20 Ways to Get and Stay Happy
as taken from this website
http://www.time.com/time/specials/20...630611,00.html
comments added by me
1.Count Your Blessings
Count your blessings but not everyday. Sonja Lyubomirsky, an
experimental psychologist at UC Riverside, found that people who once a
week wrote down five things they were grateful for were happier than
those who did it three times a week. "It's an issue of timing or
frequency," says Lyubomirsky, "When people do anything too often it
loses the freshness and meaning. You need to have optimal timing."
Lyubomirsky added that it has to feel right. She tried to count her
blessings and hated it. "I found it hokey. It didn't work for me. Just
like a diet program, what you do has to fit your lifestyle, personality
and goals." In essence, gratitude might not be for everyone. But if it
is, another exercise is to think of a person who has been kind to you
that you've wanted to thank a teacher, mentor or parent and write a
letter, once a week to different individuals over two months. You don't
even have to send it to feel happier.
Being a memeber of theBubbler definately is a blessing!!!
2.Hear the Music
Whether regarded as an evolutionary accident that piggybacked on
language or as the gateway to our emotions, music activates parts of the
brain that can trigger happiness, releasing endorphins similar to the
ways that sex and food do. Music can also relax the body, sometimes into
sleep as it stimulates the brain's release of melatonin. A study of
older adults who listened to their choice of music during outpatient eye
surgery showed that they had significantly lower heart rates and blood
pressure, and their hearts did not work as hard as those who underwent
surgery without music. A second study, of patients undergoing
colonoscopy, showed that listening to their selection of music reduced
their anxiety levels and lessened the dosage required for sedation.
go to WisMuisc.com
3.Snog. Canoodle. Get It On.
It's no secret that a roll in the hay, and all that leads up to it,
feels good. Endorphins are the neurotransmitters in your brain that
reduce pain and, in the absence of pain, can induce euphoria. A rush of
such chemicals might seem like a temporary solution to a dreary day, but
there are added benefits, not the least of which is expressing affection
and strengthening the bonds of a relationship. Oxytocin is released by
the pituitary gland upon orgasm; often referred to as the "hormone of
love" or the "cuddle chemical," it is associated with feelings of
bonding and trust, and can even reduce stress.
what can I say? I found MyLove MyPet how about you?
4.Nurture Your Spirituality
Survey after survey shows that people with strong religious faith of
any religion or denomination are happier than those who are
irreligious. David Myers, a social psychologist at Michigan's Hope
College, says that faith provides social support, a sense of purpose and
a reason to focus beyond the self, all of which help root people in
their communities. That seems reason enough to get more involved at the
local church, temple or mosque. For the more inwardly focused, deep
breathing during meditation and prayer can slow down the body and reduce
stress, anxiety and physical tension to allow better emotions and energy
to come forward.
find your own center of peace @ www.thebubbler.com
5.Move Your Body
We've all heard about a "runner's high," but there are plenty of other
ways to achieve that feeling. Dance. Play a sport. Work out as hard as
you can. Take a walk so your stress will take a hike. Moving your body
releases endorphins, the quintessential feel-good chemicals found in
your brain. How endorphin release is triggered by exercise is somewhat
of a controversial science because researchers don't know if it is
caused by the positive emotion felt upon meeting a physical challenge or
from the exertion itself. Either way, physical motion can provide a rush
of good energy that can lift a mood, be it anxiety or mild depression,
and it's a good way to keep healthy.
start by moving your finger to click-on www.thebubbler.com
6.Laugh Big
Be it a slew of good jokes, a slapstick comedy or laughing yoga, find
something to give you a good hearty laugh that brings tears to the eyes
or a giggle fit that makes the sides of your body ache. People are 30
times more likely to laugh in groups than alone and, not surprisingly,
laughter is associated with helping to develop person-to-person
connections through a feedback loop characterized by laughter, social
bonding and more laughter. Laughter, like so many other
endorphin-triggers, helps to reduce certain stress hormones and, while
it might be contagious, it strengthens your immune system rather than
weakening it.
there is always something funny at www.thebubbler.com
7.Do Something Nice for Someone Else
Hold a door open for someone at the bank, give someone directions if
they look lost or make a point to compliment three people on your way to
work. Small or big, directed at friends or strangers, random acts of
kindness make the person performing the kind act happier when they're
grouped together, according to Sonja Lyubomirsky, an experimental
psychologist at UC Riverside. Doing a considerate thing for another
person five times in one day made the doer happier than if they had
spread out those five acts over one week. Lyubomirsky explains that
because we all perform acts of kindness naturally, it seems to please us
more when we're more conscious of it. There are social rewards, too,
when people respond positively.
enlighten someone on the the use of www.thebubbler.com
8.Make More Money Than Your Peers
Midas might have been an unhappy guy, but that's probably because he
didn't know any other kings who could also turn things into gold. Money
as an absolute may not make you a happier person but making more money
than others in your age group does, according to a sociological study
done in 2005 by researchers at Pennsylvania State University. But
keeping up with the Joneses isn't the only way that money brings
happiness. Saving it for retirement or a rainy day brings together a
variety of positive emotions that can lead to happiness, such as
anticipation and expectation, a sense of delayed gratification and
reward.
start a business and advertise on www.thebubbler.com
9.Seek Positive Emotion as a Path to Success
Happiness can lead to success, rather than just the other way around.
Happy individuals are predisposed to seek out new opportunities and set
new goals. After reviewing data of 225 studies gathered from more than
275,000 individuals, a team of psychologists concluded that while
previous research assumed that happiness stemmed from success and
accomplishment, happiness is often a result of positive emotions.
Success is the result of many factors, including physical health,
intelligence, family and expertise.
seek to share on www.thebubbler.com
10.Identify With Your Heritage
Whether it's getting comfy with a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, dancing
at a Japanese Obon festival or scarfing down a hot dog at Coney Island,
embrace your culture. Appreciating one's culture creates and strengthens
bonds with others who share that culture and also allows one to identify
and appreciate cultural difference. A recent study showed that
adolescents of Mexican and Chinese ethnicity maintained feelings of
happiness despite daily stress when they had a strong sense of cultural
identity. In other research, psychologists found an association between
stable cultural identity and overall positive emotion in African
American and Native American communities.
go to http://www.wiroots.org/
11.Use a Happy Memory as a Guide
Learn to scan your memory bank for your strengths, talents, passions,
interests, practical coping skills, and earlier potential whether it's
actualized or not. Scanning this memory bank and gleaning material that
can be used to reinvent yourself to be happier is key, says Barbara
Becker-Holstein, psychologist and author of Enchanted Self: A Positive
Therapy. For example, someone who would like to be more altruistic can
scan their past and know that they didn't like Girl Scouts in elementary
school. That crosses off being a PTA mother. But they might remember
that as a child they enjoyed collecting soda bottles and giving the
money to the local fire station where they knew the firefighters. That
person might consider giving money and time to a local group where they
can socialize with people rather than mailing in a check to a distant
organization. "Looking at one's personal style, tastes and interests as
we look for ways to be happy today is very important," says
Becker-Holstein.
recall all your past posts on www.thebubbler.com
12.Play the Part of an Optimist
Optimism is a learned skill and there are a variety of ways to acquire
it, says psychologist Mary Ann Troiani, co-author of Spontaneous
Optimism. Through her research, Troiani has come up with three things
that you can do to enhance your sense of optimism. First, straighten out
your body before your emotions by keeping a straight body posture,
taking big steps and walking quickly with your shoulders back and your
head up. "People who are pessimistic walk slowly with small steps and
their head down," she says. Second, change your tone of voice so that it
is cheerful and full of energy. Third, use upbeat or happier words, such
as "challenge" rather than "problem," or think of "opportunities" rather
than "losses." "Positive thoughts and behavior have a positive impact on
the brain's biochemistry," she says. "[They] boost your serotonin levels
and signal that you're happy. Your brain will catch up to you." Troiani
reminds us: it takes about 4 to 6 weeks to really change a habit.
go to www.thebubbler.com
13.Try New Things
Stop putting off seeing the aurora lights, warming up in the hot springs
of Greenland or learning a new instrument just do it. If you often do
one thing that makes you happy, then try another. Psychologist Rich
Walker of Winston-Salem State University looked at 30,000 event memories
and over 500 diaries, ranging from durations of 3 months to 4 years, and
says that people who engage in a variety of experiences are more likely
to retain positive emotions and minimize negative ones than people who
have fewer experiences. Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson, at the
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, studies her broaden-and-build
hypothesis of positive emotion. Her research suggests that the optimal
ratio of positive to negative emotion in humans is above 3 to 1 and
below 11 to 1. Walker has observed that once the ratio of positive to
negative events hit 1 to 1, it opens the door to potential disorders,
such as anxiety and depression.
there is always something new on www.thebubbler.com
14.Tell Your Story to Someone
Talking about the good and bad things that happen can lead to happiness
even if it is from opposite ends of the phone line. In a controlled
lab experiment, psychologist Rich Walker of Winston-Salem State
University found that the reasons are two-fold: people tend to emphasize
positive emotions and mitigate negative ones when telling a story, since
memory's natural bias is to keep tabs on the good stuff and gradually
lose the emotional intensity of a bad event; and the process of
storytelling can affect how one feels about what happened even up to a
week later. In other words, talking about a negative experience made the
emotional intensity of that memory fade faster than if the event had not
been recounted. Walker says that storytelling works best when there is a
lot of audience diversity it helps to tell the story many times to a
variety of people.
Introduce yourself on www.thebubbler.com
15.Balance Work and Home
The grin of our society is blue-toothed. With BlackBerrys and corporate
email at home, we are tethered to technology unlike any previous
generation. This newfound flexibility between our work and private lives
works for some people but is problematic for others. In 2003, Michigan
State University researchers found that those who establish boundaries
between work and home are more connected to their families and have less
conflict than those who integrate the two. The researchers divided
people into what they call integrators and separators and suggested that
knowing the appropriate boundaries between work and home can have an
impact and improve happiness.
for get this just go to www.thebubbler.com
16.Be Like the Danes: Keep Expectations Realistic
Last year, the first world map of happiness was produced, and Denmark
came out on top. For more than 30 years, the nation has ranked first in
European satisfaction surveys. Researchers in the British Medical
Journal tried to understand why the Danes felt more satisfied than the
Swedes or Finns, who share similar aspects of culture, and came up with
two plausible explanations: the lasting impact of the Danes' victory in
the 1992 European Football Championship has kept them in a state of
euphoria since; and the nation, while satisfied, has shown low
expectations for the coming year, unlike the Greeks and the Italians who
rank low on satisfaction. While there were other reasons that
contributed to the satisfaction of the Danes, one thing is clear: the
higher one's expectations, the further they fall.
after www.thebubbler.com what else do you want?
17.Make Time
Society is plagued by time bankruptcy. But what if people asserted more
control over their time to optimize their use of it? "Maybe you need to
burn bridges, discard habits or situations that waste time and avoid
emotional vampires," says Mary Ann Troiani, co-author of Spontaneous
Optimism. "It's like house-cleaning at that point." Psychologists will
say prioritize, set realistic daily goals that fit into the bigger
picture and some time might be recovered. Troiani usually asks one
pointed question to shock her clients out of their rut: How would you
feel in two or three years if you still feel this way? "People sit there
like a deer in headlights," she says. Her response: picture and imagine
what you want to feel like. Maybe set aside two nights in your calendar
to focus on those things that you'd like to spend more time on. Or as
she puts it: cut the chase.
to stop @ www.thebubbler.com
18.Visualize Happiness
We are unique creatures in that we can mentally simulate situations by
remembering the past and visualizing the future. We can also play a hand
at perhaps creating the future at least in terms of preparing our
emotional state for what may come. It's a valuable tool and one that can
lead to happiness when applied to specific goals. There is much research
behind visualization and emotional changes, as it has been shown that
positive thoughts have an impact on the brain's biochemistry. Many
psychologists ask people to imagine or picture what they would like in
their life, creating a mental state that makes the person think that it
is achievable. "If you experience that visualization with your eyes
closed, your mind doesn't know if it's real or unreal," says Mary Ann
Troiani, co-author of Spontaneous Optimism. "Neuropsychological ways
makes them feel as though they have it and tricks the mind into thinking
they have [what they are visualizing] now. It makes them more confident
about it."
it is virtually @ www.thebubbler.com
19.Smile
Go ahead. It won't hurt you. It might actually make you happier, too.
Based on the psychology that a person feels whatever emotion they are
acting at the moment, you will probably feel better if you smile. To
avoid what is called cognitive dissonance, in which our thoughts and
actions don't match up, our minds react to the change in our facial
expression to bring our beliefs in line with our behavior. And, like
laughter, it's contagious. If you smile, chances are that those around
you will too.
When you stop @ www.thebubbler.com
20.Marry Happy
Since there may be no point in marrying rich (see previous), then marry
happy. Research shows that depressed singles receive greater
psychological benefit from things such as intimacy and emotional
closeness from getting married than those who are not depressed. And
for the married population, first of all, congratulations: people in
committed relationships have been shown to be happier than those who
aren't, despite how satisfying their marriages actually are. Research
done by an economist at the University of Warwick suggests that if
you're married to someone who is happy, then you are happy as well. The
research concludes that happiness, like material things in a marriage,
is shared. Awww...
I found MyLove MyPet how about you?
Linear Mode
