Happiness is not a simple goal, but is about making progress, when it's as elusive as ever. Being happy often means continually finding satisfaction, contentment, a feeling of joy, and a sense that your life is meaningful during all kinds of problems — that does not depend upon finding ease or comfort.[1] Nobody is jolly or elated all the time, but some individuals are definitely more fulfilled/fortunate than others. Some studies reveal that happiness has little to do with comfort or possessions — so what is it about? A sense of well being/happiness is good for your health, so what can we do to have that.Read on to learn how to be happier.
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Change your thoughts. People have a natural tendency to remember negative experiences but forget positive ones; however, thanks to adaptability (neuroplasticity), you can actually change the way your brain functions. You can train yourself to be happier by seeking self-actualizing work and your kind of fun.
Practice mindfulness. Occupy your mind with positive thoughts, actively striving, seeking, working on goals and humming a tune, for happy effects on the mind and body. Focusing on your experiences in the present moment without judging them or yourself can help you become more compassionate to yourself and to others.
Meditate. Activities that promote meditation, including an extended peaceful prayer, yoga, Tai Chi, or spiritual reflection, actually change an area of your brain called the insula, which is involved in your experience of empathy/understanding others. Developing your empathy muscles (helping others) will help you lead a happier life.
Make small events into appreciated “experiences.” Focus on and preserve the great little moment in a photo, write a journal or Facebook entry or make a short video. Make awareness of a gorgeous sunny day; accept a compliment from a friend. Why — this will train your brain to be happier by actively acknowledging the beauty of small moments and turning them into memorable “experiences.”
Smile a little, hop, skip and sing in those moments, and they will not slip so quietly through the cracks of memory. Say, "Thank you, so much!"; perhaps, write thank you notes on Facebook, use text, email or snail mail, appreciating people in a big way.
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Look for the positive in all your experiences. The old saying that you find what you look for is true. Start. Because of this, make it a habit to actively seek out the positive in any experience. It’s not only good for your overall happiness, it’s good for your physical health, and boosts your immune system.
Accept harsh experiences and problems as learning opportunities. It can be tempting to let challenges or roadblocks keep us from feeling happy. Sometimes, it looks like there’s nothing good about a particular situation or experience. However, it’s important to think about even the greatest setbacks as experiences we can learn from for great results in the future/tomorrow.
Don't give up on your ideas. "Try, fail often, get over it quickly," says Myshkin Ingawale, in a 2012 TED talk. He discussed his inventing small, inexpensive blood-oxygen and hemoglobin diagnostic technology that now help save women’s lives in rural India. Many ideas were not successful at first. But instead of allowing himself to give up or see these challenges as failures, he used them as learning experiences for his next attempt. Now, his handheld invention for blood analysis has helped reduce maternal deaths from anemia and complications in rural India by 50%.
Refocusing on the positive can help you heal from traumas
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Cultivate optimism. Why does winning the lottery not make people happy? In the 1970s, researchers followed people who'd won the lottery and found that a year afterward, they were no happier than people who hadn't. This is called hedonic adaptation, which suggests that we each have a “baseline” of happiness to which we return. No matter what events occur, good or bad, the effect on our happiness is temporary, and happiness tends to quickly revert to the baseline level. Some people have a higher baseline happiness level than others, and that is due in part to genetics, but it's also largely influenced by how you think.
There is power in intentions, having a purpose: Positive thinking is an important component of self-esteem and overall life satisfaction.[12] Optimism also tends to make your personal and work relationships better.
Optimism is more than just positive expectations. It’s a way of interpreting everything that happens to you. Pessimism tends to explain the world in global, unchangeable, internal terms: “Everything sucks,” “I can’t do anything to change this,” “It’s all my fault.” Developing an optimistic outlook means thinking about yourself and your world in limited, flexible terms.
For example, a pessimistic outlook might say, “I’m terrible at math. I’m going to fail that test tomorrow. I might as well just watch TV.” This statement suggests that your math skills are inherent and unchangeable, rather than a skill you can develop with work. Such an outlook could lead you to study less because you feel like there’s no point to it — you’re just an inherently bad mathematics student. This isn’t helpful.
An optimistic outlook would say something like “I’m concerned about doing well on that test tomorrow, but I’m going to study as well as I can and do my best.” Optimism doesn’t deny the reality of challenges, but it interprets how you approach them differently.
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