Happiness Experiment

Kaylee Beeman

Hypothesis: I think I can increase my happiness by watching the sunset every night
and doing things that I normally do such as listening to music and talking to friends will
increase my happiness not only because Im combining things I love to do but also
because it can open up my mind and make me feel more relaxed.

Procedure: I will be watching the sunset every night for about 15 minutes. While
watching the sunset I will be listening to music and talking with friends in order to kind of
keep myself a little bit occupied. I will be taking the Oxford Happiness Test before and
after watching the sunset. This will be how I test if watching the sunset affects my
happiness.
1. At the start of the week I will take the oxford happiness questionnaire and record
my happiness level
2. Each day before I watch the sunset, I will rate my happiness on a scale from 1-10
(extremely unhappy and 10 extremely happy)
3. Watch the sunset
4. Talk to friends/read
5. At the end of the week I will retake the questionnaire and I will see if my
happiness level increased.
Dates and observations:

Date: Rate Rate

(1-10) (1-10)
Before: After:

Wednesday: 3.66 3.76

3/1/17

Thursday: 3.77 3.82

3/2/17

Friday: 3.69 3.75

3/3/17

Saturday: 3.86 3.91

3/4/17

Sunday: 3.65 3.73

3/5/17
Observations:
Day 1: Its cold but my dogs are making me happy and I am loving the music
Day 2: Had fun with my dogs and it was pretty cold.
Day 3: I feel tired but my friends are adding to my happiness.
Day 4: Some friends arent being the best people right now but my dogs are making me
happy.
Day 5: Spent time communicating and looking at the sunset feel relaxed.

Reflection: I really realised that I am not as happy as I thought I was. I also realised
that there are so many different things that can affect your happiness. I think one of
things that affects mine the most is me always reflecting on the past and almost feeling
like I cant be happy because of it. Your mind set on things has a huge affect on your
emotions and how you live your everyday life. So I guess my new question is, how do I
figure out a way to have a positive mind set?

Conclusion: I spent around 15 minutes a day watching the sunset and doing everyday
things such as talking to friends and listening to music. My hypothesis was, I think I can
increase my happiness by watching the sunset every night and doing things that I
normally do such as listening to music and talking to friends will increase my happiness
not only because Im combining things I love to do but also because it can open up my
mind and make me feel more relaxed. My results ended up supporting my hypothesis.
Although it didnt increase the scores tremendously it still increased it. In doing this
project it made me think of another question that I plan on putting more thought in.This
being, How can I create a more positive mindset in order for me to live a happier life?
Because this experiment did increase my happiness I might try and do it more, not only
because of the increase but because it was actually pretty nice and calming.