Well-being is the experience of health, happiness, and prosperity. It includes having good mental health, high life satisfaction, and a sense of meaning or purpose. More generally, well-being is just feeling well. (Take this quiz to discover your level of well-being.)
Well-being is something sought by just about everyone, because it includes so many positive things – feeling happy, healthy, socially connected, and purposeful. Unfortunately, well-being appears to be in decline, at least in the U.S. And increasing your well-being can be tough without knowing what to do and how to do it.
These are some of the reasons why I founded The Berkeley Well-Being Institute – an organization that translates the science of well-being into simple tools and products that help you build your well-being. And they are the reasons why I wrote Outsmart Your Smartphone: Conscious Tech Habits for Finding Happiness, Balance, and Connection IRL, which helps people tackle new challenges that interfere with our well-being in the technology age.
Can you actually improve your well-being?
Increasing your well-being is simple; there are tons of skills you can build. But increasing your well-being is not always easy: Figuring out what parts of well-being are most important for you and figuring out how, exactly, to build well-being skills usually require some extra help.
How long does it take to improve well-being?
Usually when people start consistently using science-based techniques for enhancing well-being, they begin to feel better pretty quickly. In the studies I’ve conducted and read, most people show significant improvements within five weeks.
