Most happiness advice rests on a simple assumption: that the goal is to feel better, and that the path there runs through thinking more positively, reframing the setback or hunting for the silver lining.

But a substantial body of research on emotion suggests something stranger and, in its own way, more freeing. The mindset most consistently linked to well-being has very little to do with generating good feelings and much more to do with how a person relates to the feelings that aren't good at all.

Psychologists who study emotion regulation have found, again and again, that the people who cope best with difficulty are not the ones who experience fewer negative emotions. They are the ones who have learned to accept those emotions when they arrive, rather than fighting to push them away.

Researchers in this area, including psychologist Iris Mauss and her collaborators, describe this disposition as emotional acceptance: meeting anger, sadness or anxiety with a kind of curiosity and nonjudgment, instead of treating each feeling as proof that something has gone wrong.

Why Happiness Comes Last to Those Trying Hardest to Find It

What makes this finding counterintuitive is the direction it runs: People who practice this kind of acceptance tend to report better psychological health over time, including fewer negative emotions overall, than people who work hard to suppress or talk themselves out of how they feel, a pattern borne out in a 2018 study........

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