4 free happiness courses you can start today for a more positive 2024
Looking for ways to make this new year even happier? Taking any of these free courses may be a great way to start.
Several prestigious universities and institutions, including Harvard and Yale, have decided to offer online modules about happiness to everyone for free. With an electronic device, you can learn the keys to boosting your well-being from just about anywhere.
Here are four free happiness courses, all available online, for you to consider.
1. Managing Happiness – Harvard University
If you’re trying to get to the root of what happiness is, and how to increase it, think about signing up for Harvard’s free course called “Managing Happiness.” Taught by social scientist Arthur C. Brooks, the online class dives into how to live a more purposeful life and why “happiness is within your control.”
The course can be taken at your own pace, but after six weeks, you lose access to its materials and your progress. Be sure to take advantage of the opportunity by March 27 of this year, as the course may not be available online after that date.
2. The Science of Well-Being – Yale University
Yale’s most popular class ever focuses on understanding happiness and learning the science behind it. “The Science of Well-Being,” led by Laurie Santos, a professor of psychology, is 10 weeks long and explores why the things that we think will make us happy actually don’t.
By the end of the course, the aim is for you to “be prepared to successfully incorporate a specific wellness activity into your life,” and enhance your own well-being with the things that truly make people happy.
3. The Science of Happiness – Berkeley University of California
Since 2014, Berkeley University of California has offered a free course that explores “The Science of Happiness.” In eight weeks, the goal of the class is to explore “the roots of a happy and meaningful life through science and practice.”
The course is lead by two directors at the university’s Greater Good Science Center, Dacher Keltner and Emiliana Simon-Thomas. Students participate in a weekly “emotion check-in” and are given exercises that are centered around happiness.
4. Positive Psychology – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
UNC-Chapel Hill offers a six-module course that is self-paced about “Positive Psychology.” Barbara L. Fredrickson, director of the university’s Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory, dives into the common pitfalls that people should avoid when pursuing happiness and the health benefits of experiencing and giving kindness.
The course aims to provide “practical applications” of positive psychology “that you can put to use immediately to help you live a full and meaningful life.”