That is, if engaging in exciting activities creates happiness.
According to new research from the University of North Carolina, different types of happiness have different physical and emotional effects. Furthermore, these effects are experienced down to a person’s genes.
Hedonic happiness comes from experiences that provide immediate pleasure, such as eating a delicious meal or being at a great party. Eudaimonic well-being is longer lasting. This type of happiness comes from creating and working toward a sense of meaning to life and living within your own value system.
Research shows that people who experience Eudaimonic happiness have less inflammatory proteins and a greater antiviral response compared with those who primarily experience Hedonic happiness. In short, people who primarily derive happiness by pursuing the greater good have better physical responses than those who primarily derive happiness from short term pleasurable experiences.
What does this mean for your life? Do you have a good balance of both happiness types? How might you find more ways to create meaning in your life and live out your core values?
It's important to differentiate between (shorter) hedonistic happiness and (longer lasting) eudaimonic happiness … although getting children can be exhausting in short-term (sleep deficiency etc.) it is a huge increase in eudaimonic happiness and meaning in life experience!
Great example! For many people having children does provide meaning and happiness. Even though some research suggests that happiness declines after children are born, other research shows that happiness increases. This is one example in which emotional reactions are not black and white.