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Finland was recently named the happiest country in the world for the sixth year running. A range of theories have been put forward to explain why the Nordic nation continues to rank at the top of the table for happiness, from greater income equality to time spent in nature.
But one Finnish sociology professor credited the country’s position to “a cultural orientation that sets realistic limits to one’s expectations for a good life”. That is, he seems to believe Finnish people are happy because they don’t set their expectations too high.
So should we all lower our expectations to be happier? I would argue psychology research suggests the opposite.
Read more: Why Finland is the happiest country in the world – an expert explains
High expectations are important because they allow us to dream and create goals to work towards. Through a process called mental contrasting, we create judgements about our expectations of the future and decide which dreams are realistic to pursue and which ones we should let go.
For example, you may imagine yourself living a life with many friends around you. If you’re sitting alone at home dreaming about this and feeling sad about the reality of being lonely, mental contrasting helps you identify your dream, anticipate potential obstacles, plan to take action to overcome them and pursue a goal that will help you make friends, such as joining a club. So high expectations, when realistic, can serve as a motivating force to make a change.
High expectations also keep us optimistic, so that we keep going in the face of adversity. When a bad thing happens to someone and they develop an expectation that everything will work out well – despite the adversity and even if it seems unrealistic at the time – this can lead them to take positive steps forward.
For example, your expectation of finding a lifelong partner may diminish when your relationship breaks up. However, if you continue to have high expectations that you’ll meet the right person, you’re more likely to join a dating site and seek opportunities to meet new people.
Low expectations limit our capacity to develop and grow. Having low expectations that we’ll accomplish what we hope to is not a good way to adapt to changes in life, and can lead to feelings of helplessness and despair.
When we have low expectations of success following adversity, we’re more likely to give up, for example not bother trying a dating app. Even when our chances of success are objectively high, we will forego opportunities – perhaps to meet new people – due to our low expectations that things will work out well for us.
So, having high expectations can help us adapt to changing circumstances and keep going. It’s a sign of resilience, adaptability and wellbeing.
While it’s useful to set high expectations for ourselves, we also tend to perform better when other people have high expectations of us. This is called the Pygmalion effect.
Our belief that others see us as capable and believe that we can accomplish more than we think we can pushes us to perform better. Likewise, when others have low expectations of us, we generally perform worse.
The Pygmalion effect has been tested extensively in the workplace and education, showing similar results.
Setting expectations too high can have negative effects. Imagine you overestimated your skills and challenged yourself too much. Perhaps you started to play Candy Crush on your partner’s phone and their level is way ahead of yours. The mismatch of your skills and this challenge may lead to frustration and even anxiety.
To neutralise this, all you need to do is go back to a level better matched to your skill level – which you find challenging but at which you’re capable of achieving high scores to progress in the game. We tend to do the same in real life to keep the equilibrium.
For example, say you’re organising a dinner party for your friends. If you commit to cooking a sophisticated meal that’s too challenging, your anxiety may reach such high levels that you can’t enjoy your own dinner party. Instead, you could lower your expectations and prepare a meal that doesn’t require as much skill, but still challenges you (and that your friends will no doubt still enjoy).
We all have longings, a desire for an ideal version of our lives. Some of our longings become goals (for example, becoming a parent), and others become a lifelong desire that will likely never come true (for example, winning the X Factor).
One of the reasons people may not want to have high expectations is because they want to protect themselves from disappointment when their hopes are not realised, which is a valid concern. However, learning to manage our emotions when sadness and frustration kick in helps us cope more effectively with adversity.
The pros of high expectations in motivating us to set and achieve goals outweigh the cons, and any “protection” we might get from low expectations. Considering all this, I think it’s too simplistic to believe Finns are happier for this reason.
Jolanta Burke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
If you hate Mondays, you’re most certainly in good company. After a couple of days off, many of us have difficulty settling back into our routines and work duties. You may even have dread and anxiety that seeps into the weekend in the form of “Sunday scaries”.
You can’t always change your schedule or obligations to make Mondays more appealing, but you may be able to “reprogram” your brain to think about the week differently.
Our brains love predictability and routine. Research has shown that lack of routine is associated with decline in wellbeing and psychological distress. Even though the weekend heralds a leisurely and pleasant time, our brain works hard to adjust to this sudden change to a routine.
This article is part of Quarter Life, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.
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The good news is that the brain does not need to make too much effort when adjusting to the weekend’s freedom and lack of routine. However, it’s a different story when coming back to the less pleasant activities, such as a to-do list on Monday morning.
One way to adjust to post-weekend change is introducing routines that last the whole week and have the power to make our lives more meaningful. These may include watching your favourite TV programme, gardening or going to the gym. It is helpful to do these things at the same time every day.
Routines improve our sense of coherence, a process that allows us to make sense of the jigsaw of life events. When we have an established routine, be it the routine of working five days and taking two days off or engaging in a set of actions every day, our lives become more meaningful.
Another important routine to establish is your sleep routine. Research shows that keeping consistent sleep time may be as important for enjoying Mondays as how long your sleep lasts or its quality.
Changes in sleep patterns during weekends trigger social jetlag. For instance, sleeping in later than usual and for longer on free days may trigger a discrepancy between your body clock and socially-imposed responsibilities. This is linked to higher stress levels on Monday morning.
Try to keep a set time for going to bed and waking up, avoid naps. You might also want to create a 30 minute “wind-down” routine before sleep, by turning off or putting away your digital devices and practising relaxation techniques.
Hormones can also play a role in how we feel about Mondays. For instance, cortisol is a very important multifunction hormone. It helps our bodies to control our metabolism, regulate our sleep-wake cycle and our response to stress, among other things. It is usually released about an hour before we wake up (it helps us feel awake) and then its levels lower until the next morning, unless we’re under stress.
Under acute stress, our bodies release not only cortisol, but also adrenaline in preparation for fight or flight. This is when the heart beats fast, we get sweaty palms and may react impulsively. This is our amygdala (a small almond-shaped area in the base of our brains) hijacking our brains. It creates a super fast emotional response to stress even before our brains can process and think whether it was needed.
But as soon we can think – activating the brain’s prefrontal cortex, the area for our reason and executive thinking – this response will be mitigated, if there is no real threat. It is a constant battle between our emotions and reason. This might wake us up in the middle of the night when we’re too stressed or anxious.
It shouldn’t be surprising then that cortisol levels, measured in saliva samples of full-time working individuals, tend to be higher on Mondays and Tuesdays, with the lowest levels reported on Sundays.
As a stress hormone, cortisol fluctuates daily, but not consistently. On weekdays, as soon as we wake up, cortisol levels soar and variations tend to be higher than on weekends.
To combat this, we need to trick the amygdala by training the brain to only recognise actual threats. In other words, we need to activate our prefrontal cortex as fast as possible.
One of the best ways to achieve this and lower overall stress is through relaxation activities, especially on Mondays. One possibility is mindfulness, which is associated with a reduction in cortisol. Spending time in nature is another method – going outside first thing on Monday or even during your lunch hour can make a significant difference to how you perceive the beginning of the week.
Give yourself time before checking your phone, social media and the news. It’s good to wait for cortisol peak to decrease naturally, which happens approximately one hour after waking up, before you expose yourself to external stressors.
By following these simple tips, you can train your brain to believe that the weekdays can be (nearly) as good as the weekend.
Cristina receives funding from CURE Epilepsy, Irish Research Council and Epilepsy Ireland. She is Funded Investigator within FutureNeuro the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Chronic and Rare Neurological Diseases.
Jolanta Burke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
FreshRSS