“The obsession to be happy all the time makes you miserable”

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Tal Ben-Sahar (Ramat Gan, 1970), a doctor of psychology and philosophy from Harvard University, has been studying happiness for more than 25 years. Like so many other experts, he believes that the great enemy of well-being is stress: 94% of American university students suffer from it. "It is the new global pandemic," he says in reference to the qualifier used by the World Health Organization. Doctors call him the "silent killer," he says. But the Israeli psychologist believes that for years he has been looking at the wrong side; do not study the factors that cause it, but the behaviors that do not cure it. "We have stopped giving importance to rest, to recovery, and sleep is not enough," he says.
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After more than 25 years as a professor at Harvard, I changed Boston for New York a few years ago and now teaches a seminar on happiness at Columbia University, in addition to conducting the Happiness Studies Academy, an online platform with hundreds of students interested in Learn to manage your emotions. The diagnosis has been clear for years: constant happiness does not exist.

This week, Ben-Sahar has participated in EnlightED, an event about the future of education and its relationship with technology organized in Madrid by South Summit, the Telephone Foundation, IE University and the Santillana Foundation.

Question. Is there a psychological immune system? Are there people who have a greater tendency to sadness?

Reply. Genetics make a difference. For example, I was not born with a genetics linked to positive emotions. As a child I used to feel anxiety, like my parents and grandparents, we have suffered from generation to generation. Being unhappy made me interested in this field: the science of happiness. In the seventies, in the United States, a series of investigations were made with twins, with identical genes. They were separated at birth, raised in different countries, with different economies. Over the years, it was observed that there were many similarities in terms of their levels of well-being, their behavior, and even their passions. On average, happiness depends on 50% of genetics, 40% of personal choices and 10% of the environment. Those percentages can change in extreme situations, like a war.

Q. How do you measure happiness levels in the brain?

A. There are brain patterns that are associated with happiness, depression or anger. It is not only one part, but multiple that work together. An example is the prefrontal cortex: the left part is associated with positive emotions while the right part with negative ones. It is important to know the findings in this field to understand that with our behavior we can improve the levels of well-being.

Q. There is a boom, hundreds of best sellers on the subject. Do we worry more now about trying to be happy?

A. No, it is something ancestral. 2,500 years ago, Aristotle wrote about it. The Bible also addresses that issue. It has always been part of our thinking. The difference is that we now have more free time, and that adds unrealistic life expectations. The result is that we feel unhappy because we do not understand what happiness is.

Q. What is happiness?

A. It is not possible to always be happy. Negative emotions, such as anger, fear, or anxiety, we need. Only psychopaths are safe from that. The problem is that for lack of emotional education, when we feel them, we reject them, and that causes them to intensify and to panic. If we block a negative emotion, we also do it with the positive ones. You have to feel the fear and be aware that we pull forward with it. It is not resignation, but active acceptance. When my son David was born, a month later, I began to feel jealous of him. My wife paid more attention than me. Sometimes emotions get polarized, we get to extremes and that's not why we are better or worse people. We are humans.

Q. According to a recent study by the European agency Eurofound, stress levels are increasing in school and the transition of young people into adulthood is complicated by the expectations of their parents and the pressures of society.

A. Expectations play a key role in happiness. The most dangerous is to believe that you can be on the crest of the wave constantly. The obsession to be happy all the time makes people feel miserable. In recent years, social networks have greatly influenced; see the smiling faces of others, their idyllic relationships, exemplary work. When we feel sadness or anxiety, those images reinforce our idea that something we are doing wrong. But none of that is real, we all live on an emotional roller coaster. It is inevitable and not bad.

Q. 14% of young Europeans between 15 and 24 are at risk of depression - according to the latest Eurofound report - and lead the ranking countries like Sweden (with a rate of 41%), Estonia (27%) and Malta (22%). In Spain, where the youth unemployment rate is higher, it is below 10%. What is failing?

A. I will give you another example. In the United States, mental health levels are measured every five years, which usually vary 1% up or down. In the last period, the results have been very different: among adolescents, depression levels have grown by up to 30%. One of the reasons is that face-to-face interactions are decreasing, they are replaced by the smartphone. Personal relationships are an antidote against depression.

P. In the nineteenth century worked up to 18 hours a day and no law prevented 24 if necessary. Today we have a better quality of life. What is the root of permanent dissatisfaction?

A. The life expectancy of the workers was to provide enough food for their family to survive. Today we think about earning more money, in dream vacations ... Today you can do everything, even if you have an interesting job and your colleagues like you, it is not enough. As you can choose and change, you are never satisfied.

Q. How can the school prepare us to know what happiness is?

A. We must teach to cultivate healthy relationships, to identify purposes and meaning in what we do. And most importantly, to find time for rest. Research has shown that this is the big problem, that we do not recover from stress. It is not enough to read best self-help selllers, an action is needed. At work, make a break every two hours of 30 minutes, or 30 seconds if you work in the stock market, but disconnect and breathe. Take a day off. Learn that happiness is not a binary code, from one to zero, but a rise and fall. It is an unpredictable journey that ends when you die.