Are You Searching For Happiness?

What is happiness?

Many feel that happiness can be expressed in the way you feel when you have accomplished or learned something. It may be as simple as the joy of reading some helpful information that will improve your health or skillset. It may be the satisfaction of having graduated from a learning program and are ready to move up in life. It may be the way you feel have achieved monetary success and/or recognition and admiration of others.

Let’s put it as feeling good accompanied by a sense of satisfaction and wellbeing.

Let’s examine some feelings associated with lack of happiness. Is could be the agitation of continued stress, fear or anxiety. It could be dissatisfaction with ones lack of achievement or not having reached expected goals. It could be the distress with symptoms and manifestations of ill health.

Can we do something about it?

The health aspect is probably the most controllable of all life’s circumstances. Anything else can depend on the particular skills and abilities a person is born with. For some these may severely limit the type of possible realistic goals. The problem is that these natural limitations will prevent us from realizing our dreams and expectations. In other cases pure luck will position a person at a critical life juncture with winding up being in the wrong place and it turns out – the wrong time.

A suggestion to get a better handle on the one controllable item – one’s health – can be found in checking out the many expert resources available. One such resource can be Happiness Is Good for Your Health. 

Here are several excerpts:

Pointers

Past research has found that positive emotions –including being happy, lively, and calm — appear to play a role in immune function. One study found that when happy people are exposed to cold and flu viruses, they’re less likely to get sick and, if they do, exhibit fewer symptoms.

In a study of nearly 200 heart failure patients, those with higher levels of gratitude had better mood, better sleep, less fatigue, and less inflammation, which can worsen heart failure, than those with lower levels.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh suggested that genes account for about 50 percent of the variation in people’s levels of happiness. The underlying determinant was genetically caused personality traits, such as being sociable, active, stable, hardworking, or conscientious.

Acetaminophen, better known as Tylenol, is known for dulling pain, but it might dull your emotional responses too, for better or for worse. Researchers showed emotional photos to college students who had either taken a 1,000-milligram dose of acetaminophen or a placebo. Those who took the painkiller had more muted emotional responses to both negative and positive images.

Certain probiotics are now being referred to as psychobiotics, or “bacteria for your brain,” and are being used to successfully treat depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric problems. In one recent study, a multispecies probiotic supplement taken for four weeks reduced cognitive reactivity to sad mood, which is a strong marker for depression (the more a person reacts to sad mood with dysfunctional thoughts, the more prone they are to a depressive episode).

One way to think about happiness is to define it as “whatever gets you excited.” Once you’ve identified that activity, whatever it is, you can start focusing your mind around that so you can integrate more of it into your daily life.

So – check out this article and stay tuned to more of our helpful posts.