Everyday Routines Make Life Feel More Meaningful

Scientific American:

Think about the most meaningful experiences in your life. You will probably recall your wedding, or a trip across Europe, or your first skydive. You won’t name brushing your teeth. Yet recent research suggests that the mundane regularities of life can very much contribute to your overall sense of meaning.

As squishy as the concept sounds, meaning in life is an integral part of our well-being. Research has associated it with good mental health, success at work and longevity. Psychologists have proposed three aspects: significance, purpose and coherence. In other words, life is meaningful when it feels important, when it seems to have a point and when it makes sense. The first two aspects have been widely studied, but the contribution of coherence was not directly tested until 2013, when University of Missouri psychologists Samantha Heintzelman, Jason Trent and Laura King reported in Psychological Science that even a simple visual pattern can engender larger meaning.

Read the whole story: Scientific American