What is the most important thing in life?
Contrary to popular opinion,
it is not money, fame nor even power.
It is happiness. This is all you really need to enjoy a high quality
of life. Plain and simple.
There are plenty of people around the world who live in 3rd world countries
with nothing more than the shirts on their back. And yet,
often these are the happiest people on earth.
This illustrates how you don't need much to be happy.
So, what is their secret?
How can you boost your happiness to sky high levels?
Funnily enough, there are plenty of tips and tricks which have been proven
to work wonders.
1. Spend money on others. When many of us are sad,
we often go out and buy something in an effort to
cheer ourselves up.
This could be as simple as a chocolate bar or as extravagant as
new sports car.
But, stunning new research has shown that if you
really want to use money to increase your happiness
you need to spend it on other people.
A study from 2008, gave people envelopes full of money
half were instructed to spend it on themselves
while the other half were instructed to donate the money to charity
or buy a gift for a friend.
Individuals who spend money on others
reported much higher levels of happiness.
2. Listen to Sad Songs
When we are feeling blue, many of us put in our headphones
zone out and play our favorite music
but before you choose the happiest songs in your playlist.
You might want to listen to this,
a 2014 study found that those listening to sad music
actually received beneficial emotional effects.
This effects included regulation of negative emotion and mood.
In simpler terms, sad music helps you handle your bad moods.
So if you really want to cheer yourself up,
play the saddest song you can find in your playlist.
3. Drink coffee
We're guessing no one was expected this one.
There's been a lot of talk about how coffee might be good or bad for you
but not many people are discussing it's effect on mood.
There have actually been a few studies which have looked into this
and the results are pretty stunning.
One of the most interesting studies was published in 2016
and it found that 1 cup of coffee per day
equated to an 8% decrease in the risk for depression
(up to a limit of 500mg of caffeine per day)
Why is coffee so good at fighting off depression?
Researchers aren't 100% sure
but they think it might have something to with Antioxidants
and Anti-Inflammatories present in coffee, as well as
it's link to Dopamine-Production
4. Meditation
Of all the things we're listing here, meditation probably has the most conclusive
science to back it up.
Mediation has been practice for thousands of years,
long before the science of Psychology even existed
People have been aware of it's benefits for a very long time
and it's ability to relieve stress is well known.
And yes, numerous scientific studies have been able to back this up
proving that their is a link between
meditation and reduced stress and anxiety.
Examples include studies of people in high stress situations
such as nursing students, or people who were dealing
with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Meditation worked wonders in almost all situations.
5. Go for a Walk
Sometimes the simplest methods are often the most effective
seems like this is definitely the case when dealing with sadness.
As research has shown that merely going for a walk
can be a major game changer.
Some studies, studied the positive effects of simply
getting outside and experiencing nature.
A walk in the forest for example
others found that
walking in any situation increased happiness
simply because it involved exercise.
going for a walk seems like a really good idea to cheer yourself up.
6. Get Your Feelings off of your Chest
Keeping your emotions bottled up inside of you
is never a good idea and
it definitely helps to get things off of your chest.
Have you ever felt that massive feeling of relief when you confess your fears
and worries. It really does work wonders
and science seems to confirm this.
One recent study, looked at how recording a negative
emotional experience can actually
calm our nerves and helps us deal with our worries.
Those who were writing about their emotional experiences
were much more calm and relaxed then
those that were writing about other subjects.
As, you can see the cold an calculated laboratories
of science can actually teach us a lot about how to warm up
our hearts and cheer ourselves up.
Who knows, maybe you will find yourself using one of these methods one day.
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