Tag Archives: Happiness

Take a Page from Denmark’s Book to Beat the Polar Vortex

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coldDenmark is the happiest country on earth, despite the fact that their winters are pretty brutal, and the sun often goes down before 4pm throughout the season. While the icy temps from this polar vortex may be dampening your mood, you can use the Danish concept of hygge to battle any touch of seasonal affective disorder that is knocking at your door this winter. The term isn’t easily translatable, but it most closely links to the English words coziness, togetherness, and well-being. While these words might all refer to physical conditions, people living in Denmark say it is more of a mental condition that helps keep the Danes cushioned against the long winter’s frigidity, solitude, and stress.

The Danish describe hygge as the feeling you get at Christmastime of enjoying the holiday, the decorations, and being with family and friends, but they say it continues on past Christmas. It’s a way of consciously feeling grateful all year, and slowing down to make time for the things you enjoy. Hygge can be curling up with your favorite book under a blanket, or it can be gathering in a particular place with particular friends, and exhibiting kind, grateful behavior towards others. It’s actively inhabiting a positive, healthful mental state. The country’s tourism website suggests that the nation’s happiness is deeply tied to hygge, and while there is not hard data proving it, adopting this philosophy is worth a try when you’re feeling broken down by the cold, overstressed, or too busy.

The Tricky Part – Sticking to Those Resolutions

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Happy New Year friends! I am back at it after a lovely week and a half of vacation that I spent sleeping in, cramming in as much time with family and friends as possible, sledding, and chipping  away at the epic list of movies I want to see.  Then I rang in the new year with champagne and sparkly dresses. I hope your holidays were wonderful! Since it’s January 2nd, and everyone has recovered from their NYE hangovers and now is ready to really get down to business on all of those resolutions, here are some helpful links on how to keep them or avoid making the wrong resolutions.

What did you resolve to do this year?

A New Way to Fight FOMO?

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We’re all pretty connected these days – to our Instagram feeds, facebook, and twitter. Sometimes that can be draining. While many people turn to logging off, or stop using the sites for a break, an alternative may be to log on, just to a different site. Now there is a new social network in town. It’s called Happier, and its goal is to make you just that. The site is dedicated to keeping a log of good things happening to the people using it. There will be thank you notes, mentions of unexpected kindness, and even some inspiring stories of overcoming difficulties. There won’t be all that other info you’re used to seeing on facebook, like what kind of music you like or books you’ve read. The whole goal is to give you short, easy-to-digest mood boosts. Think of it as status updates geared towards making you happy instead of making you fear you’re missing out on that awesome holiday party. If you’re feeling blue, it might be worth checking out.

Science Says Smile and Others Will Smile Back

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smile frownYou’re probably heard one of an assortment of quotes about how smiling at others will encourage them to smile at you. “Smile and the world smiles back.” “Smile and others will smile back.” Well, as it turns out, there is some scientific basis to the statement. A study found that when people were encouraged to see others as happy, they were less angry and aggressive. Participants looked at the photos of people’s faces. Then researchers encouraged certain people to interpret their facial expressions as happy rather than ambiguous or angry. They found that when people interpreted more facial expressions as expressing happiness, they not only began to see more happiness around them, but began to feel less annoyance and hostility towards others. Basically the act of perceiving and receiving smiles from others can make you feel happier yourself. So go ahead and listen to that guy on the street telling you to, “Smile beautiful.” Though he might be creepy and annoying, it just might make you and some other people a little more joyful.

Optimism = Resilience and Sustainability

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resiliance

Being optimistic is essentially maintaining a positive outlook for longer than a negative outlook. And the key to doing that is being resilient and persevering, according to an interview with Margaret Wheatley for The Intelligent Optimist magazine. Basically in order to be optimistic you need to understand that there will be bad days, experience them, and then bounce back. It’s looking at the annoying bad things that happen, accepting them, and moving along. The sustained frustration at negative things in life is at the basis of pessimism. Instead of getting mad that bad things happen, accept the setback and failure. They are an inescapable part of living. Understanding that bad days will pass and taking the lesson in them for what its worth rather than dwelling on the negative repercussions of the event is the difference between seeing things as glass half empty or glass half full.

Explaining Why Debbie is ALWAYS Such a Downer

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haters

We all have that friend who can make any situation into a Debbie Downer moment, regardless of what is going on. My Grandmother used to call it being contrary, when I used to disagree with everything my sister said just to be difficult as a child (luckily I grew out if it). Now researchers call this tendency to take an EVERYTHING IS AWFUL or EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL point of view “dispositional attitude.”

What it means is that how people feel in a particular situation isn’t 100% motivated by the circumstances surrounding them. Instead, it is a result of the properties in the mind of the person evaluating them. A person with a dispositional attitude will automatically be pre-disposed, or more inclined, to either love everything or hate everything regardless of whether the sky is full of rainbows and sunshine, or rain clouds and thunder. It is not the situation itself making them feel that way, but an internal tendency to view all circumstances in a particular light. I’ve been known to tell my friends, “Haters gonna hate,” when that kind of person gets them down. Now, at least we have an inkling as to why!

The Varied Types of Optimism

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optimismIt’s been found that optimists tend to live longer, and be healthier overall than their often unhappy counterparts, the pessimists. However, in the past, many believed that the idealism employed by optimists could hamper their ability to function in the “real world” which may not turn out to work they way idealistic optimists wish to believe it should. Optimists were seen as a uniform group who may ignore actual conditions to look at only the positive. Now, thanks to researcher Sophia Chou, optimists can be sorted into two groups: realists and idealists.

While realism was previously associated with pessimism, and linked with poor well-being scores and often depression, when a realistic view of the world is paired with a tendency to look on the bright side, it leads to greater happiness and success. Realistic optimists tend to choose accuracy, while idealist optimists choose self-enhancement. They look at situations with a more global view, making plan B and plan C in case plan A is not successful, and feel in control of their life and relationships. By acknowledging potential challenges and planning for how to cope with them, realistic optimists can maintain their cheerfulness and look forward to good things in the future even when they experience difficult times in the present. They key is to focus on self-control and the efficacy to exert control over relationships and life choices.

Happiest Ages are 23 and 69

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happyA new study has found that happiness flows through ups and downs as we go through life (a real, emotional roller coaster, right?). I think we can all agree that there are certain years of our lives that we’ve felt happier than others. For me, I always remember 2009 as an extra-exceptional year when my sister got married, I attended my first music festival and took some wonderful trips, and I just felt free. Then at the other side, there are other years on the not-so-great end of the spectrum. Now researchers have pinpointed a couple specific points when people tend to be at their happiest, ages 23 and 69. They think it is partially because young people over-estimate how satisfied with they will be in the future, leading to disappointment. The elderly tend to under-estimate levels of life satisfaction, and thus are pleasantly surprised and happier as a result. I was 23 for a portion of 2009, and life was so good. I’ll have to keep you posted on what age 69 brings.

Do you remember these ages as particularly good or bad in your life?

Positive Thinking = More Possibilities + More Skills

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pinwheelsEveryone cringes when they see articles titled things like, “The Power of Positive Thinking.” It seems cheesy and false to say that simply thinking good thoughts can actually change your life, and people who insist on always seeing the silver lining can be slightly annoying, especially when you’re feeling down in the dumps. But time and time again, research has proved that positive thinking can make you happier, and now it is starting to show that it not only allows you to see more possibilities in your life, but also builds skills that will help you attain more long term happiness. Negative feelings tend to shut you down. They close off your ability to see the other options and feelings in the world around you. Happy thoughts do just the opposite, they allow you to see more opportunities. They also enhance your ability to build skills that you can use later in life. Many times people equate happiness with achieving a certain goal. While goals do provide happiness, it is temporary, as once attained, you set a new goal to chase after. However, when you think positively, you are constantly seeing new opportunities that lead to you broadening and building your skill set. These skills will allow positive thinkers to more easily achieve their next goal, and the next, constantly pulling in more happiness.

So how do you do it? Researchers recommend engaging in activities that make you feel joy, contentment, and love. You can spend time doing things you like, with people you care about. Additionally, meditation, writing about positive experiences, and setting aside time to play, explore and experiment (just like you would schedule a dentist appointment) all lead to an increased ability to think positively.