Why Do We Care About Our Happiness?
If you’re like me, you may not realize the important role happiness in our lives. During my journey on the path to self-improvement, while many benefits did not appear all at once, after I made these happiness habits stick, I really began to see changes. When you learn to choose happiness, you can receive a number of positive benefits. I’ll list some below.
Improvement of Social Relationships
Happiness makes us want to be more social and promotes social relations. When studying positive people, I found that a vast majority have good relationships with others and themselves. Typically, happy people show more empathy and tend to truly care more about others.
So why are relationships important? True friendships provide a stable support system, and good friends are inspiring and can provide a motivational boost when needed. A number of studies have shown that strong social relationships are essential to a well-lived and meaningful life. It’s no surprise that happy people have more friends, because they are more supportive, stable, and giving.
Amazing Health
Carnegie Mellon University conducted a study and found that happy people are less likely to catch colds than depressed, nervous or angry people. The authors reported that the happier study participants weren't infected as often and experienced fewer symptoms even when they did get sick.
On average, happy people have a lower heart rate, lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and lower concentrations of a plasma associated with heart disease.
Also, an unusual scientific finding: people who live happy lives have a greater tolerance for physical pain than those who live in constant sadness.
Being happy doesn’t make you bulletproof, but it can raise your enthusiasm, engagement, optimism and self-regulation. Researchers have found that traits like these can help people avoid or successfully manage illnesses such as diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, and depression.
Intelligence
Being happy doesn’t necessarily make you smarter, but it can help you to use your intelligence more effectively. Studies have suggested that people who feel happy can come up with appropriate answers to complex problems more quickly and can learn better in many situations than those who are not happy. In essence, being happy and staying that way keeps your intelligence at peak levels.
According the The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor, dopamine and serotonin flood our brains when we exhibit positive emotions. These chemicals make us feel good and help our brains to perform at high levels. I don’t know about you, but I always want my brain to perform at its peak.
Optimism
It’s not that happy people don’t have bad events in their lives; they do. But truly happy people dwell on the positive more often. Negativity just eats away at your soul and eventually makes others around you more negative as a result. When encountering a problem, happy people skip the skepticism and believe they will regain control of their lives and move past any problem thrown their way.
Creativity
Happy people tend to be more creative. True happiness has a strong correlation with a greater capacity for creative thinking. Creativity is less likely to occur when you’re grumpy, angry, sad, fearful, or scared. Start the breakthrough and be that person who comes up with that great idea.
As you can see, there are many many benefits to a happiness mindset. Do you think it’s worth a try?
So many people upgrade their phones, their software, their technology, but not themselves. Don’t you think its time to upgrade your life?
I challenge you to upgrade your life with no excuses!
One way to upgrade your life is actually realizing what you already have and realize just how blessed you are.
