Hacking Happiness

Blame it on economic tension, terrorism or Trump: new research reveals we’re less optimistic than ever about achieving optimal bliss. But can we rewire our brains for peak positivity? Kathryn Madden enrols in Yale’s happiness school to find out

The wine is flowing (Burgundy, red). The music is pumping (’90s hip-hop). The laughs are rolling (long and loud). My girlfriends and I are hacking into cheese platters at a buzzy city bar on a Friday night, catching up on the week and delighting in each other’s tales and triumphs.

Or are we? As we go around the table, I can’t help but sense a swirling undercurrent of gloom. One friend is in house-hunting hell and has just lost out at an auction to baby-boomer investors – again; another is miserably chewing on spinach before she heads off to Bali for a wedding; the other feels locked in a job she hates. And me? I’m the resident green-eyed monster. I quietly envy my friends’ well-deserved victories – great boyfriends, cushy salaries – and I’m stressed out and exhausted by a never-ending stream of deadlines.

Behind the bright veneer, we’re hardly an upbeat bunch. And it turns out we’re not alone. According to a recent global study, 65 per cent of Australian millennials (broadly defined as those aged 18 – 35) fear they’ll never be as happy as their parents*. Some point to the dream of home ownership slipping further and further from their well-manicured fingers, while others feel smothered by a perpetual pressure to be perfect. On top of that, we’ve come of age amid economic tension, terrorism and the ever-present threat of Trump.

So the following week, when my editor commissions me to partake in a happiness challenge and write about it, I can’t flash my pearly whites fast enough. The brief? To complete Yale University’s “The Science of WellBeing” free course and see if it gives me a much-needed serotonin boost.