Simple tips to boost happiness

Good morning friends. There are simple tips to boost our happiness. I want to share it with you, as I know you will need it for our day to day life. First of all happiness can be self-controlled and boosted through certain practices, claim researchers. Some scientists had suggested happiness is primarily determined by genetics, health and other factors mostly outside of our control. Do you think its possible to become happier?

In spite of the finding that happiness is partially genetically firmed, and despite the finding that life situations have a smaller influence on our happiness than we think they do, we argue that still a large portion of happiness is in our power to change.

There are test attempts to increase happiness, Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, Riverside, has jotted down five things that can improve happiness:

1. Be grateful - Some study participants were asked to write letters of gratitude to people who had helped them in some way. The study found that these people reported a lasting increase in happiness - over weeks and even months - after implementing the habit.

2. Be optimistic - Study participants were asked to visualize an ideal future - for example, living with a loving and supportive partner, or finding a job that was fulfilling - and describe the image in a journal entry. After doing this for a few weeks, these people too reported increased feelings of well-being.

3. Count your blessings - People who practice writing down three good things that have happened to them every week show significant boosts in happiness, studies have found. It seems the act of focusing on the positive helps people remember reasons to be glad.

4. Use your strengths - Another study asked people to identify their greatest strengths, and then to try to use these strengths in new ways. For example, someone who says they have a good sense of humor could try telling jokes to lighten up business meetings or cheer up sad friends. This habit, too, seems to heighten happiness.

5. Commit acts of kindness - Helping others also helps ourselves. People who donate time or money to charity, or who altruistically assist people in need, report improvements in their own happiness.

Health is HAPPINESS – 2

There was this story of healthy businessman who had been a smoker for many years since he was a teenager. At the age of 50, he was diagnosed with a lung cancer. During his family’s last visit to him in the hospital, he told his wife and two sons, “The is the only time I realized that health is more important than wealth.” Also there was once a rich man, owner of a dynamic insurance company who committed suicide upon learning that he had cancer. These stories only show that truly, no amount of money can buy us health and the happiness that goes with it.

In my work as art therapist, I often meet people who are “unhealthy” one way or another. Some may be battling with diseases while others may be addicted to unhealthy habits. On the other hand, I have also had art students who were paraplegics and cancer survivors but they were happy because they have survived despite their illnesses; they may be physically incomplete but are psychologically and spiritually whole. Some live very simple lives but they are happy because they are free from any illness. These are people who have learned to value their health as God’s priceless gift.

In our conscious moments, to say that health is “happiness” is not difficult but the problem is, we are seldom conscious of this fact. More often, we subject ourselves to blind choices and habits that endanger our health and it is only when we cannot eat, see, walk, talk, hear, work or attend to the more important things in our lives anymore that we are forced to value our health again.