I think about happiness a lot.
Specifically, I think about what’s keeping me from being happy. Those obstacles can include delayed trains, dry contacts or ClassPass’ $28 missed workout fee.
More often than not, it’s my harsh inner monologue. My generation was raised on the idea that happiness is a choice, so I get mad at myself for feeling other emotions. That’s why, when I heard about the University of Pennsylvania’s “monk class” last spring, I wanted to test drive its curriculum.
The formally titled “Living Deliberately” course requires students to “observe a code of silence” and “abstain from using all electronic communications” for a month, according to the university’s website. Monks believe that silence frees up brain space, making you more available for religious epiphanies, Justin McDaniel, the class’s professor, told me in June.
The point isn’t to cure or prevent sadness, McDaniel said. It’s to feel less afraid of being sad, and more confident in your ability to navigate their emotions.
Thirty days would be hard: My job depends on my voice, phone and laptop. So at the end of August, I took a 48-hour vow of silence and no technology, ranging from a Sunday afternoon to a Tuesday afternoon.
At one point, I accidentally said “excuse me” to a neighbor doing laundry behind me — but otherwise, I made it the entire two days hours without speaking or using technology. And I learned something that upended my sense of happiness, and how to achieve it: Less is often more.
Here’s what that means.
When I’m stressed, social media and TV don’t necessarily make me feel better
Whenever I start to feel overwhelmed, I usually reach for my phone, turn on the TV or listen to something. I’m not entirely sure why — maybe it’s a hope that distracting myself for long enough will help me move past it.
Typically, the opposite happens: My thoughts multiply, and I go from overwhelmed to panicked.
I recently started seeing a new doctor who, when looking over my chart, paused when she saw I reported struggling with anxiety and mild depression.
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“That surprises me,” she said. “You’re so bubbly and confident.”
My sunny disposition, mostly unintentionally, masks my inner monologue. But during my experiment, I found it easier to listen to my self-talk. Without access to “Gilmore Girls,” Instagram or the “Armchair Expert” podcast, I noticed the intrusive thoughts and shook them off more easily.
Silence, it turns out, can be good for us. It can improve concentration, creativity and mindfulness, and helps lower blood pressure, reduce cortisol and improve insomnia, studies show.
Asking for help is great — but only when you actually need it
In the fall of 2020, I finished graduate school, ended a relationship, moved in with my parents and was unemployed as a pandemic raged on.
It was a lot. Daily calls with a friend kept me in one piece. We spent hours laughing and crying on the phone together. Arguably, the experience taught me the wrong lesson — that whenever I feel something negative, I need to go into crisis mode and pour my emotions out to someone.
“You have to learn how to … sit with feelings of anger or sadness or loneliness without crowdsourcing your emotions to your friends,” McDaniel said, adding that it often only takes “dealing with 30 seconds of discomfort.”
During my time in “monk mode,” I still occasionally thought, “Woah. Does everyone I know secretly hate me?” Allowing myself to observe the thought without calling a friend to psychoanalyze it proved shockingly effective. I could figure out what triggered the feeling, and look at my emotions objectively.
I don’t hate anyone for being a little loud, slightly vain or caring what other people think of them, so why would people feel that way about me?
I feel better when I slow down
Celebrities, CEOs and monks swear meditation is life-changing. There’s even “moderate evidence” it improves anxiety, depression and physical pain, a 2014 Johns Hopkins University meta-analysis found.
But I, like many others, am bad at sitting still. I’ve tried to sit with my back against a wall in silence, listening to recordings on a meditation app. After five minutes, I’m worse off than before, annoyed I can’t corral my wandering mind.
McDaniel offered an alternative strategy: At home, he and his children allocate 30 minutes per day for sitting or walking in silence.
“For that half hour, you can’t read, you can’t learn, you can’t listen to music,” he said. “You just have to sit with your thoughts and breathe and look at your surroundings.”
Over the course of my two days, I walked in silence for considerably longer than 30 minutes. It didn’t convince me to stay off TikTok forever — I don’t have the self-control for that — but I now find that going on walks without my AirPods can help me monitor my anxiety.
McDaniel was right. I don’t need to feel good all the time. I just need to make taking care of myself less daunting, and hopefully, feel a little happier as a result.
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