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Here are the things proven to make you happier:

From BarkingUpTheWrongTree


Happy Thoughts: Here are the things proven to make you happier:




What’s the secret to a head full of happy thoughts?

Time to round up the research on living a happy life to see what we can use.

First, yeah, a good chunk of happiness is controlled by your genes but there’s a lot you can do to make yourself happier. Many of these techniques have been repeatedly tested and even worked with the clinically depressed.

Gratitude, Gratitude, Gratitude

I can’t emphasize this one enough. Showing gratitude for the good things you have is the most powerful happiness boosting activity there is.

It will make you happier.

It will improve your relationships.

It can make you a better person.

It can make life better for everyone around you.

Bronze medalists are happier than silver medalists. Why? They feel grateful to get a medal at all.

Every night before you go to bed write three good things that happened to you that day. Jotting those down is pretty much all it takes to get a boost in well-being over time.

There’s a second lesson here: the reverse is also true. Keeping track of the bad things will make you miserable. A convenient memory is a powerful thing. Do not train your brain to see the negative, teach it to see the positive.

Wanna make yourself and someone else extremely happy? Try a gratitude visit. Write someone a letter thanking them and telling them how much what they have done for you means. Visit them and read it in person. It’s a proven happiness WMD.

Do what you are good at as often as you can

“Signature strengths” are the things you are uniquely good at and using them increases happy thoughts. Exercising signature strengths is why starving artists are happier with their jobs.

Think about the best possible version of yourself and move toward that. Signature strengths are the secret to experiencing more “flow” at work and in life.

Spend as much time as possible with people you like

Spend as much time as possible with people you like. The happiest people are social with strong relationships. Not spending more time with people we love is something we regret the most.

Being able to spend more time with friends provides an increase in happiness worth up to an additional $133,000 a year. (Values for your other relationships are here.)

Being compassionate makes us happier (causal, not correlative.) Share the best events of your day with loved ones and ask them to do the same. And compliment them — we love compliments more than money or sex.

But I’m an introvert, you say? A little bit of extraversion here would do you good. Happiness is more contagious than unhappiness so with amount of exposure to others well-being scales.

Money is good. Many other things are better.

After about 75K a year, money has minimal effects on happiness. Read that again. Not that money won’t increase happiness but if you want to be happier your time and energy are better spent elsewhere. It will not increase your moment to moment mood.

The Amish are as satisfied as billionaires and slumdwellers can be surprisingly happy. The happiest of all income groups is people making 50-75k a year. Money is good but wanting money can be bad.

Give

Giving makes us happier than receiving. In fact, it can create a feedback loop of happiness in your life. Volunteering makes us happier and can therefore be the most selfless way to be selfish.

Helping others reach their goals brings joy. Doing nice things for others today can literally make you happier for the rest of the week.

Savor

Take time to really enjoy the good things. What are the best ways to savor?

Positive mental time travel: Happy memories or looking forward to something

Being present: Not letting your mind wander and being absorbed in the moment.

Savoring is one of the secrets of the happiest people. Focusing on the limited time you have in this life is a good way to remind you to savor what is important.

Strive

You don’t usually do what brings you joy, you do what is easy. Set ambitious goals and strive. Thinking about what happens to you in terms of your self-esteem will crush you — look at life as growing and learning.

Sitting on the couch watching TV does not make you happy. You are happier when you are busy and are probably have more fun at work than at home. Thinking and working can beat sad feelings. A wandering mind is not a happy mind. Mastering skills is stressful in the short term and happiness-boosting in the long term.

Be optimistic, even to the border of delusion

Optimism is key. Yes, pessimism softens the blow of bad news but it isn’t worth it.

Read more from BarkingUpTheWrongTree >>

How To Stop Procrastinating: 4 New Steps Backed By Research

From BarkingUpTheWrongTree


How To Stop Procrastinating: 4 New Steps Backed By Research

I don’t wanna. I don’t wanna. I don’t wanna. It’s awful and horrible. I hear it causes cancer. I’ll do it when I feel better. I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll do it when I’m taller.

Procrastination plagues us all. We always think there will be more time tomorrow and research shows that’s just not true.

No, you won’t do better work by waiting. In fact, studies show leaving things unfinished makes you stupid.

To be honest with you, dear reader, I should have started writing this hours ago. So how can both of us finally banish procrastination for good? I decided to call a guy who has answers.

Charles Duhigg is a reporter for the New York Times and author of the bestseller The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business.

You can watch the video of Charles talking about habits here: BarkingUpTheWrongTree

Here’s what you’ll learn in the post below:

• Why your standard response to procrastination never ever ever works.
• How turning habits into “personal starting rituals” can make beating procrastination easier and fun (believe it or not.)
• Why the most powerful habits are all about how you see yourself.
• Why eating chocolate with friends might be the secret to beating procrastination — and every other bad habit you have.

No more putting things off. Rather than doing this “eventually” let’s do it now.

1) You Don’t Need More Willpower. You Need To Build Habits.

You don’t have a willpower problem. This wouldn’t all be better if you could force yourself to do that dreaded task.

As I talked about when I interviewed the foremost researcher on the subject, willpower is a limited resource.

Relying on it to get things done is a really lousy strategy. As Charles says, you really only have the willpower to muscle yourself to do about three to four things a day.

Yeah, three or four. (So basically I’ve used up all my willpower by the time I get out of bed.) So what’s the answer?

Building better habits. In fact, 40% of the things you do every day are habitual.

So if you can just move those awful, horrible mom-don’t-make-me-go-to-school tasks into the habit territory, you’re far more likely to get them done. Research shows we’re wayyy more productive when we automate tasks by making them habitual.

Here’s Charles:

When people make hard tasks into habits, it tends to use less willpower. You’re thinking about it less. Think about brushing your teeth. Anyone who has children knows that getting your kids to brush their teeth is like fighting demons. Everything about it is hard. When you think about it, it’s not hard for us as adults to brush our teeth. The reason why is because as that behavior becomes a habit, it requires less and less willpower. It starts drawing on different parts of the brain than the prefrontal cortex where decision-making occurs and activities that require willpower occurs. That’s the lesson. If there are some things that are hard to do, that you want to make them more automatic and less demanding of willpower, then by deliberately making them into habits, by paying attention to cues and rewards, you gain a strength over how to influence that.

So habits are the answer. But how do we use habits to beat putting things off?

2) Turn That Habit Into A “Personal Starting Ritual”

I’ve posted a lot about the research and solutions to procrastination. What’s a common theme we see again and again?

Getting started is where the war is really won. This makes sense intuitively. Often it feels like something is impossible… but then once we get going we find it’s actually not that bad.

Finishing things isn’t as much of a problem as just getting started in the first place. Here’s Charles:

One way to use habits to fight procrastination is to develop a habitualized response to starting. When people talk about procrastination, what they’re usually actually talking about is the first step. In general, if people can habitualize that first step, it makes it a lot easier.

So don’t make this some terrible grind of a habit. Make this a habit that’s a “personal starting ritual.” Get your coffee or whatever energizes you and turn that into a visceral signal that always means I’m getting going.

And here’s the best part: your starting ritual can be fun. As in doing some of the stuff you’d do when procrastinating.

3) The Most Powerful Habits Change How You See Yourself

Read more frrom BarkingUpTheWrongTree >>

Vitamin D Is Vital For Boosting Energy Levels

From HealthBlog


Vitamin D Is Vital For Boosting Energy Levels

Research has revealed that Vitamin D improves muscle function and is believed to enhance activity of the cell batteries, otherwise known as mitochondria.

Vitamin D is a hormone usually manufactured in the skin making use of sunlight energy, and is also found in several foods, such as egg yolks, fish liver oils, fish and fortified cereals but Vitamin D levels can also be improved effectively by making use of Vitamin D supplementation.

It’s believed about 60% of individuals in the UK are deficient in vitamin D, with children under 5, the elderly and individuals with dark skin being especially vulnerable. The vitamin D and bone formation association is well established and a deficiency can result in rickets, but the role of vitamin D in other health issues is just surfacing.

Non-invasive magnetic resonance scans were made use of before and after vitamin D treatment for measuring how 12 individuals having severe vitamin D deficiency responded to exercise.

In a small group of individuals who were deficient in vitamin D with muscle fatigue symptoms, it was found that individuals having very low levels of vitamin D had significantly improved muscle efficiency once their levels of vitamin D were improved.

Along with poor bone health, a common symptom found in individuals who are vitamin D deficient is muscle fatigue, which could be as a result of reduced mitochondria efficiency:.

 Read more from HealthBlog >>

Happy, Prosperous, Healthy New Year

Wishing you all a Happy, Prosperous and Healthy New Year!

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