What makes happy people

Those who cannot forgive become angry and depressed over time, and suffer poorer health due to the physical reactions to these negative emotions. Give the gift of forgiveness , and you increase your happiness. Many people testify that what lifted them from depression was helping others. So you could volunteer at a homeless shelter, hold the hand of a terminally ill patient, raise funds for charity, or tutor children from poor families.

All these forms of giving take us out of ourselves and set us back on the path to normalcy and happiness. We cannot be happy unless we determine our own fate and are left to make our own choices.

Each of us may need this freedom in varying degrees. If this is extremely important to you, starting your own business, freelancing, or even choosing a single life may contribute to making you happy. Surprisingly, health does not contribute much to happiness. This is because health, like money, is a hygiene factor. We are unhappy with it, but once we have it, we take it for granted and do not become any happier with more of it. So keep yourself in reasonably good health so that you can enjoy life, but do not obsess over it.

Psychologists and economists confirm that this simple activity increases our enjoyment and happiness in the moment. Lists like this are useful only if you take action on at least one of the 10 areas above. This is the number one thing that makes people happy. A good way to improve your relationships is to learn the 5 languages of love. Start using these with the people you love. Doing this alone will work wonders for your happiness.

And theirs too! Sometimes it makes me happy to wallow in a bit of unhappiness but then I write to get it out of my system. I feel happy when I create even if unhappiness causes the creativity. Right now, happiness is a calm ocean and a soft sunset. According to Joyfuldays.

I think, you can say that smile is a reflection of happiness. The more we smile more look happy. I believe its a good starting point to make world a happy place. Its cheerupz. There you can cheer up a sad face and park your website, blog or any third party url forever.

Aw, this was a very nice post. In thought I want to write like this — taking time and actual effort to make a very good article is very rare…. I never felt it. Those two examples were tested on a group of volunteers in a study published last year.

The people in the second group also reported a lower overall sense of personal happiness from completing their goal, the scientists report. Ever heard someone say, 'If you're angry at someone, write them a letter and don't send it'? While that might seem like a waste of time, science reveals recording your feelings is great for clarifying your thoughts, solving problems more efficiently, relieving stress, and more.

A team of pyschologists recently hit on a neurological reason behind why this simple act might help us overcome some emotional distress.

The researchers studied brain scans of volunteers who recorded an emotional experience for 20 minutes a day for 4 sessions. They then compared the brain scans with volunteers who wrote down a neutral experience for the same amount of time. The brain scans of the first group showed neural activity in a part of the brain responsible for dampening strong emotional feelings, s uggesting that the act of recording their experience calmed them.

This same neural activity was absent in the volunteers who recorded a neutral experience. Case in point: A study gave 46 volunteers an envelope with money in it wherein half were instructed to spend the money on themselves and the other half put the money towards a charitable donation or gift for someone they knew.

The volunteers recorded their happiness level before receiving the envelope and after spending the money by the end of that same day. Sure enough, the researchers discovered that those who spent their money on others had a higher level of happiness than those who spent the money on themselves. It might sound counterintuitive, but one of the main ways you can care for yourself is to care for others.

In a recent review of 40 studies done over the last 20 years, researchers found that one activity was far more important than the rest for boosting psychological health: volunteering.

This activity, the researchers reported, had been found in many volunteers to be linked with a reduced risk of depression, a higher amount of overall satisfaction, and even a reduced risk of death from of a physical illness as a consequence of mental distress. Spending time with friends may promote greater happiness than spending time with family, at least according to a recent study.

For the study, researchers used an app called the Mappiness app to determine how much happier people were when they were with their friends, parents, and children.

It might come as no surprise that smiling can make you feel happier. If you fake it, you might even make yourself more unhappy, according to a study. The study examined a group of city bus drivers over a period of two weeks. They found that employees who put on a fake smile for the job were in a worse mood by the end of the day compared to when their shift began.

But drivers who genuinely smiles as a result of positive thoughts actually had a better mood by the end of the day. So when you smile, make sure to smile like you mean it! The reason this is so bad for your happiness is because the negative emotions associated with grudges eventually give way to resentment and thoughts of revenge.

In turn, this leaves little room in your emotional repertoire for anything else, like happiness, according to the Mayo Clinic. The researchers of the latest study found that couples who had more sex because they were asked to for the study reported that the sex was not enjoyable and did not make them happier.

Therefore, sex will only lead to happiness when the couple is having it for a meaningful reason, the researchers conclude. People who have the positive attitude of optimists paired with the rational outlook of realists tend to be more successful and happy, according to psychologist Sophia Chou. That's because so-called "realistic optimists" have the perfect blend of personality types to succeed.

Unlike idealists, they are willing to face challenging situations with a clear view of reality, but will use creativity and a positive outlook to try to work their way out of the problem. Breathing in the smell of dirt may lift your spirits, according to a study which found that a bacteria commonly found in soil produces effects similar to antidepressant drugs.

The harmless bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, stimulated the release of serotonin in the brain after it was injected into mice. Low levels of serotonin is what causes depression in people. In a human test, cancer patients reported increases in their quality of life when they were treated with the bacteria. Eating lunch at your desk can be a real downer, report scientists from the University of Sussex who measured the happiness of employees after they ate lunch in different locations.

The results showed that workers were happiest about their work when they ate lunch on the beach and least happy about work when they ate at their desk. Getting outside in the sun was key to staving off misery — people who ate in parks had a more positive attitude about their jobs than those who chowed down at a restaurant or at home.

Exercise is proven to increase feel-good chemicals in the brain, reduce stress hormones, and relieve depression and anxiety according to Happify , a website and app that offers psychology-based games to increase your happiness.

And you can achieve these positive changes in just a few short minutes. Researchers at the University of Vermont found that even just 20 minutes of exercise can give you those mood-boosting benefits for up to 12 hours afterward! Moreover, people who are active are happier and more satisfied with their lives. The duration and location of your workout also affects how happy you feel afterward. Virtually all people want to be happy people, which is good, because happy people are better off, for reasons both obvious and subtle.

Obviously, it feels good to be happy. For one thing, they tend to enjoy more successes in life. You may be thinking that happiness and success go hand-in-hand because success causes happiness, not the other way around. Seeing that happy people tended to earn more money, display a superior performance, and help others more often, they set out to test the hypotheses that happiness causes success. They found happiness is indeed associated with and precedes several successful outcomes, including higher earnings and greater performance, as well as behaviors that go along with success like helping others.

Their research also found that the relationship goes both ways: Success brings happiness, but happiness actually does bring success, too. Another benefit that happy people share is good health. Studies have found that happy people experience lower levels of cortisol in their saliva, lower blood pressure, lower ambulatory heart rate in men, and reduced neuroendocrine, inflammatory, and cardiovascular activity.

All this leads to greater health, which is definitely something to be happy about. So, what makes happy people, well, happy people? It seems that happy people tend to have a few things in common. Very happy people are found to be very social and have stronger romantic and social relationships with others than less-happy people. Research has also found happy people to be energetic, decisive, creative, social, trusting, loving, and responsive.

Rather than being strongly linked to external characteristics like socioeconomic status, gender or age, happiness is more positively associated with having a philosophical view of life, using laughter and humor , being able to relate to others, having problem-solving skills, engaging in meaningful pursuits and leisure activities, living in a positive environment , and maintaining a well-balanced lifestyle.

Positive psychology research also illuminates specific activities that can bring feelings of happiness. Performed regularly, these activities can lead people with a lower "happiness setpoint" to increase their regular levels of positive affect good mood and happiness in general.

These activities include:. There are several routes to happiness. Some are quick and bring immediate positive feelings, and others take more time and bring lasting and repeated feelings of happiness. Learn the best ways to manage stress and negativity in your life.