--- title: Trying to Be Happy Is Making You Miserable. Here's Why description: A new study suggests that over-promoting happiness and trying too hard to be happy can actually increase rumination and negative feelings. canonical: https://time.com/5356657/trying-to-be-happy/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-08-10T14:30:49.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:53:15.313Z article:section: Health og:title: Trying to Be Happy Is Making You Miserable. Here's Why og:description: We may be overemphasizing happiness og:url: https://time.com/5356657/trying-to-be-happy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf33ffbd5389192f/69893731bc6cfc23223e6a2d/trying-to-be-happy.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4680 og:image:height: 2633 og:image:alt: Colorful Papers With Anthropomorphic Faces Stuck On Wall og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trying to Be Happy Is Making You Miserable. Here's Why twitter:description: We may be overemphasizing happiness twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf33ffbd5389192f/69893731bc6cfc23223e6a2d/trying-to-be-happy.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trying to Be Happy Is Making You Miserable. Here's Why > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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Brief (Washington politics, twice weekly), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=afe35085-db77-4cbe-a22d-e05bc25ea1e8&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Why Vacation is Good for Health and Happiness [Watch (HLS stream): Why Vacation is Good for Health and Happiness](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/6s1ULXbi.m3u8) (1:32)  _Published 2017-08-08. Taking time off from work or the daily grind not only helps people de-stress and feel happier, but it also helps productivity and mood—as long as you do it right_  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Aug 10, 2018 2:30 PM UTC  Fabian Krause / EyeEm—Getty Images/EyeEm  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Aug 10, 2018 2:30 PM UTC The Declaration of Independence guaranteed Americans the right to pursue happiness, and we haven’t stopped looking for it since. But despite the [college courses](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/nyregion/at-yale-class-on-happiness-draws-huge-crowd-laurie-santos.html), [research labs](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/health-happiness/) and countless self-help books dedicated to that search, only 33% of Americans actually said [they were happy](http://time.com/4856954/can-money-buy-you-happiness/) in [a 2017 survey](http://time.com/4871720/how-happy-are-americans/). [A new paper](http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-30676-001) may help explain why: We’re trying too hard. The research, published in the journal _Emotion_, found that overemphasizing happiness can make people more likely to obsess over failure and negative emotions when they inevitably do happen, bringing them more stress in the long run. “Happiness is a good thing, but setting it up as something to be achieved tends to fail,” explains co-author Brock Bastian, a social psychologist at the University of Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences in Australia, in an email to TIME. “Our work shows that it changes how people respond to their negative emotions and experiences, leading them to feel worse about these and to ruminate on them more.” The study involved two separate experiments. In the first, a group of Australian psychology students were asked to solve 35 anagrams in three minutes — but, unbeknownst to them, 15 couldn’t be solved. Thirty-nine of the students completed this task in a room decorated with motivational posters, notes and books. The proctor in this room was also told by the experimenters to speak cheerfully, and to off-handedly mentioned the importance of happiness. Meanwhile, another 39 students completed the same test in a neutral room, with a neutral proctor. A third group of 38 students completed a solvable task in a room that emphasized happiness similarly to the first room. Afterward, the researchers asked all students to do a breathing exercise, during which they were periodically asked about their thoughts. Compared to the other two groups, students who performed the impossible task in the “happiness room” were more likely to think back to their failure and get stuck on these negative thoughts, which was in turn associated with feeling more negative emotions. Those who completed the impossible task in the neutral room and those who completed the solvable task in the happiness room did not differ significantly in how much they thought back to the exercise. In a second experiment, the researchers asked about 200 American adults how often they experienced and thought about negative emotions, as well as their views on how society perceives those emotions. Participants who said they felt like society expects them to be happy, or looks down on emotions such as anxiety and depression, were more likely than other respondents to [stress about feeling negative emotions](http://time.com/5347612/how-to-stop-stress-eating/), and to experience reductions in well-being and life satisfaction as a result. “When people place a great deal of pressure on themselves to feel happy, or think that others around them do, they are more likely to see their negative emotions and experiences as signals of failure,” Bastian says. “This will only drive more unhappiness.” Bastian says the study isn’t a condemnation of [trying to be happy](http://time.com/3176508/unexpected-ways-to-be-happy/); rather, it underscores the importance of knowing and accepting that feeling unhappy sometimes is just as normal and healthy. “The danger of feeling that we should avoid our negative experiences is that we respond to them badly when they do arise,” Bastian says. “We have evolved to experience [a complex array of emotional states](http://time.com/4828450/positive-emotions-inflammation/), and about half of these are unpleasant. This is not to say they are less valuable, or that having them detracts from our quality of life.” In fact, recent research has suggested that experiencing negative emotions [can ultimately boost happiness](http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/08/secret-happiness.aspx), and [another new study](http://www.jneurosci.org/content/early/2018/08/06/JNEUROSCI.0716-18.2018) finds that stressful or unpleasant situations may help people process bad news. Bastian also adds that failure can be invaluable for learning and growth. “Failure is critical to innovation, learning and progress,” he says. “Every successful organization knows that failure is part of the road to success, so we need to know how to respond well to failure.” Doing so will likely take a culture change. A society that embraces messy emotions and experiences, Bastian says, is one that is poised for better mental health. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5356657/trying-to-be-happy/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5356657/trying-to-be-happy/"},"headline":"Trying to Be Happy Is Making You Miserable. 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