains how you can hack this common mental reaction for your benefit. Clear shows how you can use it to stack good habits atop one another, linking a new behavior you want to a current habit you engage in. If you employ Clear’s “habit stacking” approach to create behaviors that make you happy, then you can use happiness to build more happiness.)
Stephens-Davidowitz concludes by suggesting that being satisfied with your life isn’t as hard as we often make it out to be. Happiness, after all, doesn’t come from dramatic but fleeting life events, achieving great success, or becoming really rich. According to the numbers, happiness comes from living an active life, finding things to do outdoors, and sharing our time with friends and those we love. While none of this is shocking news, he says, we have such a bad habit of looking for joy in the wrong places that we need data science to remind us of the truth.
Exercise
How many activities do you take part in that produce a measurable increase in happiness? Describe how you might increase their frequency and combine them with other happiness boosts to achieve a compounding effect.
