These questions were answered with the Experience Sampling Method (ESM)<ul><li>When people are pursuing leisure activities that were expensive such as power boating, driving or watching television - they are significantly less happy.</li><li>People are happiest when they are talking to one another, when they gardened, knitted or are involved in a hobby.</li></ul>

Happiness Index: Material Resources Vs Investment In Oneself?

<ol><li>Set an overall goal, and as many subgoals as are realistically feasible.</li><li>To find ways of measuring progress in terms of the goals choosen.</li><li>To keep concentrating on what one is doing and to keep making finer and finer distinctions in the challenges involved in the activity.</li><li>To develop the skills necessary to interact with the opportunities available.</li><li>To keep raising the stakes if the activity becomes boring.</li></ol>

Essential Steps To Experience Flow

6. Dharana : holding on, is the ability to concentrate for long periods on a single stimulus and thus is the mirror image of the earlier stage of pratyahara.7. Dhyana: one learns to forget the self in uninterrupted concentration that no longer needs the external stimuli of the preceding phase.8. Samadhi : self collectedness, when the meditator and the object of meditation become as one.

Achieving Flow: 8 Different Stages Of Yoga

1. Unselfconscious self assurance: the recognition that one's goals may have to be subordinated to a greater entity.2. Focusing attention on the world: Concentrate on the internal disorder: but by paying attention to what is happening around oneself instead, the destructive effects of stress are lessened.3. Discovery of new solutions:a. Focus attention on the obstacles to achieving one's goals and then move them out of the way, thereby restoring harmony in consciousness.b. To discover whether alternative goals may not be more appropriate and thus find different solutions possible.

Why Some People Gain Strength From Stress?

<ul><li>Keeping order in mind from within is very difficult. </li><li>Person needs external goals, stimulation, feedback to keep attention directed. </li><li>When external input is lacking, attention begins to wander and thoughts become chaotic.</li></ul>

Why Is Loneliness A Negative Experience?

<ol><li>Yama: one must achieve restraint from acts and thoughts that might harm others.</li><li>Niyama: obedience, follow routines in cleanliness, study and obedience to God. Help channel attention into predictable patterns and hence make attention easier to control.</li><li>Asana: ways of sitting and holding postures for long periods without succumbing to strain or fatigue.</li><li>Pranayama: breath control, aims to relax the body and stabilizes the rhythm of breathing.</li><li>Pratyahara: Withdrawal, learning to withdraw attention from outward objects by directing the input of the senses.</li></ol>

THE BESTSELLING CLASSIC ON 'FLOW' – THE KEY TO UNLOCKING MEANING, CREATIVITY, PEAK PERFORMANCE, AND TRUE HAPPINESS Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's famous investigations of "optimal experience" have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow. During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life. In this new edition of his groundbreaking classic work, Csikszentmihalyi ("the leading researcher into ‘flow states’" —Newsweek) demonstrates the ways this positive state can be controlled, not just left to chance. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience teaches how, by ordering the information that enters our consciousness, we can discover true happiness, unlock our potential, and greatly improve the quality of our lives. "Explores a happy state of mind called flow, the feeling of complete engagement in a creative or playful activity." —Time

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Productivity

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Personal Development

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Science & Nature

“Csikszentmihalyi arrives at an insight that many of us can intuitively grasp, despite our insistent (and culturally supported) denial of this truth. That is, it is not what happens to us that determines our happiness, but the manner in which we make sense of that reality. . . . The manner in which Csikszentmihalyi integrates research on consciousness, personal psychology and spirituality is illuminating.” —Los Angeles Times Book ReviewThe bestselling classic that holds the key to unlocking meaning, creativity, peak performance, and true happiness. Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's famous investigations of "optimal experience" have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow. During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life. In this new edition of his groundbreaking classic work, Csikszentmihalyi ("the leading researcher into ‘flow states’" —Newsweek) demonstrates the ways this positive state can be controlled, not just left to chance. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience teaches how, by ordering the information that enters our consciousness, we can discover true happiness, unlock our potential, and greatly improve the quality of our lives.

Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi was a Hungarian-American psychologist. He recognized and named the psychological concept of "flow", a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity. He was the Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University.