Arthur Brooks: Five Steps to a Happy Life

To the newcomers: Welcome! And to those who’ve been with me for years: a very warm welcome back. This is Arthur Brooks, and as you may have heard, I have a new home: The Free Press. (I’m not literally living here—they let me go home at night.)

If you’re new here, a quick primer. Every Monday, I’ll publish a column tackling a subject fundamental to happiness: New Year’s resolutions, dating, family dynamics, stress. Every Friday, my newsletter will hit your inboxes, delving just a bit deeper: Do hair transplants actually make us happier? (Asking for a friend.) What routines do I follow to remember things? How do we know when to call it quits on a relationship? It’ll also be a place for me to answer your questions, which I encourage you to submit in the comments section every week. (For full access to the comments section, and to my Monday column, subscribe here.)

Which brings me to my longtimers: The newsletter may look a little different going forward. That’s intentional. I want this to be more of a conversation between you and me, which means we may switch up the structure week to week: a deeper dive into a topic from my column; a bunch of reader questions; my recipe for bathtub gin. (Okay, not that last one.)

I couldn’t be more excited about this new phase of the newsletter. I hope you like it. If you do, let me know! If you don’t like it, tell me that, too. But be gentle—I am a delicate flower.

Let’s GO! —Arthur

Friends,

In my inaugural column for The Free Press on Monday, I talked about the fact that happiness comes hard for me—which is why I study it. But I also mentioned that over the past decade, my study and adoption of the science of happiness in my own life has measurably raised my well-being—by about 60 percent. Naturally, the big question I got after relaying this fact to readers was, “What have you changed about the way you live?”

The short answer is: a lot. But I also found that some changes in particular had noticeable positive effects. So I thought I’d devote this first newsletter to the five biggies that have arguably had the most impact in raising my well-being, either by increasing my happiness or reducing my unhappiness.

1. Routinize

If you followed my work before I came to The Free Press, you will already know that I am a bit of a discipline freak. This goes back to my French-horn-playing days, which were all about hardcore practice, day in, day out, from when I was 9 years old until I left the horn behind at 31. Start at the crack of dawn! No days off! This routine served me mightily in subsequent careers, making me a productivity machine. But it wasn’t until I started treating my health and well-being with the same rigorous attention that my happiness began to improve steadily.

Here’s the first protocol I adopted:

2. Get physical

Hard exercise is one of the very best ways to manage “negative affect,” or unpleasant emotions. I developed a 60-minute exercise routine (a mix of resistance training and Zone 2 cardio work) that I can maintain all year round, and which I undertake from 4:45 to 5:45 a.m. Nothing has helped me manage my naturally high negative affect better.

This is followed by . . .

3. Get metaphysical

The evidence is unassailable that practicing faith, spirituality, or meditation is enormously beneficial for well-being. My specific practice may not be right for you, but each morning I follow my workout by going to daily Catholic mass. When I am not traveling (about half the time), that’s at 6:30 a.m. with Mrs. B. When I’m on the road, I can always find a morning mass at a local church. (Catholicism, like Starbucks, has a very uniform product.)

By the way, if you want a more comprehensive look at my whole morning protocol for well-being and productivity, you can watch or listen to the Office Hours podcast episode that I devoted to it (where you’ll find a pdf guide as well).

4. I won’t be free for dinner

Many improvements in life come from adopting routines, but others appear when we stop doing things that no longer serve us. About five years ago, I did a cost-benefit inventory of the ordinary things that I always did but hated. What I had in mind were customary activities that seemed necessary in an unquestioned way. It turns out you can question them. At the top of my list was “leisurely dinners for work.” I don’t like staying up late, don’t drink, and frankly, don’t really like dinner food all that much. So, for the most part, I stopped accepting professional dinner invitations.

Here’s another . . .

5. Don’t visit the grandchildren

Wait—it’s not what you’re thinking!

Our kids got married young and started cranking out the babies right away. (Hey, raise ’em Catholic, and they go do Catholic stuff.) Very few things raise life satisfaction more than spending time with grandchildren, and grandparents can be very helpful to busy parents. That’s why we had a big family meeting a couple of years ago and decided that rather than traveling to visit one another, we would all move to the same area—even to the point of three generations living in one house (mine and Mrs. B’s).

The author holds one of his roommates. (Courtesy of Arthur Brooks)

So there you have it: the five big changes in life that have had the most pronounced positive effect on my well-being. And not in just a one-off way. The improvements have been continuous and cumulative.

I won’t pretend that everything is perfect, happiness-wise. I’m still a high-strung, anxious guy. And I still find it tricky to enjoy life fully. But these five practices, all backed by sound science, have really helped me. In the coming weeks and months, I’ll write in more depth about each one—and many others. In the meantime, please share some of your own happiness protocols by writing to me in the comments.

Until next week, and sorry I can’t make dinner,

Arthur

The Pursuit of Happiness with Arthur Brooks will be back next week with a column on Monday. His newsletter returns next Friday. Sign up here to get both delivered straight to your inbox.