Positively Happy: Fostering Life Satisfaction Through a Five Session Workshop

The physical and psychological aspects of aging impact quality of life and often present challenges to living a healthy, happy life. Studies have shown that humor, happiness, and positive attitude influence quality of life. An initial inquiry via email was sent to personnel at Salt Lake County senior centers to ask about the interest in, support for, and helpfulness of a humor, happiness and laughter workshop. Positive responses about such a workshop led to the initial and ongoing development, by this author, of a pilot program titled, Positively Happy: Fostering Life Satisfaction Through a Five-Session Workshop, to promote happiness and humor and to increase life satisfaction among older adults. The workshop consists of five sessions. Each session focuses on educating seniors about beneficial effects of humor and happiness on positive aging and includes participatory activities designed to encourage laughter, positive social interaction, friendship and healthy attitudes. The pilot program will be conducted at a Salt Lake County senior center. After the pilot workshop is completed and evaluated, the long-term goal is to implement it in the future as a five week program (incorporating feedback from evaluations) conducted once a week at senior centers in Salt Lake County.