Easy Dividends: Benefits of Happiness

I read about a report from a couple of years ago that was published on the BBC website.  The report showed research carried out by scientists at the University of Edinburgh.  Researchers analyzed celebrity Twitter messages in a bid to find out how “happy” the senders are.

The researchers believed the study could provide insights into the emotional well-being of the general population as they looked at word patterns in the tweets of 13 celebrities.

The findings showed that basketball player Shaquille O’Neale was the happiest tweeter, followed by cyclist Lance Armstrong and British television presenter Jonathan Ross.

The rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg was the least happy. (Culled From The BBC Website, original article published in 2010)

I thought it was interesting that the study found that the majority of celebrity messages were happy and positive.

So, what is happiness?

Happiness is a state of well-being and contentment. It could also be a pleasurable, fulfilling or satisfying experience.  Dr. Martin Seligman, founder of the Positive Psychology movement, believes happiness is made of three “types.”  As we develop ways to increase our experiences of all types, but especially the third and highest type, we are able to sustain happiness and truly begin to thrive.  These different types of happiness can be exercised and the results can be measured.  It’s exciting stuff and offers a lot of power and control over each our ability’s to live a long and happy life!

Those three “types” of happiness are as follows:

1)   Pleasant life (having as much positive emotion and as little negative emotion as possible) – the moments of happy highs like special meals and treats, unexpected little surprises, a random day off to play, beer with the gang, those fleeting moments of joy are examples of the pleasant life.  They’re sort of easy come, easy go kind of happiness and easy to forget when you’re having a really bad day.

2)   The engaged life (being completely absorbed by the challenges you face at work, love, play etc.) – These are the moments that we can get lost in and often we have to work hard to experience them.  Many of us feel engaged long-term with something like the pursuit of a higher degree or the climb up the corporate ladder as we grow and sharpen our skills in business, management or other work-related specializations.  We can also live this level of engagement with pursuits of family time, or involving ourselves in a hobby, from kayaking rapids to building model cars and anything in between.  An engaged kind of happiness takes longer to build, and tends to be savored and noticed more.  An engaged life can be sparked by all kinds of things, and its footprint on our hearts and minds last a lot longer.

3)    The meaningful life (knowing what your highest strengths are and using them to belong to and serve something that is bigger or greater than you are.)  The meaningful life is the examined life; the conscious move to seek higher ground and commonalities and treat all as equal and deserving of respect.  The meaningful life learns lessons from pain and hardship and experiences opportunities and breakthroughs in the midst of what might look like a disaster or a breakdown.  The meaningful life often sees beyond the veil and knows that sometimes the lesson will only be illuminated after she trusts enough to just keep going.

Sustainable happiness needs components of all three and with deep meaning comes a sense of surety and trust and peace of mind that goes beyond the conception of happiness that’s visible from the perspective of simply a pleasant life.  True abiding happiness knows it is happy because it has a true understanding of pain, sadness, distress, distrust and a whole range of emotions that are distasteful to the pleasant life.

Now that we have a sense of what happiness is, what can we do to promote happiness in our lives?

The Magical Ratio of Happiness

There are three types of happiness, and you can use that knowledge to keep you in mind of the magical ratio of happiness starts with 3:1.  What do I mean by this?  Basically, for every single negative thought/feeling you have, you need at least 3 positive thoughts/feelings to balance it out.  By extension, the happiness magic REALLY starts to happen when you add one more positive thought to tip the scales as it were, so that the positive thoughts and feelings overtake the negative ones.  Literally allow positivity to overpower negativity so that you can begin to experience sustainable happiness.  

But how?  How do you learn to this?

My short answer is, you learn one step at a time.  Then, one day, maybe when you’re barely paying attention for a while, you suddenly realize you’ve been happier lately.  You realize that several things that usual irritate you or send you flying off the handle or get under your skin, just didn’t.  You didn’t get angry.  You didn’t get upset. You’re not frustrated, with yourself or with others.  Hmmm, are you happy?  

My longer answer is that you have to get to know (and accept!) yourself, and then you have to start participating in, mindfully experiencing, and indulging yourself in treating yourself well and giving yourself the best possible chance of sustaining that happiness.

You can do all kinds of things to increase your positivity and sustained happiness… I’ll list a few and expect you to start generating a list of your own!

Eat good food (and, better yet, share it with friends or family or both!)  

Spend more time with people you enjoy: people who boost your mood and your spirits; people around whom you can completely relax and be yourself; people who share at least some aspects of your worldview and thinking.  

Make it a point to have positive interactions with the most meaningful people in your life:  spouse, children, friends, families, colleagues.  Enjoy the awesome ability humans have to communicate!  Language is one of the most amazing human gifts!  

Meet some new people; make some new friends.  Reaching out to others can help create more meaning in our day to day lives.  

Engage  in a hobby.  This one is plain and simple.  Hobbies give us ways to use parts of ourselves and our minds that perhaps do not get “exercise” in our day-to-day work or home life.  Hobbies give us a chance to express ourselves (crafting, music, cooking, writing) or to unwind and distress (deep sea fishing, kayaking, martial arts, gardening) or to simply be (reading, riding a motorcycle, strolling through the park and people watching).  Hobbies give us a way to engage that’s relaxed and doesn’t come with the pressures of deadlines, managers, staff and quarterly profit and loss reports.  

Be kind.  When you extend kindness to others and do genuinely kind things for others, you benefit and they do as well.  Kindness creates empathy, compassion, and joy, which are all elements of sustainable happiness.  

Count your blessings, literally.  I suggest taking about 10-15 minutes at least once per week just to write down all the things in your life that make you feel grateful.  If it’s a difficult time, think about the basics:  food, water, shelter, clothing.  Let your thoughts and experience of gratitude branch out.  Once you get really good at this, add why you’re grateful for all the things you’ve listed.  Savor this awesome feeling of gratitude.

Exercise regularly, preferably your mind and your body!  (See the section on physical fitness for more on this category. ☺)

Meditate or at least be still and quiet for at least a few minutes (even 10 minutes will work wonders) each day.  There are as many types of meditation as there are people on the planet, basically, but the point all boils down to giving yourself peace, quiet, space and calm to create focus and attention in your life.  Learning to quiet the mind and direct focused attention has numerous physical, mental and spiritual health benefits

Allow yourself to BE PASSIONATE about all of the people, activities and experiences that add value to your life.  Share your passions with others and indulge yourself in the energy of unbridled enthusiasm!

These are simply a handful of opportunities that can increase your happiness, well-being and longevity.  There are literally hundreds of others. 

What’s the Point of Working on Being Happy?

The main point is that happiness is GOOD for you!  In no particular order, I’ve listed below just some of the many benefits of happiness… and all of these benefits are backed by thorough scientific research in areas ranging from psychology to neuroscience and medical science.  

True happiness makes you feel comfortable about who you are constructively.

Happiness boosts your creativity.

It promotes a better mental health.

It gives you a greater feeling of self-worth.

It gives you focus for living.

It promotes commitment to work, family, goals…..

It provides a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

Happiness helps your nervous system and brain to function optimally so that you can achieve optimal performance in everything you do.

Happiness fosters forgiveness.

It promotes altruism i.e. unselfish concern for the welfare of others

It opens or creates an avenue for resolving failure constructively.

It enhances your psychological and physiological well-being.

A dose of happiness is really therapeutic.

If you are happy you are likely in the future to have less in the way of physical illness than those who are unhappy (Dr. Derek Cox, Director of Public Health, UK)

Happiness improves your social life.

It gives you a good feeling within.

It promotes resilience.

Happiness boosts positive thoughts and expectations.

Happiness makes you flexible and easily adapts to change.

It creates a level of spiritual awakening and development.

Happiness serves as an energy booster.

It creates job satisfaction and increases good performance in your workplace.

It increases your level of productivity and personal growth.

It aids in effective conflict management

It creates and enhances successful relationships with you friends, family, colleagues….

It lowers blood pressure reducing the impact of stress.

Laughter thrives and grows on happiness

It gives you peace of mind.

Happiness increases your motivation.

It gives you self-control, self-regulation and further coping abilities.

It promotes optimism.

Happiness gives you a meaningful life

Happiness brings about relaxation.

It enhances positive and constructive communication with people.

It enables you to handle and put your emotions in check.

It boosts your self-esteem and self-confidence.

It creates a positive anticipation of the future.

Happiness promotes and supports the achievement of your dreams.

It can set your mood for the day, the week, the month, the year… you get the point. ☺ 

Happier people also have greater protection against things like heart disease and stroke, as well. 

Would you make an effort to live a happy and fulfilled life despite the struggles and challenges of life?  It pays almost immediate dividends.  Best of all, it’s the closest thing you can get to guaranteed continuous growth on your initial investment.  Just keep that magical 4:1 ratio on mind, and you’ll be on the road to rich happiness in no time!

“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.”(author unknown)