There are times when a foggy malaise can settle into a spot. Even when cracks of sunlight break through this vapor, a heaviness lingers.

Despite being a reporter -- a job where we're conditioned to notice and document what's wrong, unfair, tragic and broken -- I usually enjoy being a happy and positive person. But there has been so much striking and detailed pain on display in our world recently.

This summer, the gruesome images of the war in Gaza were soon joined by heartbreaking ones out of Ferguson. Couple this with the fact that my generation has entered that period of life when there's a steady stream of devastating personal news among our peers: Parents (or even children) die, alarming diagnoses are more common, and friends divorce.

We have been through cycles of tragedy, death and destruction before. But this prolonged dark period provoked a deeper anxiety in me. From the personal to the political, the onslaught of bad news has felt relentless.

It was in the midst of this run of gloominess that I decided to embark on a happiness project. Not happiness as in a constant state of chipper: Some of the most outwardly cheerful people I've known have been deeply unhappy inside. But happiness in the way that psychologists have defined it: the pleasure of feeling good; engagement in living a good life with family, friends, work and hobbies; and finding meaning in being able to use our strengths toward a greater purpose.

Is it possible to increase those pieces of happiness, thereby becoming happier?

There's an entire body of research that looks at ways to make people happier in life and work. I sifted through some of this positive psychology analysis and watched the most popular TED talk on the subject.

Positive psychology experts Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan have written extensively about the habits that can train our brains to think more positively, which they argue leads to our brains making us feel happier. Scientists say there's a biochemical process at work: Positive emotions like love and joy release dopamine and serotonin into our brains. This biochemical wash helps our brain process new information, think more quickly and creatively, and connect better with others.

Achor and Gielan suggest that incorporating these five daily habits for as little as 21 days can make us happier:

1. Write down three unique and new things you are grateful for every day. This teaches the brain to scan for new, good things.

2. Spend a few minutes writing down in detail the most meaningful moment from your day. This allows you to relive what made it meaningful for you.

3. Praise or thank a different person in your social network every day, either by email or phone, for something specific. This will remind your brain of the support around you.

4. Exercise for 15 minutes a day. The effects can be as powerful as taking an antidepressant.

5. Take two minutes to meditate and breathe. Pay attention to your inhale and exhale. It will focus your attention and lower stress.

I tried to do all five habits and recorded my efforts daily for 21 days last month. I just kept a log in a note in my iPhone where I documented results at night. The only ones I did religiously for three weeks were listing three new gratitudes each day, describing the most meaningful moment and thanking a person for a specific act each day. The 15 minutes of exercise was hit or miss. I completely failed on the meditating. That was very challenging.

About a third of my meaningful moments were with my children. The rest were through interactions at work, with friends or with people who were essentially strangers. It was revealing to keep track of which moments actually moved me during the day.

And, the researchers were absolutely correct. While I was committed to this task, I became more attuned to the good things, no matter how small. I spent more minutes in my day contemplating the positive. I felt more grateful and engaged with people and connected to the meaning in my life.

A few times, I struggled to come up with a meaningful moment or a different person to thank. On the days I was very tired, it felt like a chore. But overall, I think it lifted my spirit in a way that had been missing for a while.

When things looked especially bleak, this happiness project was an antidote.

The only defense we have against the at-times overwhelming and random pain in this life is belligerent happiness.

"How can one sentence make a city go crazy?"

To my fourth-grader, the grand jury decision and its aftermath looked like a simple cause-and-effect situation. Initially, this prompted an obvious response: There's never an excuse to damage property, steal or hurt another person. Those are criminal acts committed by a few vandals and thieves.

But a complete answer of why this decision has angered so many people is more complicated to explain, although just as vital.

We watched the grand jury decision on television with our young children because they needed to see it. Both had heard classmates talking about it in school and on the bus during the day. Moreover, they had heard the background chatter of news reports since August, when Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson.

They've read front-page headlines at the breakfast table that prompted obvious questions: Why did a police officer shoot this teenager? Why so many times? What really happened?

Often, we didn't have the answers, but told them that people were working to figure it out. We want our children to have faith in the bedrock institutions of our country. But they also must learn that, like the humans that comprise them, institutions and systems are imperfect.

The specters of police brutality and riots have been the backdrop to the start of the school year in the St. Louis area. There's been a collective sense of holding one's breath, a palpable current of anxiety.

Life is filled with teachable moments, but few as stark and close-to-home as this. We focus most of our energy on teaching our children the basic skills they need to learn -- reading, writing, arithmetic. But it's our history that teaches them how to understand their world. One of the critical lessons a parent can teach a child is how to understand a situation from different perspectives.

Race is deceptively uncomplicated in my children's young lives so far. They have relatives who are white, black and brown. Their middle-class lives bounce along in the typical bubble of school, after-school activities and parentally coordinated social gatherings. Brown's death and the aftermath have been a view outside that narrow world.

In a manner typical of her generation, the sixth-grader took a picture of the screen while prosecutor Bob McCulloch announced there would be no charges against Officer Darren Wilson. It was a moment that required her own documentation.

The kids didn't say much in the moment. None of us did. We sat there processing our own emotions, trying to make sense of what was unfolding. Despite the exhortations to always be talking to our children, sometimes it's better to listen.

And if no one is ready to say much yet, it can be enough just to be near.

My son's big question about the city going crazy came the next morning; he had watched a few minutes of burning buildings and rioting on television before we made him go to bed. It's now our job to help him see the bigger picture of how this particular decision fits into the history of this country, and the ongoing civil rights struggle for equal rights and protection under the law. More than three months of demonstrations and the boiling-over anger on the streets started with one young's man death, but it's about more than one person.

Certainly, we have told them countless times before that not every child has schools as good as the ones they attend. Not every child grows up with parents who can spend as much time taking care of them. Not every child gets the same opportunities as their peers.

This time, we have to say: Not everyone is treated the same way by police officers or courts.

In some cases, people are still not treated fairly because of the color of their skin. That unfairness can make people angry. When people protest, they want to make others pay attention to why they are upset and try to change the way things work. That's a right protected by the Constitution in our country. The challenge is allowing people that right while keeping other people safe. There are people taking advantage of people's anger and making a bad situation worse.

It's scary for children to witness chaos and unrest. We can reassure them that we will do our best to protect them. We can help them make sense of confusing and tragic events by reminding them of the social progress our country has made and how long it took to get there.

Within the darkest chapters of our national narrative, there are stories of hope and resilience.

When we tell our children how far we've come, we remind ourselves how much further they can take us.

I'll admit it.

I'm not immune to competitive gifting in this commercialized time of year. I've stalked toy stores, stood in long, snaking lines and scoured the Internet for that perfect gift.

Most people, not just little ones, are happy to receive shiny new things. And the giver gets the pleasure of having provoked that moment of joy.

We remember the special tangible things we get from our parents -- a piece of jewelry, a dollhouse or game. But recently, I started thinking about the gifts from my mother and father that came from the soul, not the store. These gifts were not unwrapped on a single morning, but in bits and pieces every single day.

They are priceless. They last a lifetime. And when we feel most pressured to buy, they are a reminder of how to give.

The best gifts my parents ever gave me:

1. Love. We all made mistakes. I did. They did. We had moments when we hurt one another. But even during the times when we didn't like each other very much, I didn't doubt that they loved me with their whole hearts. I saw it in their faces, and I knew it from how they took care of me. They've told me countless times. I've always believed it.

2. Self-worth. My father would talk about current events and ask my opinion, even as a child. My parents were interested in my thoughts, which meant my voice mattered.

3. Siblings. Playmates, competitors, instigators, foils. Bless my parents for giving me five of them. They taught us that these were the relationships that you have forever.

4. Faith. They made sure we had formal instruction and learned the rituals and practices of our faith, but they also told us stories and made us part of a community. The message was universal: Try to be a better person. Make the world better. My mother showed me by example how to constantly hold a prayer in your heart.

5. High expectations. It can be easy to confuse expectations with pressure. And as a child, there was pressure to do well, but it was tempered with a foundation of love and with the example of two hardworking parents. So I strove for what was expected.

6. A second language. The knowledge and beauty of the world cannot be contained in one language, and I am grateful that my parents spoke to me in Urdu throughout my childhood.

7. Generosity. They didn't talk about what they gave, even to us, but I knew where the money set aside for different charities was kept. And there was always an elderly relative living with us. I saw my parents take care of other people and give, even when we had very little, and internalized what it meant to be of service to others.

8. Laughter. There is so much teasing that happens in a big family that you learn quickly not to take yourself so seriously. When you come from a family of storytellers and jokesters, you learn to laugh easily and often.

9. Sacrifice. They left the country in which they were born and raised. They left their families. I saw their reactions when they received letters and phone calls from back home. I felt their loneliness and pain. At a young age, I confronted the question: If you want something better, what are you willing to give up for it?

10. Chores. They made me do chores. I learned how to properly clean a bathroom. I knew how much effort it took to cook for and maintain a household of eight people. Eventually, I learned the peace of mind that comes with creating order in your surroundings.

11. Boundaries. They said no to so much of the fun stuff everyone else was allowed to do. They said no a lot. They instilled a healthy fear of disappointing or disobeying them. This saved me from a lot of trouble.

12. Community. Family extends to all your kin -- your cousins, your aunts and uncles and those who treated you like family. They prioritized those relationships because it was a way to keep us in touch with where we came from and who we were. It gave us a sense of belonging.

13. Manners. They instilled in us the basics of civility and respect, from how to greet an adult, to visiting someone who was sick or had experienced a loss. I saw the way in which they considered the feelings and needs of others.

14. Courage. As much as they taught us to respect authority, we were also taught to stand up for our beliefs and have pride in who we were. When I saw my mother wear traditional clothing or hijab to cover her hair, it was a quiet act of courage.

15. Independence. My parents were from the generation of anti-helicopters. They never "advocated" for me in the school system. They never called a teacher or coach. They expected me to solve my own problems and figure out how to get stuff done. I did.

When I started jotting down ideas for this column, the list quickly grew too long. I reviewed it with my 9-year-old son, who helped cull the catalog. I couldn't resist asking him: So, do you feel like we are giving you some of these same gifts in your childhood?

"Yeah," he said. He paused and then smirked. "At least half of them."

Sense of humor? Check.