- Title: Yale University's most popular class ever teaches students how to be happy
- Date: 28th March 2018
- Summary: NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, UNITED STATES (MARCH 27, 2018) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSOR LAURIE SANTOS, SAYING: "Many of us remember college as the happy days. Here at Yale, we have the song 'Bright College Years'. It was the brightest time of life. But that doesn't completely capture what's happening now. I think there's a lot more pressure on students to get to an elite college like Yale or to get to any college. I think there are a lot more pressures in terms of things like social media, kind of always being on and performing. So I think that these kinds of things mental health issues on campus have gotten worse even in just the last 10 years." PEOPLE WALKING DOWN SIDEWALK YALE STUDENT REBEKAH SILIEZAR WALKING (SOUNDBITE) (English) YALE STUDENT REBEKAH SILIEZAR, SAYING: "I'm really trying to watch my thoughts a little bit more and watch my own emotions and what I associate them with. Specifically I mean I try not to stress out as much about grades. I try not to stress out about the next steps and jobs and things like that. I really try to focus on the present moment and the people around me." YALE STUDENT LEONARDO SANCHEZ-NOYA, SAYING: "I think now when I'm in a rush, my initial reaction isn't anymore to like try to run to whatever is stressing me. It's kind of take a half second, orient myself and then move forward. And I found personally kind of taking that half second whenever you're stressed or whenever you're in a rush or whatever you're doing really pays off in the end." WOMAN WALKING DOWN SIDEWALK LOOKING AT PHONE
- Embargoed: 11th April 2018 19:13
- Keywords: Yale University happiness Laurie Santos Psychology and the Good Life psychology happy well-being
- Location: NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
- City: NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
- Country: USA
- Topics: Health/Medicine
- Reuters ID: LVA00888WOK7T
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:The search for one of life's most elusive treasures - happiness - has driven nearly 1,200 students into an enormous concert hall at Yale University for its most popular class ever.
"Psychology and the Good Life" is such a hit that one in four students at Yale, the Ivy League university founded in 1701, are enrolled in the spring semester class that ends with a final exam in April, said Yale Psychology Professor Laurie Santos.
The draw, she said, is misery and the hope that science can map out a blissful escape route for students at the elite school.
"I think there's a lot more pressure on students to get to an elite college like Yale or to get to any college. I think there are a lot more pressures in terms of things like social media, kind of always being on and performing. So I think that these kinds of things mental health issues on campus have gotten worse even in just the last 10 years," Santos said.
"Psychology and the Good Life is a class that really looks at what science says about how you can live a life that flourishes more, that makes you a little bit happier. We first deal with some of the misconceptions about what makes you happy. This is one of the interesting things that the science suggests is that there are certain things we think will make us happy that we strive to get. But in fact those things don't make us as happy as we think."
Santos said feelings of happiness are fostered through socialization, exercise, meditation and plenty of sleep. Money and possessions are often set as goalposts in the game of life, but the route to happiness heads in a different direction, she said.
"Very happy people spend time with others, they prioritize time with their friends, time with their family, they even take time to talk to the barista," Santos said.
"There is a psychological phenomenon of 'mis-wanting,' wanting the wrong things. We work really hard to get a great salary or to buy this huge house, but we've forecasted wrong. Those things are not going to make us as happy as we think," she said.
Homework assignments for the class, also known as PSYC 157, include showing more gratitude, performing acts of kindness and bumping up social connections.
Due to overwhelming demand, the course is now being offered free to the public, through Coursera.org.
On campus, the class is already paying off for Yale seniors Rebekah Siliezar and Leonardo Sanchez-Noya.
"I'm really trying to watch my thoughts a little bit more and watch my own emotions and what I associate them with," said Siliezar. "Specifically I mean I try not to stress out as much about grades. I try not to stress out about the next steps and jobs and things like that. I really try to focus on the present moment and the people around me," she added.
Sanchez-Noya said he has learned to keep more calm.
"I think now when I'm in a rush, my initial reaction isn't anymore to like try to run to whatever is stressing me. It's kind of take a half second, orient myself and then move forward. And I found personally kind of taking that half second whenever you're stressed or whenever you're in a rush or whatever you're doing really pays off in the end."
The third oldest university in the United States, Yale boasts many famed alumni including Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and actors Paul Newman and Meryl Streep. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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