Week 8- Science of Happiness Synthesis

 Natural human feelings such as “awe” and elements of human life such as spirituality open individual’s minds to realities larger than their immediate reality and experiences in life. “Awe” is defined as “the feeling of being around something that’s vast, beyond your frame of reference, and beyond something that you can understand with your current knowledge structures”. Experiences of awe have been shown to boost creativity, intellectual curiosity, and overall happiness in humans. Incorporating elements of spirituality and viewing more nature or greenery daily has proven to have similar benefits. These feelings that remove an individual from their immediate surroundings and promote wonder have impactful positive effects on levels of happiness. 
 
Efforts to cultivate happiness can include natural parts of an individual’s day as well as intentional practices like meditation, gratitude, and journaling. Everyday feelings, experiences, and acknowledgments can have an immense impact on an individual's level of positive emotion and subjective well-being. Various strategies that aim to cultivate happiness will work differently for everyone as everyone enters with different beliefs, motivations, and demographics. Some happiness practices will resonate better will some, and some will resonate better with others. It is helpful that natural elements of an individual’s daily life can work to increase their levels of happiness as it makes practices more accessible and reasonable for those who find it difficult to spend periods of time engaging in specific practices. Setting intention when engaging in happiness practices is vital, as practices have shown to become habitual over time.