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Do you remember playing games like the Oregon Trail or Carmen Sandiego? These games helped you develop skills like planning and world geography. But learning these skills was fun because it was just part of the game.
Now imagine for a moment that you could learn happiness skills like positivity, gratitude, and self-esteem, just by playing games. Well, it turns out you can because happiness has officially been gamified.
There are several games that help you build the skills that contribute to happiness. So if you’re like me and want to gamify your "happiness journey," here's how:
1. Try gamified happiness activities.
One way to play your way to happiness is to use apps that gamify the happiness building process. For example, SuperBetter gamifies happiness by giving power-ups, challenges, and quests as you engage in happiness-boosting activities. Similarly, Happify enables you to track your progress and earn medals for completing happiness-boosting activities. Or, if you prefer games that are a little more artistic, Mindbloom is another lovely way to help motivate you to “grow the life you want.”
2. Play games that build happiness.
A second approach is to play games specifically designed to build happiness. For example, to build self-esteem, you can use McGill’s online self-esteem-boosting games. To build your ability to pay attention to the positive, you can try Personal Zen or an Uplift made by Happify. And, to increase accessibility of positive words and concepts, you can play a game that I helped make: the smiley face game.
3. Build happiness creatively.
A slightly different approach to gamifying your happiness is to engage in gamified activities. For example, you can explore what brings you the most joy with this Pinterest-based activity or discover your definition of happiness with this drawing activity. You can also use this word-game to help strengthen neural networks for positive information in your brain and you can use this activity to help you more easily remember positive information.
4. Immerse yourself in beautifully designed games.
Another approach to gamifying happiness is to engage in beautifully designed games that immerse you in an experience and generate the emotions of that experience. For example, Elude takes you on a guided journey of what it feels like to have depression and Flower helps you experience what it is like to float on the wind.
Looking to the future...
When it comes to building happiness games, we've only just scratched the surface. So keep your eye out for more happiness games; they're on their way.
Originally published on BerkeleyWellBeing.com.
