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Top 5 positive actions to increase your happiness

3/27/2013

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"The pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal." The United Nations

From The Happy Planet Index

  1. Connect with loved ones. Spending time sharing in other people's lives and allowing them to share in yours satisfies our innate human need for positive social interaction. 
  2. Be physically active, especially outdoors. Fresh air and vigorous movement rejuvenates the body and releases hormones that improve mood. 
  3. Notice. Heightening your awareness of the present moment helps draws your attention to the numerous little blessings you're graced with that otherwise go overlooked.
  4. Keep learning. Do this all life long. There's strong evidence that curiosity, not even necessarily formal learning, helps maintain mental health, particularly as we age. 
  5. Give. Altruism in all its forms - thoughts, words and actions - is pound-for-pound the greatest investment you can make in your happiness. Read my recent post about all the benefits here.

Do you like to be happy? Would you like to live in a happier world? Then join the tribe that's ushering in that new reality. 
And . . .

Watch Nic Mark’s TED talk about the Happy Planet Index and why it's advancing the movement to replace Gross Domestic Product with Gross National Happiness as the standard by which our nations set development policy and judge progress. 

Read the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's remarks about the urgent need to replace our singularly economic standard of development and progress with a humanitarian standard that acknowledges the basic human need and desire to love the lives we live. 

Follow The PATH² to attaining total health and happiness. 

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Nothing rewards greater than selfless service

3/24/2013

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We all know that it’s important to help others. But perhaps you aren’t aware of how good helping others can be for you.

First of all, the kind of behavior I’m referring to isn’t just any kind that happens to benefit someone else; it’s called altruism. Altruistic behavior is characterized by a person’s intent to perform an act designed to benefit someone or something other than him or her self. You can also call it selfless service, volunteerism, or karma yoga if you like.

Performing random (or planned) acts of kindness is good for or a variety of reasons, some of them perhaps surprising. 

Broadly speaking, selfless service increases quality of life across the board. Sociologists found that volunteer work enhances six aspects of personal wellbeing: happiness, life satisfaction, self-esteem, sense of control over life, physical health and depression.

Here’s a review of 20 years of scientific research showing that altruistic behavior produces health benefits (click).

Basically, our brains are designed and built to enjoy helping others. Neuroscientists found an old (by evolutionary standards) pleasure center in the brain that makes us feel physically good to do something unexpected and kind for someone else. In fact, it's the same part of the brain activated by food and sex! 

Selfless service also satisfies our craving for positive social interaction. However great or small, the recognition we receive upon carrying out an act of kindness increases our feeling of connectedness. The UN surveyed the effects of volunteerism on global society and concluded, “Our own well-being is intrinsically linked to what we contribute to the lives of others.” (You should read Chapter 8 of the report.) 

Altruism is how we act upon the intuition that somehow we’re all part of the same team. Interestingly, giving aid can be even more beneficial than receiving it. In this way, life was designed to be a win-win situation.

People who spend some of their time selflessly giving to others are more likely to report being happy. 

Try the giving experiment for yourself. Maybe start small. Put a few quarters in someone’s expired parking meter or let someone go in front of you when both of your cars are tied at stop signs. Even a smile and a sweet thought to a passing stranger counts, “I hope you feel loved today.” Or just go big. Donate your hair to Locks of Love or offer to babysit for a veteran so he or she can have a fun night out. Here are some other ideas from RandomActsofKindness.org. 

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” 
  – Franklin D. Roosevelt    

Body – Mind – Spirit 

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Stop shooting yourself in the foot – everyone is seeking joy and avoiding sorrow

1/14/2013

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If you make a list of all the things you don't love about your life you will see that you created them. 

You will see that you were either the direct cause or at least a contributing cause of pretty much everything on your list. That was the inescapable conclusion I had to reach if I had any commitment to being honest with myself when I did this. I think you'll find the truth in it, as well.

If you could just stop creating problems for yourself your life would transform into a winning lottery ticket. That's because it's our nature to feel scintillating (I'll elaborate later). 

Nature, God, or whatever word you want to use for events beyond our control account for almost none of the things we don't like about our lives. Just look at your list and you'll see.

The beautiful things about this realization is that it's empowering. We have almost total control over the lives we've created for ourselves and we can intelligently use that control (I'll show you how) to create the idea life we dream about . . . and even a life beyond our dreams. 

P.S. This all applies equally well to the things we (humanity) don't like about the world, too, because the world is just a larger scale version of an individual.

BODY – MIND – SPIRIT 
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