We are living in a world where so many bad things happening right now. We are surrounded by threat of world war, global health issues, mental health issues, poverty, as well as COVID-19 pandemic situation. The life is so hard on all of us. We are so busy to protect ourselves and trying to make our lives better. In all these things we just forgot about our happiness and how to be happy. In past two years things get more worst due to COVID-19. All the masks, lockdown and deaths make us more furious and scared. In this situation it is very hard to find a little thing that makes us happy and relaxed. Pandemic or not life still goes on and we have to make efforts to make it better. It is very important for us to not lose hope.
According to the world happiness report there are over 220 million children and one billion adults are suffering from depression, anxiety and conduct disorders. To find happiness is not so hard. We are just not approaching to the right place to be happy. There are so many things that matters in our lives and we are not focusing on them and struggling over other things.
Behavioral scientists are spending so much time to figure out what makes a person happy and what doesn’t. Being happy is very important because happiness predicts our health and its longevity. But the thing is happiness is not something that happened to a person without doing anything. We have to make little changes and efforts in our behavior, in our life style, in our surroundings, in relationships and in our thinking patterns.
Happiness and Our Health
In recent situation it is very essential to talk about health and happiness. Researches claim that there is a significant relationship between happiness and our health. Happiness predicts our life more or less but it plays some role to make us healthy. For decades, we are just focusing on things those are harmful for our health and trying very hard to avoid those things. Such as, we are focusing on how to give up smoking because it is one of the most dangerous things that will ruin our health. We think a lot about giving up smoking; have a better dietary plan, physical maintenance, and other factors that could predict our life. On the other hand, we forget that happiness is also as powerful predictor as those things I mentioned above.
Science of happiness strongly suggests that there is a strong connection between happiness and your health. A research conducted in University College London which claims that happy people are safe from developing severe physical conditions such as heart diseases or stroke. The researches claim that Depression leads us toward so many health issues even cancer. So the simple formula is that, happiness work as the opposite of depression and protects us from so many health issues. Happy people as compare to less happy people have great functioning of immune system, less chance of cardiovascular diseases; have long term relationships and more satisfied with their work and job.
So in this time of pandemic we should search for things that make us happy because it will help us to stay strong and fight with the situation. Making false assumptions, excessive worries and fear only make this situation worst.
Things That Will Help You to Be Happy
Happiness comes from inside of a person. It is up to a person that if he/she wanted to make a situation happy or enjoyable or not. There are so many things that help us to be happy and remove the negativity in our lives that work as barriers between our happiness.
Power of Nature
The first thing that makes you happy is nature. Nature has magnificent power to make your mood good and relaxed. Walking under the trees and having me time at a quite peaceful place will help to improve your mental as well as physical health. If you spend 15 minutes in a park near a pound and watch the beauty of nature it will boost your energy and make you happy. The studies investigate that even just watching the pictures of nature can make you happy and boost your mood. So, in quarantine period you can watch pictures of beautiful nature and it will make you happy.
Natural light also make a big difference and affect your mood. Exposure to sunlight is also important. If you spend time in outdoor activities, under sunlight it will help to improve the mood.
Bedroom Diaries
Bedroom is only place where we feel comfortable and we are in our real self. It is the place where we have no fare of judgment, manners, and to behave. We can do whatever we want in our bedroom. So our bedroom has so much potential to enhance our happiness. Many researches about happiness claims that to find your happiness you should focus on the time you spend in your bedroom. So take your bedroom at high on your priority list.
Make your bedroom a little haven for yourself. Invest some money on your bedroom buy comfortable mattress, beautiful sheets, decorate it with your favorite stuff, and have your favorite books in your bedroom. Treat your bedroom as a five star hotel room and enjoy your life here it will make your life happier.
Sleep A Little More
When we sleep at night it helps our body to repair all the damage happened during the day. Sleep helps us to be more creative and productive in our daily activities. When people have proper sleep pattern and have a good night sleep it plays an important role to also make them happy.
The scientific explanation of sleep helps people to be happy is that Amygdala processed our negative memories and experiences and Hippocampus processed our positive experiences and memories. So, the sleep deprivation had negative effect on Hippocampus then on Amygdala. The result of this explanation is that people with sleep deprivation have problem to recall and relive their happy and pleasant experiences or memories.
Poor sleep makes us more sensitive to negative thoughts and emotions than positives ones. So people whit sleep deprivation have more negative thoughts and have negative emotions in their daily life. It is hard for them to experience happiness in small activities. So, to be happy it is important that you should have more and peaceful sleep.
Relationship Brings You Happiness
If you have friends and family you are the most blessed person in the world. Spending time with your family, friends and loved ones bring you joy and happiness that you can’t imagine. Spending time with your parents, siblings and friends have a great effect on your emotions and it makes you happy. Money and other materialistic things can’t give you the joy and happiness that you get from time spends with friends and family.
Harvard University’s happiness expert Daniel Gilbert beautifully explains that how family and friends make us happier than money.
” We are happy when we have friends, We are happy when we have family. Although, almost all other materialistic things that we think are the reason of our happiness are actually another way to get more family and more friends.”
Spending time with your family, connecting with your old friends in this time of crises will help you more to stay strong and happy.
Live For Others
Living for yourself is so much easy. Spending time with yourself or spending money on yourself makes you happy for a time being. But living for others, make a grate change in your personality, life and happiness. Helping others, buying something for others, spending time with others makes you so much happy. As much as spending money on others helps you to improve your life, spending time for others also helps you to be happy. When people do something for others they feel more satisfied and happy.
In this time of crises help other with money, with time as well as with you emotions. People need your attention as much as they need money. It will give you tremendous amount of happiness. Promise yourself to help three people per month either financially or emotionally. It will improve your well-being and quality of life.
Exercise and Happiness
Exercise helps a person to maintain their physical health as well as mental health. Exercise helps a person to reduce depression, negative thoughts and to improve emotional state. It is proven that exercise reduces depressive symptoms as much as medicines and other treatment do. Exercise just not helps you to maintain your physical health and weight loss but also helps you to improve brain power, body image, and enhance well-being. It also helps you to stay calm and relaxed. During exercise a neurotransmitter released in the brain called Endorphins. This neurotransmitter helps us to feel pleasure, joy and happiness. That means exercise does help us to be happy.
If you think you don’t have time for exercise in your busy day then you are wrong. Only 10 minutes is enough for you to do exercise even at home or just go for a run. It will help you to boost your mood and you feel happy.
Be Thankful for Everything
Always be grateful for what you have because a lot of people don’t even have that. Counting your blessings and good things happened to you will make you more satisfied and happier. Every time something good happened to you just write down it in a diary. It will help you at the time when you are not feeling good or make you happy. Share three things everyday that you are grateful for with your loved ones, it will give you so much happiness.
