Installing Long-Term Happiness

In his hardwiring happiness speech, Rick Hanson explores an approach to achieving inner strengths that's grounded in neuropsychology. Hanson notes that "passing mental states can become lasting neural traits." In other words, we can transform fleeting experiences and feelings into enduring self attributes.

In order to do this, we must first combat our brain's tendency to ruminate on the negative. This is referred to as the "negativity bias" and was a helpful appendage for our ancestors, who treated each negative experience as a learning tool for prolonged survival. Hanson advises us to hang on to positive experiences in order to pass the threshold that transfers memories from short-term buffers to long-term storage.

He imparts an acronym H.E.A.L. H stands for have a good experience, E stands for enriching it or installing it as a neural trait, A stands for Absorb it and L is an optional step that stands for Link it to the negative. The positive moment has the ability to be hijacked by the negative, but if done correctly, it will gradually soothe and replace the negative experience.