Did you know that happiness is essential to maintaining good health? Scientific research shows that our mood plays a major role in keeping us healthy. So, if you’re feeling down, don’t worry, there are ways you can boost your happiness and reap the health benefits that come along with it.
The Power of a Positive Outlook
In his groundbreaking book, “The Happiness Advantage,” Harvard-trained positive psychologist, Shawn Achor, suggests that happiness is not an outcome — it is an input. By focusing on positive outlooks first, all other goals become more achievable, including better health.
It might seem like a wild notion, but studies have shown that negative emotions have a detrimental impact on our health, whereas positive ones do the opposite:
- Stressful environments can delay antibody production in mice, making them more susceptible to diseases.
- Humor was found to contribute to a terminal patient’s miraculous recovery.
- The Whitehall experiments revealed that prolonged work stress raised the risk of type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease.
Although it may not be possible to entirely eradicate stress from your life, adopting a positive outlook is a potent weapon in limiting the damage that stress can inflict on your body.
The Happiness-Building Workout: Step One – Smile!
Smiling, even when you don’t feel like it, can genuinely boost your mood – but it has to be a genuine smile, one that reaches your eyes. An annual conference of the British Psychological Society revealed that the outward expression of an emotion fuels the actual emotion. Dr. Michael Lewis, a co-author of the study, suggests that there is a feedback loop between parts of our bodies and the emotions we feel.
Step Two: Discover Purpose and Meaning
Finding meaning in what you do can dramatically elevate your happiness baseline and consequently, your immune system. There are several ways to introduce meaning into your life:
- Practice gratitude: Write down three positive things for which you are grateful, focusing on different aspects of your life, such as family, work, and personal achievements.
- Volunteer: Acts of kindness release endorphins for both the giver and the recipient. This “helper’s high” not only increases meaning in your life but also offers health benefits such as reducing the risk of chronic diseases and improving immune system function.
- Express thanks: For optimal gains, thank someone you don’t usually get along with.
Happiness is a lifestyle, not a one-time fix. Instead of leaving it to chance, we should be proactively working to increase our happiness, particularly in light of the significant impact it can have on our health.
