Impact of Happiness
It has been demonstrated that happiness can predict favorable results in a wide range of life situations.
- Positive feelings raise life pleasure.
- People who are happier have more resilient coping mechanisms and emotional reserves.
- Positive feelings are associated with improved health and longer lifespans. According to one study, persons were more likely to have lived during a 13-year period if they had more happy emotions than negative ones.
- Resilience is boosted by positive emotions. People with greater resilience are better able to cope with stress and recover from failures. For instance, one study discovered that persons who are happy typically had lower cortisol levels, and that these advantages typically last over time.
- People who describe themselves as being in a good mood are more likely to practice healthy habits like eating a balanced diet and exercising frequently.
- Being content may help you stay healthy more frequently. Immunity is associated to happier emotional states.
How to Be a Happier Person
One extensive research of over 2,000 twins found that some people had a greater baseline level of pleasure than others, with genetics accounting for around 50% of total life satisfaction, external events accounting for 10%, and personal actions accounting for 40%.
There are therefore things you can do to make your life better and more meaningful even if you might not be able to influence what your “base level” of happiness is. Even the happiest people occasionally experience sadness, thus everyone should actively work to find happiness.
Get Regular Exercise
Exercise benefits both the body and the mind. A variety of medical and psychological advantages, including better mood, are associated with physical activity. Regular exercise may help prevent the symptoms of depression, according to several studies, but there is also evidence that it may help individuals feel happy.
Researchers discovered a consistently favorable correlation between physical exercise and happiness in one study of earlier data.
Exercise boosts happiness even in little doses; those who exercised even once a week or for only 10 minutes each day reported higher levels of contentment than those who never worked out.
Show Gratitude
In one research, participants were instructed to spend 10 to 20 minutes each night before bedtime writing. Some were told to write about little irritations, some about unimportant happenings, while yet others were told to express their gratitude. According to the findings, those who wrote about their appreciation experienced an increase in happy feelings, enhanced subjective pleasure, and higher levels of life satisfaction.
According to the study’s authors, maintaining a thankfulness journal is a reasonably quick, cheap, easy, and enjoyable strategy to improve your attitude. Consider setting out a short period of time each night to reflect on or write down the things in your life for which you are thankful.
Find a Sense of Purpose
According to research, those who feel as though their lives have meaning are happier and more contented.
Having a sense of purpose is believing that your life has objectives, a direction, and a purpose. By encouraging healthier behaviors, it could assist to increase happiness.
You may do the following things to help you discover a sense of purpose:
- Explore your interests and passions
- Engage in prosocial and altruistic causes
- Work to address injustices
- Look for new things you might want to learn more about
There are many things that affect this feeling of purpose, but you can also work to develop it. It entails identifying a goal that is very important to you and will motivate you to take effective, constructive action to go toward that goal.
