Happiness is a common human experience. But with the world we live in today, it seems it’s beginning to shrink from our grip. Millions from around the world head to google to see if they can find a way to be happier.
How to be happy is relative. And with a quick google search, you could find a couple of ways that could work for you.
But a better question is why should you be happy? Why is happiness important to us humans? And if you’re thinking it’s just to feel good, then I’m afraid there’s more you need to know about happiness.
“Happiness isn’t only a pleasant feeling, it helps our health and well-being,” said Dr. Francoise Adan.
Dr. Adan, a psychiatrist and head of the Connor Integrative Health Network of University Hospitals, believes happier people are more likely to make better decisions, thereby developing healthier behaviors that lead to overall better health.
Good eating habits, getting more exercise, and devoting more time to better sleep, she claims are likely to be carried out by a happy person.
The science of why this is the case, isn’t clear, however.
But time and time again, it’s been shown that happier people develop the desire to engage more with life. They’re more likely to reach out to friends and family too. Which leads to a more balanced and healthier life — biologically and psychologically.
As you read on, you’ll find more secrets to happiness that you didn’t know. And why this may seem strange to you, bare in mind that, there’s nothing supernatural about it. You can get on the bandwagon and begin to experience it for yourself. At the end of the day, our happiness rests on us. It’s our choice. Though sometimes hard, given the circumstance, ultimately, it’s on us. Always remember that.
As many scientists spend their time figuring out what makes a person happy, some focus on how happy people affect our society in general.
“More recently, we have been asking whether happiness is a good thing. Could it be that happiness is self-indulgent and frivolous compared to work and family and religion? We find the opposite: We find over and over that happy people are the ones who function more effectively and also help society more.” said Dr. Ed Diener.
Dr. Ed, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and the University of Utah, in an interview with Greater Good Magazine, said that happier people are more likely to engage in behavior that serves the community.
When people are happier they tend to be kinder, generous, and forgiving. They’re proactive and more likely to obey city laws and government policies. Thereby creating a more peaceful, safe, and functioning society.
This could be because happy people tend to be more compassionate and thus less disagreeable. It would seem that there’s a positive impact happiness has on behavior that science is yet to fully understand.
Now let’s take a little swing, away from what happiness does for you, and let’s end this article with a bit of a different kind of insight you never knew about happiness.
A psychology professor and head of the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University, by name Clive Wynne, carried out a study where they found an interesting phenomenon between owners and their dogs. As Wynne puts it, “Dogs are amazingly social beings, so they are easily infected with our warmth and joy.”
Their findings revealed that pets, like dogs, are able to absorb their owner’s emotions, be they sadness or happiness. A further study later revealed that human emotions are contagious. Especially emotions of sadness and happiness.
Though the degree to which we’re able to be affected by people’s emotions varies from person to person, the fact remains, that emotions such as happiness are contagious.
On the bright side, it means, it probably takes one happy person to affect everyone in the room.
You can imagine thus that, when parents are happy, the children are bound to be happy as well. And if our homes and kids seem to be anxious or moody often, now we know where to look to fix it. They could’ve picked it up from us.
Knowing this, we can bring in the spirit of happiness in our respective homes by being happy ourselves and allowing that sweet contagious mood to find expression everywhere we go.
