Don’t worry. Be happy! : The pursuit of happyness & health

Don’t worry… be happy!

You’ll live longer, too!

If you’ve not seen the 2006 motion picture “The Pursuit of Happyness,” starring Will Smith, I wholeheartedly encourage you do so. It’s based upon the real-life story of Chris Gardner, and his struggle with homelessness in San Francisco, and eventual rise to prosperity in the world of financial trading. Mr. Gardner makes a cameo appearance at the end of the film as he strides across the street while Mr. Smith and his son also walk by.

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The happiness-health connection

More information

Get your copy of Positive Psychology: Harnessing the power of happiness, mindfulness, and personal strength Positive emotions have been linked with better health, longer life, and greater well-being in numerous scientific studies. On the other hand, chronic anger, worry, and hostility increase the risk of developing heart disease, as people react to these feelings with raised blood pressure and stiffening of blood vessels. But it isn’t easy to maintain a healthy, positive emotional state. Positive Psychology: Harnessing the power of happiness, mindfulness, and personal strength is a guide to the concepts that can help you find well-being and happiness, based on the latest research. Click here to read more »

Published: April 17, 2012

Want to feel better and improve your health? Start by focusing on the things that bring you happiness. Scientific evidence suggests that positive emotions can help make life longer and healthier.

But fleeting positive emotions aren’t enough. Lowering your stress levels over a period of years with a positive outlook and relaxation techniques could reduce your risk of health problems.

Pathways to happiness

In an early phase of positive psychology research, University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson of the University of Michigan chose three pathways to examine:

• Feeling good. Seeking pleasurable emotions and sensations, from the hedonistic model of happiness put forth by Epicurus, which focused on reaching happiness by maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain.

• Engaging fully. Pursuing activities that engage you fully, from the influential research by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. For decades, Csikszentmihalyi explored people’s satisfaction in their everyday activities, finding that people report the greatest satisfaction when they are totally immersed in and concentrating on what they are doing — he dubbed this state of intense absorption “flow.”

• Doing good. Searching for meaning outside yourself, tracing back to Aristotle’s notion of eudemonia, which emphasized knowing your true self and acting in accordance with your virtues.

Through focus groups and testing hundreds of volunteers, they found that each of these pathways individually contributes to life satisfaction.

Things that won’t make you happy

People tend to be poor judges of what will make them happy. Here are some widely held myths about what will bring happiness:

FREE Hot Dogs on the Plains in Auburn, Alabama!!

Formerly known as “Dooley’s Dogs” for late head coach Vince Dooley, the Georgia Bulldogs this year are certainly nothing less than a disgrace to the memory of their once-great team, and renown coach.

Certainly not the to-be-feared “junkyard dogs” that they perhaps once were, this year, the Georgia Bulldogs have a 5-5 record, and a 3-4 record in the South Eastern Conference, are going up against the UNDEFEATED Auburn Tigers, whose 10-0 record, and 6-0 in the SEC make them more than a formidable opponent. By most accounts, it will be a slaughter-fest by the Tigers, whose fans’ “WAR EAGLE!” cries will echo throughout the Plains… and in the ears of the Georgia fans and team as they return home, tail tucked between their legs.

Seeing that no Mississippi mud stuck to Auburn quarterback Cameron Newton, he is by all accounts

Good News! California’s Nurse:Patient Ratio Law Saves Lives!

Extra! Extra!

Read all about it!

Should that, or

“Told ‘ya so!”

be the cry?

California and her residents, often maligned within and without, on occasion do come up with some good ideas.

Here’s one of the better ones.