How to be happy (but not too much)

Excellent article but this foot note got my attention:

"Happiness is...
Happiness, in its everyday sense, is akin to pleasure or joy, something we experience in the moment as a result of enjoyable activities. Besides pleasure, there are of course many different positive emotions, such as awe, pride, and gratitude that might also contribute to our general mood.
When psychologists talk about happiness, however, they usually use the term to mean our overall and long-term subjective well-being and life satisfaction. Happiness in this broader sense is mostly probed with questionnaires that ask subjects to rate how much they agree or disagree with statements such as "In most ways my life is close to ideal," or "If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing." When averaged over a group such as a nation, these measures can be used to generate a measure of collective happiness. Importantly, recent psychological research is explaining how those fleeting positive emotions contribute to this longer-lasting satisfaction and contentment with our life.

• Write a diary. Simply writing about a positive experience has been shown to increase people's life satisfaction, with the benefits lingering for two weeks after the task (Journal of Clinical Psychology, vol 62, p 1291). A further study found that a group of subjects who wrote about their emotions for just 2 minutes a day, over two days, reported fewer physical health complaints four weeks down the line (British Journal of Health Psychology, vol 13, p 9).
• Dispute negative thinking. This is a technique borrowed from cognitive behavioural therapy, in which you catch negative thoughts as they arise and ask: "Is there really reason to think like this? Can I reframe this in a more positive way?"
• Meditate. Barbara Fredrickson and colleagues have shown that meditation can relax both your body and your mind, with many beneficial effects for well-being and happiness (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol 95, p 1045). It's not easy, however, and you may need some training before you get going.
• Nurture meaningful relationships with family and friends. More than simply improving your well-being, it might just save your life. "Social resources and ties to groups are one of the key buffers protecting us against unhappiness," says Fredrickson. A recent meta-analysis of 148 studies on links between the quantity and quality of social relationships and mortality suggests that being socially isolated is about as bad for your health as smoking or drinking excessively, and worse than being obese (PLoS Medicine, vol 7, p e10000316).
• Beware consumerism. Buying more possessions won't make you as happy as spending money on social activities or new and exciting experiences (The Journal of Positive Psychology, vol 4, p 511)."