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Americans place a high value on personal happiness. In fact, Thomas Jefferson wrote of a national entitlement to the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence.

What does happiness mean to you? Would you define happiness as self-fulfillment? Freedom? Respect?

Would you quantify happiness? Is it having some money or more money? A job or your dream job? Good health or perfect health?

People expect happiness to come from many sources:

• “I would be happy if I made an A on that test.”
• “My family is the one thing that makes me truly happy.”
• “I won’t be happy until this economy gets better.”

Happiness has been the subject of much scientific research. Perhaps, if researchers can figure out what causes happiness, everyone can have it.

Some studies have shown that there is little correlation between life experiences and long-term happiness. Researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Massachusetts conducted a study in 1978 — “Lottery Winners and Accident Victims: Is Happiness Relative?” The psychologists learned that positive life experiences do not, in and of themselves, cause a happy life any more than negative life experiences cause an unhappy life. They concluded that society tends to “overestimate the general duration of feeling (that is) generated by an event.” In other words, when feelings of happiness or unhappiness are related to events, they can be fleeting.

Since the 1800s, scientists have studied the relationship between the brain’s structure and functions. Neuroscientists have even studied the brains of Buddhist monks in efforts to determine the origin of happiness.

The National Institute of Mental Health has recently announced a $30 million project aimed at mapping the circuitry of the healthy adult human brain. The institute hopes the study will help to identify how individual differences in brain connectivity relate to individual differences in behavior.

Can you choose happiness?

A growing body of social psychologists is promoting the concept of intentional happiness. Dr. Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology and director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center, claims that people can learn to change their attitudes and modify their behaviors “to be happier — to feel more satisfied, to be more engaged with life, find more meaning, have higher hopes and probably even laugh and smile more, regardless of one’s circumstances.”

Seligman asserts that positive psychology interventions can “lastingly decrease depression symptoms by increasing positive emotion, engagement and meaning rather than directly targeting depressive symptoms.”

If you have a tendency toward natural happiness, you might not need to learn ways of reframing your distress. However, even the most positive thinkers can be worn down by the negativity of media, family members and others, not to mention all of the other stressors in today’s society.

Here are a few tips that you may find helpful in maintaining a positive outlook regardless of life’s circumstances:

• Start and end every day with a smile. Smile often throughout the day.
• Practice acts of kindness toward others. Happiness is infectious.
• Take time to engage in pleasing activities. Lose yourself in your favorite hobbies and interests as a way of enjoying the positive things that life has to offer.
• Set aside quiet time every day to say and repeat positive words and phrases to yourself.
• Enjoy simple pleasures that are cheering — pretty colors, fragrant aromas, beautiful music, favorite photos, fresh fruit.
• Commune with nature. Take a walk. Sit outside. Go to the park.
• Get a moderate amount of healthy exercise.
• Watch the sun rise or set.
• Look at the sky on a clear, starry night.
• Take on a simple, creative project such as refinishing an old piece of furniture, cleaning or polishing something or organizing a drawer or cabinet.
• Plant a tree, a flower or a shrub and nurture it.
• ake a list of the things about which you are happy.
• Find a positive quote for each day, and really think about its meaning.
• Keep a journal.
• Learn about something. Read a book about a subject you would like to know more about.

You’ll want to add to this list with other things that facilitate happiness for you.

Penny Casto is public information specialist with the Guilford Center. Contact her at pcasto@GuilfordCenter.com.