Throughout the last four weeks, I participated in a project with the goal of using evidence-based research to increase my personal happiness. To achieve this, I practiced two happiness-inducing activities: meditation and counting blessings. I practiced meditation because of significant data I found in a published article. The article I read suggests that increasing positive thoughts and emotions can improve the happiness of an individual, and practicing meditation is a great way to increase positive thoughts (Lyubormirsky & Layous, 2013). Therefore, I meditated three times a week based on advice given to me by my psychology professor (Sinville, 2024, Personal Communication). During those triweekly meditation sessions, I listened to guided meditation…show more content… Although meditation did not directly increase my happiness, I strongly believe that counting my blessings did. In weeks three and four, I recall spending a little extra time reflecting on what I was grateful for in the past week and consequently, my calculated happiness score increased during those final weeks. It is hard to be certain that counting my blessings was what influenced my happiness; there were many different outside variables that may have been the real cause. For example, in week two I had a chemistry test that generated a bit of stress for me, and in week three I went home for the weekend to visit my family. That was one of the downfalls of this project, as it was not a scientific experiment. With the lack of a control group or random assignment, and with too many confounding variables to account for, this project was not an actual experiment. Creating an actual experiment was not the goal of this project anyway because an actual experiment would need a control group and that would leave some students without the chance to participate in the positive activities. Even with that in mind, I still believe that counting my blessings has a positive effect on my
