Happiness: it’s an emotion we all crave to experience. However, it doesn’t always feel easy to cultivate, particularly in the face of life stressors. So while it’s a sad truth, it’s also little surprise that in a 2022 poll, over 45% people said that they had not felt true happiness for more than two years, and 25% agreed that they don’t know, or have forgotten, what it means to feel truly happy.

However, we know that feelings of happiness and joy are crucial for both our mental and physical health. Researchers have repeatedly found that happiness lowers one’s risk for high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, as well as improves sleep, diet, body weight, and all sorts of other positive health factors. It also positively affects life satisfaction by increasing mental wellbeing and buffers stress by preserving health and encouraging longer life.

Clearly, there’s no one ‘hack’ to cultivating contentment, however psychologists have found that one particular personality trait is most strongly linked to happiness right across the lifespan.

According to new research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, people who are high in emotional stability tend to be positive and have high self-control along with the ability to manage psychological stress effectively, which in turn contributes to greater happiness across their lifespan.

The study’s authors, Dr Gabriel Olaru and Dr Manon van Scheppingen studied more than 9,000 Dutch adults of all ages who were tracked over more than a decade. What they found was a strong connection between life satisfaction and personality that remained much the same over the lifespan.

Other personality traits were found to be significant in particular social settings. For example, for work satisfaction, the best personality trait was conscientiousness, a trait linked to being self-disciplined and aiming for achievement. For social satisfaction, however, extroversion and agreeableness were most strongly linked to happiness.

So, how do we learn to practice better emotional stability in order to boost our happiness?

Firstly, it’s important to remember that being emotionally stable doesn’t mean you never feel anything, or that you are always content. It just means that when you do find yourself in emotionally challenging situations, you respond in a reasonable, expected way while maintaining a sense of composure.

As the Tracking Happiness journal suggests, the best way to do this is to allow yourself to feel, but in a composed way. “It’s tempting to compartmentalize negative emotions to avoid experiencing pain. However, studies show that suppressing emotions has a negative impact on overall wellbeing,” it states.

However, allowing yourself to feel doesn’t have to be a miserable affair. According to the journal, there are a variety of pleasant activities you can do to check in with yourself, including:

• Ensuring your schedule includes alone time
• Enjoying a solo meal at your favourite restaurant
• Keeping a journal
• Taking a tech-free walk
• Talking through difficult feelings with someone you trust

“No matter where you’re at in life, emotional stability is something you can and should continuously pursue,” it concludes. “It may require challenging introspective work, but you owe it to yourself and others to work toward a world where emotion and logic function together in perfect harmony.”

Sound advice, indeed.

Images: Getty