“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”Mohandas Gandhi[1]
HOW HAPPY ARE YOU?
You come equipped with a quotient of emotions and values necessary to your well-being. Where does your happy gauge sit? Twenty five percent happy most of the time or seventy five percent happy some of the time. Maybe your happy gauge swings back and forth between the two. As you observe in your day-to-day living, people differ in their levels of happiness. This is true for other emotions and values. You may know some people who seem to be ‘super happy’ all the time.
It is a scientific fact that people who are happy live longer and are healthier. How can you enhance your happiness? Scientists have been studying people who live the longest throughout the world and documenting their levels of well-being. National Geographic documented the nine characteristics common to the Blue Zone areas of the world. Learn how to live longer and healthier by following the lifestyle lessons outlined of people living in blue zones.
TOPPING UP YOUR HAPPY LEVELS
It’s not necessary to travel the world to find ways to change your happiness level, your ability to be positive and ‘rock and roll’ with life’s challenges. Although your personality is in part what you were born with; you have the ability to change where your happiness meter runs and how you perceive and respond to your world, people and events.
It is much easier to be positive and optimistic, which are crucial to well-being, when you are happy. Numerous emotions and values have the potential to promote a positive and optimistic attitude, and ultimately well-being. Other emotions and values require monitoring in terms their negative impact on well-being.
Emotional intelligence is a form of social intelligence that influences your ability to cope and guides your thoughts and actions. SEL, social and emotional learning,[2] is the process through which you can learn to increase your emotional intelligence. Countless programs and tools are available to enhance the knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to recognize and manage your emotions, be more caring and positive in relationships, make responsible decisions, and handle challenging situations constructively. Social and emotional learning programs are often part of workplace training, improving work relationships and productivity. Healthy emotional intelligence is a key primary ingredient in rejuvenation.
You have the ability to increase your default happiness meter setting to provide you with increased happiness and health benefits. Learn how to become a happier version of you.
Following are just a few resources to aid you in enhancing your emotional and value quotients.
- Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom
written by Rick Hanson, PH.D. with Richard Mendius M.D., discusses the practical neuroscience of happiness, love and wisdom. It shows you how to activate the brain states of calm, joy and compassion instead of worry, sorrow and anger. - Random Acts of Kindness encourages grace through the smallest gestures. The inspiration for the kindness movement, Random Acts of Kindness is an antidote for a weary world. Its true stories, thoughtful quotations, and suggestions for generosity inspire readers to live more compassionately.
- Pay It ForwardA boy creates a scheme as a class project. It involves helping three people who must each help three people and so on until everyone is doing something for someone. He puts his plan into action and it actually works, though not in the way the boy anticipated, and not until his own world is forever changed for better and worse.
- Pass It On. The values we live by are worth more when we pass them on.
www.values.com - MindUp http://www.thehawnfoundation.org/mindup [3]
- Logotherapy, developed by Dr. Frankl, is a meaning-centered psychotherapy where patients are confronted with the meaning of their lives to help them to overcome weaknesses. Frankl believed striving to find meaning is a person’s primary motivational force. To learn more about this amazing man and his story, read his book, Man’s Search For Meaning
Man’s Search for Meaning (Washington Square Press Publication of Pocket Books, ©1959, Victor E. Frankl). - The Ultimate Gift is a tale of one man’s tumultuous journey toward personal growth and fulfillment.
- Body scan visualizations to increase or reset your default settings available in THE WHOLE PERSON WELL-BEING EQUATION.
- Keeping your thoughts in a positive and focused direction can have a profound impact on your health. Creating an automatic redirect, which takes you to ‘your happy place or thought,’ will prevent negative thinking. Learn more strategies in THE WHOLE PERSON WELL-BEING EQUATION
- Practice gratitude: ”Gratitude ~ Seeing your life, relationships and the way you were parented as a ‘glass half full” GRATITUDE THERAPY: A Powerful Well-being Tool
- Volunteering gets you out of your own ‘soap opera’, refocusing your brain and perspective.
- Ensure your brain chemistry is protected and normal.
NATURAL CURES: Protecting and Repairing Your Blood Brain Barrier to Restore Mental Health, DEPRESSION: Gone
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Turn your brain to a healthier brain, NATURAL CURES: Protecting and Repairing Your Blood Brain Barrier to Restore Mental Health, DEPRESSION: Gone
ENJOY more happy today! You can become more happy, one step at a time! Start today.
Need help in your journey to a ‘happier you’? Consider hiring a well-being coach to keep you on track.
- Learn – THE COST OF BEAUTY, THE COST OF CLEAN
- Your Symptom Picture
- Determine Your “Weak List”
- Detoxify your BODY POLLUTION
- Rejuvenate your body
- SHOP for healthier products
- Amplify what you believe to improve your health
Elisabeth Hines, C.N.C., C.B.P., Holistic Wellness Practitioner, www.mybodycanhealitself.ca, elisabethlhines@gmail.com
[1] Mahatma Gandhi. BrainyQuote.com, Xplore Inc, 2012. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/mahatmagan134953.html, accessed February 10, 2012.
[2] Collaboration for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, http://casel.org/, ©20111-12, visited May 28, 2012.
[3] The Hawn Foundation, http://www.thehawnfoundation.org/mindup-studies, ©2010, visited May 29, 2010.
[4] Victor Frankl Institute, http://www.viktorfrankl.org, visited June 28, 2011.
The Ultimate Gift: www.theultimategift.com
The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation http://www.randomactsofkindness.org/
The Pay It Forward Foundation http://www.payitforwardfoundation.org/