Go From Sad To Sensational: Use These 4 Doctor-recommended Methods Tonight!
Sometimes my patients ask me if the feeling of happiness can be inherited
. Is it possible that one is "born happy" or "born unhappy?" If so, what can you do about it?Research seems to suggest that there may be a genetic component to the feeling of happiness. Immediately after birth it even seems that some infants are born with happier, more animated temperaments than others.
As we grow, it certainly appears that some people more easily develop personality traits that are strongly correlated with happiness. They include enhanced sociability, a predisposition towards physical activity and temperaments that are more stable and sanguine.
Important: However, that doesn't mean that we have no influence or control over our feelings of satisfaction and happiness. As in many areas of life, our genes define only a range of experiencing that is possible, not a rigid immutable set point that is independent of other influences.
Everything else being equal, a born "depressive" will not be able to find it as easy to feel happy as someone else who is born more sanguine-like. However, if you are one of the born "depressives," by utilizing the correct behaviors, research shows you can improve your levels of happiness.
What about circumstances, people often ask. For example, aren't people more likely to be happier if they are wealthy?
Everything being equal, the answer is probably "yes." But very rarely are peoples' circumstances equal to each other.
In fact, in terms of emotional quality of life, long term scientific research suggests that money and social status matter little in this regard. Why?
Perceived happiness depends primarily on your state of mind; attention is everything! Perceived happiness is mainly influenced by how and where you focus your attention.
Is it focused on the full or the empty part of the glass? It also largely depends on the way you interpret the external events you encounter.
For example, do you tend to perceive your failures as catastrophic, or as opportunities to learn and extract meaning? A very common barrier to perceiving yourself as happy is the mistaken expectation that one particular occurrence, such as the healing of a relationship, a bonus at work or the acquisition of a heard-earned academic degree will finally make you happy.
But alas, as soon as that event occurs, your new-found happiness just becomes a flash-in-the-pan , leaving you just as unfulfilled as you were previously. A satisfied state-of-mind and a sanguine life is rarely generated by a particular life-changing event.
The truth: Your level of perceived happiness is shaped incrementally, throughout your life, one experience and one moment at a time-for as long as you live. So is there anything you can you do now to feel happier?
Fact of life: The quality of your life is sculpted by your day-to-day, ordinary experiences and on where you place your focus and how you interpret life events. The power of the ordinary has been proven time and again: For example, more than anything else, it is easier to unearth a sense of happiness by spending quality time with loved ones, learning something new and giving to others, rather then performing one spectacular thing.
Study after study demonstrates that the more we contribute to others, the higher our perceived happiness becomes, then we become more inclined to help others again. Research seems to demonstrate that the quality of our interpersonal relationships and our ability to share with others are core determinants of our level of perceived happiness.
You can start now to improve the levels of satisfaction and happiness in your life? Start with these...
1. Inventory your responsibilities and meaningfully reduce them. Don't continue trying to squeeze more activities into less and less time. Quantity is inversely proportional to quality, the more you do, the less quality you have and the less satisfaction you feel.
2. Perform regular behaviors manifesting the values you hold as dear and rewarding. What might those be?
Some possibilities: Taking a weekly class next semester or having a weekly date night with your spouse. Manifesting your cherished values creates feelings of happiness and if you don't commit to them in advance, you often won't engage in them.
3. Keep a daily gratitude journal. Before retiring for the night, list at least three things that gave you satisfaction. They can be big or small -- from a meal you enjoyed to a movie you liked to a conversation you may have had with a friend. Do this everyday for the rest of your life!
A question I often get from patients is: How can I be happier if I'm going through an extremely hard time, but there's nothing I can do about it right away, like being unemployed in a recession?
4. See seemingly intransigent periods in life philosophically and unearth ways to infuse them with meaning. After all, part of life is our having to endure sometimes extended periods when life affords us minimal, if any, enjoyment.
When modifying your perceptions isn't effective, building in one or two satisfying experiences into an otherwise difficult situation can help significantly. For example, I had a patient in his later 50s who no longer enjoyed his career as a lawyer, however, he didn't want to give up the lifestyle that he and his family had grown accustomed to through his profession.
Through counseling, he decided to reduce his caseload so that he could spend two evenings each week taking a class and one day with his wife and kids. Of course, in an ideal world, he would prefer working full time at something about which he was passionate, but modifying the workload and schedule of his largely unsatisfying job finally enabled him to be happier than he had been in many years.
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