Write these things down to reveal a beautiful matrix of all the things that made you happy. Chances are, most of them can also be the answer you need. When searching for your true calling, it may be a good idea to follow people who have already found it! Most of us chase money all of our lives, and all our life decisions are based on this factor. However, sit down and visualize your life as if you had all the money in the world.
And that is the perfect place and time to create a change in your life, and take that first step towards your dreams.
If you are striving to find happiness, it may be closer than you think. You may not even need to find that mystical purpose everyone keeps talking about. Have a look at your life and think about what you are doing right.
What makes me happy in day to day life? Once you have figured out these factors, you can strive to eliminate them from your life and replace them with something that is giving you good emotions. Not only will you immediately feel more positive, but it will open up your schedule for things that actually give you joy.
And hey, once all the dirt, and sadness, and bad things are removed from your life… Nothing is clouding your sight anymore and it gets so much easier to see what excites you!
Writing things down helps to clear your mind, and allows you to reach the deepest caverns of your soul. You may even find yourself feeling a lot happier thanks to minutes a day with your journal! But there's another reason to wish to be more lighthearted and content: Happiness is definitely a result, but happiness is also a driver.
While I'm definitely into finding ways to improve personal productivity whether a one-day burst of output, or a lifetime of increased effectiveness, or things you should not do every day , probably the best way to be more productive is to just be happier. Actually, many changes are easy. Here are 11 science-based ways to be happier from Belle Beth Cooper , co-founder of Hello Code, which makes Exist , a cool app that connects all of your services to turn that data into insights about your life.
Smiling can make us feel better, but it's more effective when we back it up with positive thoughts, according to this study :. But workers who smile as a result of cultivating positive thoughts--such as a tropical vacation or a child's recital--improve their mood and withdraw less.
Of course, it's important to practice "real smiles" where you use your eye sockets. You've seen fake smiles that don't reach the person's eyes. Try it. Smile with just your mouth. Then smile naturally; your eyes narrow. There's a huge difference between a fake smile and a genuine smile. According to PsyBlog , smiling can improve our attention and help us perform better on cognitive tasks:.
When this idea was tested by Johnson et al , the results showed that participants who smiled performed better on attentional tasks which required seeing the whole forest rather than just the trees. Psychologists call this the facial feedback hypothesis.
Even forcing a smile when we don't feel like it is enough to lift our mood slightly this is one example of embodied cognition. Think exercise is something you don't have time for?
Think again. Check out this seven-minute workout from The New York Times. That's a workout any of us can fit into our schedules. Exercise has such a profound effect on our happiness and well-being that it is an effective strategy for overcoming depression.
In a study cited in Shawn Achor's book The Happiness Advantage , three groups of patients treated their depression with medication, exercise, or a combination of the two.
The results of this study are surprising: Although all three groups experienced similar improvements in their happiness levels early on, the follow-up assessments proved to be radically different:. Of those who had taken the medication alone, 38 percent had slipped back into depression. Those in the combination group were doing only slightly better, with a 31 percent relapse rate. The biggest shock, though, came from the exercise group: Their relapse rate was only 9 percent.
You don't have to be depressed to benefit from exercise, though. Exercise can help you relax, increase your brainpower, and even improve your body image, even if you don't lose any weight. We've explored exercise in depth before , and looked at what it does to our brains, such as releasing proteins and endorphins that make us feel happier.
A study in the Journal of Health Psychology found that people who exercised felt better about their bodies even when they saw no physical changes:. Over both conditions, body weight and shape did not change. Various aspects of body image, however, improved after exercise compared to before. Yep: Even if your actual appearance doesn't change, how you feel about your body does change. We know that sleep helps our body recover from the day and repair itself and that it helps us focus and be more productive.
It turns out sleep is also important for happiness. Sleep deprivation hits the hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories yet recall gloomy memories just fine. They could remember 81 percent of the words with a negative connotation, like cancer. But they could remember only 31 percent of the words with a positive or neutral connotation, like sunshine or basket. The harmless bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, stimulated the release of serotonin in the brain after it was injected into mice.
Low levels of serotonin is what causes depression in people. In a human test, cancer patients reported increases in their quality of life when they were treated with the bacteria. Eating lunch at your desk can be a real downer, report scientists from the University of Sussex who measured the happiness of employees after they ate lunch in different locations.
The results showed that workers were happiest about their work when they ate lunch on the beach and least happy about work when they ate at their desk. Getting outside in the sun was key to staving off misery — people who ate in parks had a more positive attitude about their jobs than those who chowed down at a restaurant or at home. Exercise is proven to increase feel-good chemicals in the brain, reduce stress hormones, and relieve depression and anxiety according to Happify , a website and app that offers psychology-based games to increase your happiness.
And you can achieve these positive changes in just a few short minutes. Researchers at the University of Vermont found that even just 20 minutes of exercise can give you those mood-boosting benefits for up to 12 hours afterward! Moreover, people who are active are happier and more satisfied with their lives. The duration and location of your workout also affects how happy you feel afterward.
So, check out how to achieve your maximum happiness sweet spot. Working hard to improve a skill or ability, such as learning how to drive or solving a math problem, may increase stress in the short-term, but makes people feel happy and more content with their lives in the long run, a study reported. And what's striking is that you don't have to reach your goal to see the benefits to your happiness and well-being," co-author Ryan Howell said in a statement.
When it comes to happiness, older people seem to know something that the rest of us don't because a number of studies have found that older people tend to be some of the happiest people around. Why this is, however, is still a mystery to scientists because they have yet to find what exactly is causing this happiness.
Chances are, it's a number of things: One study in suggested the reason is because older people are more experienced, and therefore, better at dealing with negative emotions like anger and anxiety.
But another, more recent study, reported that the cause is that older people are more trusting , which comes with a number of healthy psychological benefits that lead to happiness. Whatever the reason, if you're not happy right now, you can rest assured that your chances of happiness in the future are good. For you. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options.
Get the Insider App. Click here to learn more. A leading-edge research firm focused on digital transformation. Good Subscriber Account active since Shortcuts. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile. Log out. US Markets Loading H M S In the news. Erin Brodwin. There are science-linked ways to be happier and healthier. And they're not so hard to do. Jotting down your feelings and star gazing are easy ways to lift your spirits.
Here are 22 other easy ways to boost your mood that psychologists and social scientists swear by. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Write down 3 things you're grateful for. Go on a hike or gaze up at the stars on a clear night. Drink coffee not too much, though.
Read an adventure story. Get outside. Go for a nature walk.
0コメント