The Dawn Treader

Feeling blue?  Cheer up.  I have great news.  Psychologists have finally figured out the keys to happiness.

Happiness is 50 percent genetic, says University of Minnesota researcher David Lykken.  Ok, so maybe that is not such good news.  Life got you down?  Blame your genes.  Ok, blame half of it on your genes.

What about that other 50 percent?

Prescription drugs?  Nope.  No happy pills for you.  Money won't do it -- well, it works in the short run, but the happiness dividends run out it seems, according to research.

So ... what works?

You have some choices according to psychologists.  First up, is the "flow".

One route to more happiness is called "flow," an engrossing state that comes during creative or playful activity, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has found. Athletes, musicians, writers, gamers, and religious adherents know the feeling. It comes less from what you're doing than from how you do it.

Not do it for you? ... here's another choice.

Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California at Riverside has discovered that the road toward a more satisfying and meaningful life involves a recipe repeated in schools, churches and synagogues. Make lists of things for which you're grateful in your life, practice random acts of kindness, forgive your enemies, notice life's small pleasures, take care of your health