Happier people smiled, acted playful and behaved cheerfully, while unhappy people expressed criticism, displayed guilt, or acted irritated. The behaviors of happier individuals not only reflect their greater positive affect in everyday situations but also highlights what might make them more enjoyable to be around.
To behaviorists, happiness is a cocktail of emotions we experience when we do something good or positive. To neurologists, happiness is the experience of a flood of hormones released in the brain as a reward for behavior that prolongs survival.
“Being happy doesn't just make us feel better, it improves our health. It helps us eat healthier, be more active and sleep better.” Because happiness leads to healthier behaviors, it helps stave off high blood pressure and excess body fat, resulting in lower risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease, she said.
Many psychologists believe that there are at least three fundamental elements of happiness, including emotional, social and cognitive conceptions. Emotional component causing a positive emotional state while social component has led to widespread and positive social relationships with others.
Four important F's for happiness at the individual level are: faith, form/fitness, family, and friends. At the social level, important factors include environmental quality, equality, social capital (including trust).
Happiness is linked to lower heart rate and blood pressure, as well as healthier heart rate variability. Happiness can also act as a barrier between you and germs – happier people are less likely to get sick. People who are happier enjoy greater protection against stress and release less of the stress hormone cortisol.
In the end, the results offered greater clarity about the link between personality and well-being. Extraverted participants were indeed happier—but drilling down deeper, they found it was the more enthusiastic ones who tended to report higher life satisfaction, more positive emotions, and better relationships.
The bottom line is that happiness is a skill that can be learned. Just a few minutes a day spent on practices shown to increase happiness and well-being, when performed on a regular basis, can re-wire your brain and help you permanently elevate your level of happiness.
This theory says that an individual can be motivated to action by something that is outside of themselves. For example, getting a new car will motivate a teenager to graduate high school. Getting money will motivate an adult to go to work every day. Different types of motivation can be used in different ways.
A common example of behaviorism is positive reinforcement. A student gets a small treat if they get 100% on their spelling test. In the future, students work hard and study for their test in order to get the reward.
Some psychologists have suggested that happiness consists of three distinct elements: the pleasant life, the good life, and the meaningful life, as shown in Figure 14.25 (Seligman, 2002; Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005).
The Growing with Gratitude programs are built on the five habits of happiness – gratitude, kindness, empathy, service and positive reflection – to encourage greater resilience and contentment.
For example, researchers have assessed the extent to which factors of the Big Five model might be related to happiness. The two variables that have demonstrated the strongest connection to happiness are neuroticism and extraversion.
Aristotle rightly said that'' Happiness depends upon ourselves. '' We all look for happiness in materialistic things; we search for happiness in others. The kingdom of happiness and satisfaction lies within ourselves.
A healthy balance of work, rest, and play are key to a happy life. It's very easy to overwork in our quest to provide for ourselves and our families, strive for success, and meet our goals. However, too much work is often counterproductive and creates more problems, including health issues and rocky relationships.
In order to describe happiness, psychologists commonly refer to subjective wellbeing (Kesebir & Diener, 2008). In other words, happiness is “people's evaluations of their lives and encompasses both cognitive judgments of satisfaction and affective appraisals of moods and emotions” (Kesebir & Diener, 2008, p.
The results tend to be predicted by six factors that contribute to whether people view their lives positively. These are GDP, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and absence of corruption. The top 10 happiest countries are 1.