Strategies to be happy – Since the 2000s, researchers and academics have gathered concrete data on a question once reserved for philosophers: how to be happy? Here are the top 10 scientific findings on happiness, based on work by American university researchers.
Some are born happy, others struggle their whole lives to find happiness. Would there be a special wellness recipe? Unfortunately no! On the other hand, a few very simple ingredients can add to your cocktail well-being.
10 scientifically proven strategies to be happy
Positive psychology is full of new findings that suggest your actions can have a significant effect on your happiness and satisfaction in life.
Researchers like the father-son team Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, Stanford psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, and ethicist Stephen Post have studied people around the world to find out how things like money, attitude, culture, memory, health, altruism and daily habits affect our well-being.
1. Savor the little pleasures of everyday life
Life is made up of small pleasures, and we too often forget to enjoy them. So list them, write them down and remember to savour them every day: the smile of your children when they wake up, the little morning coffee, the ray of sunshine on the road to the office …
2. Avoid comparing yourself to others
How can you be happy with your fate if you always look at what is happening in the neighbours’ garden? We often have too much of a tendency to compare ourselves to others, and therefore necessary to become envious or worse, jealous. An attitude that can only lead to negative feelings, and which logically thwarts our happiness.
3. Don’t give too much importance to money
Even though it is often said that money doesn’t buy happiness, how can you be happy without financial means? It should rather not be given inordinate importance … The accumulation of goods has never made anyone happy. We prefer to use the money to live, feel and share experiences rather than to acquire objects. That being said, it’s surely easier to do for people who don’t have money problems!
4. Set goals that make sense
To find happiness, one should also set meaningful goals. What does a life without goals really mean? The solution: list the goals you set for yourself every day, and check them off when they are reached. Always keep motivated yourself, read motivational shayari every day, They don’t need to revolutionize the world, the main thing is that they are important to you.
5. Take initiatives at work
How can you be happy if you don’t thrive in your work? The other secret of happiness lies in professional well-being, and more precisely in the way in which we approach our work. Studies have indeed shown that happy employees are those who take the most initiatives. So don’t hesitate to come forward, give your opinion, make suggestions… In short, take action!
6. Have friends and cherish family
Cherishing friends and family is also essential. Nothing nourishes us more and better than harmonious and benevolent relationships with others. It is even the first component of happiness for the French if we are to believe recent polls. Nothing like spending good times with loved ones to rediscover the joy of living.
7. How to be happy by smiling
What if smiling is one of the secrets of happiness? In any case, it is physiological. Smiling (even when you don’t want to) activates certain muscles and functions in the brain, which affect our mood. This is the principle of laughter therapy. So, are you ready to relax?
8. Express gratitude
Gratitude is also one of the main principles of positive psychology. And one of the ways to achieve happiness, if some scientists are to be believed. In practice, it is quite simply a question of saying “thank you” for the small pleasures that life and those around us offer us on a daily basis.
9. Take care of yourself
To find happiness, you also have to take care of your body. Going out, doing physical activities, taking sports lessons … so many good reflexes essential to have (a healthy mind in a healthy body) as Thales said!
10. Be generous to others
Neuroscience has revealed that when we do something for someone else our brain receives a surge of dopamine which supports our well-being. To be altruistic and generous, not to think only of oneself, to reach out to others… again a positive attitude which has positive effects on oneself and can make it possible to find happiness. And share it!
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