Most of our fears are irrational. We experience stress, hesitation, anxiety, and nervousness over events that aren’t actually dangerous. These emotions can cause us to hold back when taking action is more advantageous, so we miss opportunities again and again.
With a series of simple mental transformations, try to stop generating this irrational fear and replace it with happiness, confidence, and excitement.
Where are irrational fears holding you back? What if you could train your mind to stop generating fear in such situations and to generate positive motivation, happiness, and excitement instead? Or perhaps you’d prefer to experience serenity, calmness, and inner peace? Imagine what that would do for your life. And realize that this is possible. Many people have already done it. This is a learnable skill. You can indeed train your mind to stop generating irrational fear.
Please refer to the blog for more details on this activity.
When you manage your mind well, solid productivity and a strong work ethic are powerful benefits. These benefits cascade into other benefits like increased self-reliance, self-confidence, and self-esteem. Knowing that you have the work ethic to successfully manage any reasonable challenge makes you more tolerant of risks and less fearful of setbacks since you know you can rely on your work ethic to quickly bounce back.
If you don’t manage your mind well, your productivity will suffer. Bad habits will suck you down. This in turn drags down your confidence, self-reliance, and self-esteem.
A key benefit of mental mastery is being able to make good decisions. If your mind keeps thinking itself in circles, you have a mental defect to overcome.
A well-managed mind is decisive but also flexible. It can weigh options quickly and carefully, get into action, and adjust course as needed.
Some people are too hesitant. Some people are too reckless. Both are symptoms of a weak decision-making process. Fortunately you can train yourself to make quality decisions in a reasonable amount of time, act on them, and adapt as you go. This requires a combination of skills, but they’re all learnable.
When your mind is well-trained, you’ll also enjoy making decisions more, especially important ones. It’s stimulating and rewarding to direct your mind to carefully consider options and make a wise and intelligent choice.
Many people have overly critical self-talk, which usually does them more harm than good. This inner voice can be consciously re-trained to serve as an unwavering ally.
It’s so much easier to succeed when you have a strong inner coach that won’t let you give up, get down on yourself, or coast for too long. With some mental training, you can design and unleash your own inner coach, which will help you set goals, overcome obstacles, and more. Think of this coach as your brain’s internal cheerleader.
Understand and accept that if you do nothing, you’re going to drag your worst qualities into your future by default, month after month, year after year, decade after decade. In some cases your habits and behaviors will cascade into further downgrades, such as poor health habits impairing your mental functioning and making it harder to focus as you get older.
Don’t settle for sluggish, defective mental software. Upgrading your mindware may not be as easy as upgrading an app on your computer, but it is doable, especially when you have help.
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For many people, selling through estate agents represents long timescales, over valuations and the risk of chain-breaking. Over-valued For example, some estate agents over-value properties during the peak selling season. in order to inflate prices and their commissions. Initially, the promise of a good deal fills the homeowner with hope. This emotion soon fades into frustration and despair. Negative publicity Unfortunately, home buying companies have recently sometimes receive negative publicity, as some in the property industry have begun to claim that it is far more cost-effective to turn your home over to an estate agent when it's time to sell. Estate agent commissions Some high figures that the estate agents establish to be your home's market value is not for coming in the offers you receive. Homeowners who are under financial pressure and pressured timescales are thus forced to sell for much less than they originally expected.
Should you opt for the services of estate agents, they will be entitled to a percentage of the selling price once the sale is confirmed. Furthermore, the majority of estate agents will inflate the market price of your home, which means that you'll more than likely be compelled to accept an offer that is significantly lower that the value of your home.
In addition, this already reduced amount is now subjected to a mountain of hidden costs and deductions. Estate agent commissions are generally based on a percentage of the asking price of the home - not the final selling price Also critical is the substantial amount of money that home sellers lose to estate agents' commissions, which can be up to 8% of the original inflated market value.
Avoid hidden costs and price uncertainty If you choose to sell your property through us you avoid hidden costs and price uncertainty. Thus, when you combine the financial loss of accepting a low offer with the cut your agent will receive once the sale has been completed, the picture is no longer as it seemed at first glance.
With this in mind, it often makes sense to utilise the services of a home buying company, particularly if you need to sell your home fast. You also won't have to worry about undisclosed fees and expenses that are often part and parcel of such protracted business transactions.
Read more how to sell a house!
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Having strong muscles is part of looking and feeling better at any age, but after age 40 your muscles decrease by 10 percent every decade. It is valuable for women to adopt a stable program of weight training along with cardiovascular exercise to retain strength and increase bone density and metabolism. Strength training reduces the risk of health conditions that sometimes develop after menopause, such as cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis.
Forty is a turning point in women's lives: their body begins to suffer the changes of perimenopause, including the risk of muscle fiber contraction, high blood pressure, loss of bone density and unwanted weight gain. These changes are intensified by inactivity. Add weight training to your health routine will help reduce body fat, tone muscles and strengthen bones while fighting the lack of energy, mood swings and insomnia. Some age-related changes are unavoidable, but the decrease in physical health related to inactivity can be reduced considerably with a diligent commitment to strength training as part of a healthy lifestyle.
When starting a weight training routine for the first time, the first challenge is to stay constant. Write down the dates of your weekly training as appointments that can not be missed. During the first weeks, learn correct techniques and practice the right way. Always start with a 10-minute warm-up of light cardio like walking or biking, and stretch your main muscle groups after your workout, keeping each stretch for 20 to 30 seconds. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that beginners take one or two days of rest between each weight training session for weight-lifting programs for women over 40.
The type of equipment you choose will depend on your experience and availability. A safe start training can be successful whether you use machines in the gym or your own body weight, a set of weights and resistance bands in the home. Free weights require some coordination and have additional benefits over machines, because they require you to use your stabilizing muscles. They are more effective at producing muscle strength in general and are also more versatile, portable and economical. Exercise machines are sometimes easier to use than free weights if you do not have experience with weight training, because most machines have a built-in range of motion. If you belong to a gym, get help from a personal trainer until you feel comfortable practicing on your own.
Using a light and comfortable weight will allow most adult women to do 15 to 20 repetitions with good form; this will help you get used to performing the movement with a full range of motion. Each session should take less than 45 minutes; Within that time, point to all your muscle groups performing 10 to 12 different exercises. Perform exercises for larger muscle groups, such as the buttocks, legs, thorax, back and center, before smaller muscle groups, such as calves, shoulders, biceps and triceps, to prevent fatigue of your muscles too quickly. A full-body weightlifting program can include lunges or squats, deadlifts, bench presses, rows, lying, pelvic tilts, planks, shoulder presses, biceps curls, triceps pulls, and calf lifts. When you can easily do 20 repetitions with good form, reduce your repetitions from 12 to 15 and add one or two more sets. When you can complete three sets, increase the weight you are using and make one to three sets of 12 to 15 repetitions.
It is normal to feel some muscle fatigue when doing the prescribed number of repetitions, but if you feel any pain, stop the exercise immediately and consult your doctor if it persists. It is important for beginners not to do repetitions until failure, as it could cause compression of the joints or retention of breath, which would cause dizziness, nausea or injury. Get approval from your doctor before starting any new exercise routine.
The good news is that we know what we should and shouldn’t be eating. What we are still struggling with is: how much of it we should eat? Even when we are eating foods that are low in calories, controlling portions is very important. It teaches your body to be satisfied on less volume. The older you get, the more portions come into play because, as your metabolism slows down, you need to reduce the amount of food you eat in order to prevent that 3–5 pound weight gain every year. The reality is you just don’t need to eat that much food. When you order a burger or a plate of spaghetti, the portions are huge. You could make those portions into 2–3 different meals. Here are a couple of strategies for healthy portioning.
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Too big.
Too much.
2. Use a small plate, like a coffee cup saucer.
3. Use a 1-cup measuring cup to determine portions. One cup of pretty much anything is plenty.
4. If you still feel hungry after eating a small portion, wait 15 minutes. If you are still truly hungry, have another small portion, half the size of the first. 5. When you order food at a restaurant, order an appetizer as your main course. The portions are much healthier.
6. Don’t let yourself get too hungry. It’s tempting to overeat when you are starving. 7. When you do eat, eat slowly and enjoy your meal. 8. Drink water with every meal. It will fill you up a little — and because it’s good for you :) Try it for a week and give us your feedback.
I signed up for creating my first course today and explored the platform.
My first activity!
First blog entry!
Think exercise is something you don't have time for? Think again. Check out the 7 minute workout mentioned in The New York Times. That's a workout any of us can fit into our schedules.
Exercise has such a profound effect on our happiness and well-being that it is an effective strategy for overcoming depression. In a study cited in Shawn Achor's book The Happiness Advantage, three groups of patients treated their depression with medication, exercise, or a combination of the two. The results of this study are surprising: Although all three groups experienced similar improvements in their happiness levels early on, the follow-up assessments proved to be radically different:
The groups were then tested six months later to assess their relapse rate. Of those who had taken the medication alone, 38 percent had slipped back into depression. Those in the combination group were doing only slightly better, with a 31 percent relapse rate. The biggest shock, though, came from the exercise group: Their relapse rate was only 9 percent.
You don't have to be depressed to benefit from exercise, though. Exercise can help you relax, increase your brain power, and even improve your body image, even if you don't lose any weight.
We've explored exercise in depth before, and looked at what it does to our brains, such as releasing proteins and endorphins that make us feel happier.
A study in the Journal of Health Psychology found that people who exercised felt better about their bodies even when they saw no physical changes:
Body weight, shape and body image were assessed in 16 males and 18 females before and after both 6 × 40 minutes exercising and 6 × 40 minutes reading. Over both conditions, body weight and shape did not change. Various aspects of body image, however, improved after exercise compared to before.
Yep: Even if your actual appearance doesn't change, how you feel about your body does change.
I am working out, focusing on my knee. I am having a freaking knee pain. I fear arthritis... Here, are some ways I discovered online to ease it.
No more tiring or exhausted.. It boosts up my energy. I get all set for the hectic day. :)
Trying to go easy.. but doing it on a regular basis. It keeps me active and moreover I don't have the chronic knee pain that I used to have long back.
I was having problem with the wallsit so I check for some other workout that I can do in place of wallsit. However, I end up with an instruction article of how to do a wall sit.
But, I am not giving up my quest for some easy to workout routines.
Since I skip a few of the workouts, so I have devoted more time to my overall workout and also going to drink water and fruit juice and nothing else. My cholesterol is not being a good friend of mine lately. Plus, I like to instill some healthy living prinsiples in my junior.
That is my secret, I got the app.. I workout frequently, but I skip a few of the workouts like tricep dips, rotation push ups.
I tried, but it just don' go well. So I give extra time to the plunges, wall sit and squats.
I know, if I am true to myself then only I would get the benefits of these workout. Buut no one is perfect, there should be some room for workout customization.
I workout everyday.. but, I don't lose a single inch from my belly. Perhaps, it is genetic. My dad even got that..
Trying to find something on "www" on this..
This looks interesting.."17 Simple Exercises To Lose Belly Fat"
What a day it was!! Full of fun.. working out with kids, then ssome lovely creakfast. What else you need ??
Anytime when you lack motivation to workout even for 7 mins a day.. Like I used to...Hit one of the 29 Ways to Motivate Yourself to Work Out.
Do come back and share how you feel it different!
Followed the video and worked out in the morning. Whew.. Felt the proper muscle stretches. Happy to do something in best way.
These videos are self-explanatory. Very helpful. I am working out 7 mins. And, really working great...
Thinkinig to get this app. I just tried to workout once. I feel it interesting.
I ran today for 30 mins without a break.... and took my lil buddy and son along with me....
Woh... I went for a run today in a park and took a break of 5 minnutes. I saw a man with his son and dog. Working out, playing.. I got up.. It was just the thing missing in my life, my family..
Things got back in track.. I ran for a mile non-stop..
Running today...now better pretty used to.
Kickstarted my runnning program... 1 mile 6 days a week.. Legs pained.. since I stopped but I maintained workinng out for 10-15 mins daily so not fully out of shape..
Here are got a compact tips for early morning work out...
Since I work out, I just willing to make some improvisation so that I can maximize the benefits beyond of mood uplift.
Do I need to say something else after this?? Surely not!! I am happy!
Yes... I started off will a long run... Nice.. Not to mention, Cynthia got me a lovely breakfast after that.
Exercise helps the heart to beat with ease... Good health leads to good mood... Even if it is for 7 minutes only I works like miracle. Why exercising makes us happy??
I lost the routine... Yeah new year week has spoiled me a little. But, now I am back in being fit!!
Few minutes working out, and stretching ... it gives me warmth forthe whole day. And not to mention, the breafast after that tastes extra delicious.
Either I meditate or go for a brisk walk out in the park. It not only make me feel better healthwise, but also makes me happy.
Ran today in the morning......
I run every morning .. It is my way to keep myself body healthy and mind happy.
It works... Check this Huffingtonpost article.
Felt like lazing around this weekend. So didn’t hit the long workout regimen instead opted for the 7min warm up session and followed by green tea, almonds, toasts and fruits. Spectacular beginning ... surely the rest of the day would rock!!
How are you spending your weekend?
Started the day with stretching and cardiovascular exercise. I have been doing this for last few weeks. I played my favorite tracks that time.. I don't feel tired so easily in that ambience. Try this.
Doing litlle bit of workout.. don't want put any stress on my shoulder muscle foe the time being
Got a sprain in shoulder.. It is nearly impossible to turn around. I am not going to trouble anymore excercising today. Going to see the doctor.
Got a great video to guide me over 7 minutes workout. Check it out.
Ran today....
Not one, not two, not three.... Just read the 20 benefits of exercising.
Ran 2 miles almost today.. that is now a part of my morning now. Incomplete without it.
7 minutes would be enough... to make me and my family happy.. However I run daily for 30 minutes. Honestly it is absolutely great. Now I encourage and make it compulsory to do physical activities. It keeps them active and happy too.
Huh another day... running around the park.. And breakfast with kids.. CYnthia makes awesome muffins.. Nothing could be better than this
I run everyday. It is one vigorous workout. It really works great starting from mind to body. And yes, I feel more energized and happy.
We know that sleep helps our body recover from the day and repair itself and that it helps us focus and be more productive. It turns out sleep is also important for happiness.
In NutureShock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman explain how sleep affects positivity:
Negative stimuli get processed by the amygdala; positive or neutral memories gets processed by the hippocampus. Sleep deprivation hits the hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories yet recall gloomy memories just fine.
In one experiment by Walker, sleep-deprived college students tried to memorize a list of words. They could remember 81% of the words with a negative connotation, like "cancer." But they could remember only 31% of the words with a positive or neutral connotation, like "sunshine" or "basket."
The BPS Research Digest explores another study that proves sleep affects our sensitivity to negative emotions. Using a facial recognition task throughout the course of a day, researchers studied how sensitive participants were to positive and negative emotions. Those who worked through the afternoon without taking a nap became more sensitive to negative emotions like fear and anger.
Using a face recognition task, here we demonstrate an amplified reactivity to anger and fear emotions across the day, without sleep. However, an intervening nap blocked and even reversed this negative emotional reactivity to anger and fear while conversely enhancing ratings of positive (happy) expressions.
Of course, how well (and how long) you sleep will probably affect how you feel when you wake up, which can make a difference to your whole day.
Another study tested how employees' moods when they started work in the morning affected their entire work day.
Researchers found that employees' moods when they clocked in tended to affect how they felt the rest of the day. Early mood was linked to their perceptions of customers and to how they reacted to customers' moods.
And most importantly to managers, employee mood had a clear impact on performance, including both how much work employees did and how well they did it.
The best way to relax a chaotictic mind to get some sleep. I took few hours off from my work in the morning and just slept until I found my mind as cheerful as a kid..
Now, I am all set to kick start the day!!
I often see even a small nap relaxes the stressed and worried mind. I actually tried it before saying this.
That is why some-call it Power-Nap.. :)
Ahh,.... I spend my weekend relaxing in my bed napping.. That was great.. I just compensated my incomplete sleep of the whole week
I feel so tired, need a sound sleep. Hitting the bed early tonight.
Oversleeping is a symptom of depression... but a quality sleep even if it is for a shortwhile.. is best to make me happy and stress-free.. Here howstuffswork explaining the whole stuff..
Generally, I love to snooze... I am really surprised at the health benefits of sleeping. Wohhh...not just the emotion, people live longer!!! Take a look.
My 8 hours of sleep is my ultimate relaxation. . .
I really wanted to identify the connection between a sound sleep and mental health... here's what threw some light on the dark corners of my mind
This is so interesting.. just started to try this
Staying in touch with friends and family is one of the top five regrets of the dying.
If you want more evidence that time with friends is beneficial for you, research proves it can make you happier right now, too.
Social time is highly valuable when it comes to improving our happiness, even for introverts. Several studies have found that time spent with friends and family makes a big difference to how happy we feel.
I love the way Harvard happiness expert Daniel Gilbert explains it:
We are happy when we have family, we are happy when we have friends and almost all the other things we think make us happy are actually just ways of getting more family and friends.
George Vaillant is the director of a 72-year study of the lives of 268 men.
In an interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant was asked, "What have you learned from the Grant Study men?" Vaillant's response: "That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people."
He shared insights of the study with Joshua Wolf Shenk at The Atlantic on how men's social connections made a difference to their overall happiness:
Men's relationships at age 47, he found, predicted late-life adjustment better than any other variable. Good sibling relationships seem especially powerful: 93 percent of the men who were thriving at age 65 had been close to a brother or sister when younger.
In fact, a study published in the Journal of Socio-Economics states than your relationships are worth more than $100,000:
Using the British Household Panel Survey, I find that an increase in the level of social involvements is worth up to an extra £85,000 a year in terms of life satisfaction. Actual changes in income, on the other hand, buy very little happiness.
I think that last line is especially fascinating: Actual changes in income, on the other hand, buy very little happiness. So we could increase our annual income by hundreds of thousands of dollars and still not be as happy as we would if we increased the strength of our social relationships.
The Terman study, covered in The Longevity Project, found that relationships and how we help others were important factors in living long, happy lives:
We figured that if a Terman participant sincerely felt that he or she had friends and relatives to count on when having a hard time then that person would be healthier. Those who felt very loved and cared for, we predicted, would live the longest.
Surprise: our prediction was wrong... Beyond social network size, the clearest benefit of social relationships came from helping others. Those who helped their friends and neighbors, advising and caring for others, tended to live to old age.
Going out with Cynthia and my little one!! A great evening planned out already!! Pizza party! What else can excite a kid more.
Ten Ideas for Making the Most of the Family Time You Get.. I am sure that you would find it beneficial.
9 ways to maximize family time....from parents.com, though I am too young for it. But, soon enough I would require these advices so preparing myself now only.
More than a month now not seen my mom.. So this weekend am glad to be a mumma's boy.. Enjoying her cooking and some real great time with Daddy..
Planned a trip to Disney Land this weekend...
Atleast I would never ever regret... This is so far my best New Year.. A surprise from my parents and brother. Money or anything can never buy me something more precious than this Happiness that my family got me.
Most of the time I have to travel for my work. Some whenever I am home, I make sure to have my dinner with my family... Mom, dad, sister.. I cherish those moments a lot.
A day with family... It is priceless.
Making time for the BEST things in life.
I generally don't get much of a time to be with my kids. I missed Jack's baseball games last week. He was really upset. However, I decided I am going to be with them. Watch them growing. I made many changes in my daily routine and really I just love to be a kid with them.. Cynthia, you complete my life. I love you.
In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor recommends spending time in the fresh air to improve your happiness:
Making time to go outside on a nice day also delivers a huge advantage; one study found that spending 20 minutes outside in good weather not only boosted positive mood, but broadened thinking and improved working memory...
This is pretty good news for those of us who are worried about fitting new habits into our already-busy schedules. Twenty minutes is a short enough time to spend outside that you could fit it into your commute or even your lunch break.
A UK study from the University of Sussex also found that being outdoors made people happier:
Being outdoors, near the sea, on a warm, sunny weekend afternoon is the perfect spot for most. In fact, participants were found to be substantially happier outdoors in all natural environments than they were in urban environments.
The American Meteorological Society published research in 2011 that found current temperature has a bigger effect on our happiness than variables like wind speed and humidity, or even the average temperature over the course of a day. It also found thathappiness is maximized at 57 degrees (13.9°C), so keep an eye on the weather forecast before heading outside for your 20 minutes of fresh air.
The connection between productivity and temperature is another topic we've talked about more here. It's fascinating what a small change in temperature can do.
Yuhhuuuu... I am one happy man.. I feel like a free bird..
Apart from the warm weather (57degree), I have other 15 Natural Mood Lifter. Thise are really great. And right now I am listening to Roar.
What is Happiness Advantage?? Shawn Achor's video explained it all. It is a small part of his program. Oh.. I became a follower of Shawn Achor.
After lunch I just took a walk... I feel good after I return back!!!
The science behind temperature changes human mood is really amazing. The open air, being away from the chaotic world, rat - race itself is a big mood booster. Never aware of some science existing behind this.
Weather can affect our mood more than just a lil'.
I was never aware off... 57 degree??? Yeah a walk in open air .. definitely opens up the mind.. Next time I am stressed out I would do this for sure.
One of the most counterintuitive pieces of advice I found is that to make yourself feel happier, you should help others. In fact, 100 hours per year (or two hours per week) is theoptimal time we should dedicate to helping others in order to enrich our lives.
If we go back to Shawn Achor's book again, he says this about helping others:
...when researchers interviewed more than 150 people about their recent purchases, they found that money spent on activities--such as concerts and group dinners out--brought far more pleasure than material purchases like shoes, televisions, or expensive watches. Spending money on other people, called "prosocial spending," also boosts happiness.
The Journal of Happiness Studies published a study that explored this very topic:
Participants recalled a previous purchase made for either themselves or someone else and then reported their happiness. Afterward, participants chose whether to spend a monetary windfall on themselves or someone else. Participants assigned to recall a purchase made for someone else reported feeling significantly happier immediately after this recollection; most importantly, the happier participants felt, the more likely they were to choose to spend a windfall on someone else in the near future.
So spending money on other people makes us happier than buying stuff for ourselves. But what about spending our time on other people?
A study of volunteering in Germany explored how volunteers were affected when their opportunities to help others were taken away:
Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall but before the German reunion, the first wave of data of the GSOEP was collected in East Germany. Volunteering was still widespread. Due to the shock of the reunion, a large portion of the infrastructure of volunteering (e.g. sports clubs associated with firms) collapsed and people randomly lost their opportunities for volunteering. Based on a comparison of the change in subjective well-being of these people and of people from the control group who had no change in their volunteer status, the hypothesis is supported that volunteering is rewarding in terms of higher life satisfaction.
In his book Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being, University of Pennsylvania professor Martin Seligman explains that helping others can improve our own lives:
...we scientists have found that doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we have tested.
I am willing to join the fight against extreme poverty... with one.org.
Signed the petition and request my fellow melearners to do it as well. Our small contribution can lead to a bigger revolution.
I am following the first step of helping a depressed friend by educating myself so that I can help my friend Thomas. However, I am a part of care giving team, and little bit aware of human psychology yet it is better to educate yourself. Precaution is better than cure.
Please share and support the innocent lives out there in Nepal
Hi Adam, You are right. Even I was thinking where to donate so it reach the needy people. The link you shared very useful. I am happy to be of some help to them..
It is a perfect say; a friend in need is a friend indeed.
The Nepal Earthquake has taken more than more than 7,500 lives and more than 10,000 people got injured. Nepal is country enriched with culture and heritage building. Everything got flattened. I was hoping to help them.. And, food is one thing that they require. So, I decided to donate World Food Programme..
Any one who want to help Nepal and neep guidance, you may refer to this guide article.
HELP NEPAL
One need no money to help others. It is the best of one's sincere emptions that does the magic. Help others, make yourself happy. Just the way, I try to do.. Not necessary that you have help someone stranger or absolutely helpless. I help my friends, my collegues, neighbors and anyone possible. But, try to help one who really need it.
God helps one who helps others.. I believe in this.. And helped an old man today in market.. He was having trouble to make his way in the busy road.. His blessing, made me so rich today..
100 hours in a year ... what a rule!!... Around 2 hours of helping routine everyweek..
How to do that... here Buffer helped me on this.. but any ideas how to help?? What does count as a help?
My co-worker Paul he seeked some help.. for his home renovation. We just had a blast there...8 hours .. gave me immense pleasure and happiness.
Every single moment that I spent with kids or those kids who need support... Are the most happiest moments of my life. I really feel very very blessed to have the opportunity to be with them. I work with Aspies kids.. and honostly they got the most beautiful hearts..
There is a certain peace in helping others. Especially when they give their vote of thanks to you.
Smiling can make us feel better, but it's more effective when we back it up with positive thoughts, according to this study:
A new study led by a Michigan State University business scholar suggests customer-service workers who fake smile throughout the day worsen their mood and withdraw from work, affecting productivity. But workers who smile as a result of cultivating positive thoughts--such as a tropical vacation or a child's recital--improve their mood and withdraw less.
Of course it's important to practice "real smiles" where you use your eye sockets. (You've seen fake smiles that don't reach the person's eyes. Try it. Smile with just your mouth. Then smile naturally; your eyes narrow. There's a huge difference in a fake smile and a genuine smile.)
According to PsyBlog, smiling can improve our attention and help us perform better on cognitive tasks:
Smiling makes us feel good which also increases our attentional flexibility and our ability to think holistically. When this idea was tested by Johnson et al. (2010), the results showed that participants who smiled performed better on attentional tasks which required seeing the whole forest rather than just the trees.
A smile is also a good way to reduce some of the pain we feel in troubling circumstances:
Smiling is one way to reduce the distress caused by an upsetting situation. Psychologists call this the facial feedback hypothesis. Even forcing a smile when we don't feel like it is enough to lift our mood slightly (this is one example of embodied cognition).
Why do people need a reason to smile..? They need not to search one.. it is there in their heart.. Like mine.
I do what I love doing, craftmanship.
My wify and junior, they complete my world.
Just planning to adopt a pup !! Should I get a Pug or a Yorkshire or a mix?
If you have difficulty to put on that perfect smile, try these 3 facial exercises. And, you never have to struggle to put on that PERFECT CURVE.
Karen Kleiman gave me the wonderful idea of holding pencil between the teeth. Offcourse, there was not much of science to back up the therapy, but with time there are researches that supported.
Try some Smile Therapy today..I already holding one between my teeeeth!
What a great thing.. It is so true.. Morewe smile more we gather courage to fight the tears pain...
Gosh no sugar.. But Cynthia has showed some of her cooking skills. She makes sweet dishes without sugar awesome.. I just smile .. I dont have a sweet craving..
Thanks to my Darling.
Keep a smile on you meditate. It reflects on your mind. Seriously, if you meditate with a stressed out expression on your face you find it hard to relax! Try it yourself to see!
Rules of School LIfe.. So true.. I just smile recalling those old days.
After finishing our Chinese food, my husband and I cracked open our fortune cookies. Mine read, “Be quiet for a little while.” His read, “Talk while you have a chance.”
I guess if we know how to spot a real and a fake smile then we can reduce the deep thronging pain inside with a sincere and more real smile.
This is something different.. Smilling tips.. whether for camera or anything. Which smile would your face best...!! Learn it here.
Further, here I share the Science of Smiling. :)
I got a puppy today from a rescue home nearby.. It is a cute Shih Poo... Now I am sure that neither me or anyone in my home would have trouble to b happy and smile..!
Money can buy you necessities, comfurt even luxury but not smile and happiness.. When you give a Rose to your mom, a teddy to a lil' girl they would smile.. it is not the money.. it is the feeling of being special that brings smile,, feeling of being loved..
Keep Loving..
Keep Smiling..
Adam
Smiling my way out... I am trouble-free. I am HAPPY..
A smile a day, keeps the pain away.. I am smiling alot and feel the change.
It is easy to tell if the smile is genuine.. it is there in the eyes. Does smilling really make us happy??? howstuffworks.com helping me to find the answers to my queries.
A smile that comes to face out of some positive thoughts makes me happy. Not me but with everyone. However the fake smile that I often had to glue to my face while doing some boring daily jobs.... make me especially frustrated.
Smiles relieves us from pain. But tears lightens the heavy heart.
A single smile can straighten thousands of lines ... Lines of worries, lines of anxiety.. Come on friends smile with me.. Life is too short ... Let’s not waste any moment being unhappy. Because a moment sad is a waste.
True... smile heals... smile from heart .. And I actually feel the difference.
Howdy to all,
Smile and cherish the moment you live. Live it to the fullest for the moment would never return. True fact a natural smile reflects in your eyes. I loved this plan.
ok so fake it till you make it.... Yes the smiling uplifts mood. I saw Lisa Shadow practising the exercises. I know it works. So proud of you Liz.
As opposed to actually taking a holiday, simply planning a vacation or break from work can improve our happiness. A study published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Lifeshowed that the highest spike in happiness came during the planning stage of a vacation as people enjoy the sense of anticipation:
In the study, the effect of vacation anticipation boosted happiness for eight weeks. After the vacation, happiness quickly dropped back to baseline levels for most people.
Shawn Achor has some info for us on this point, as well:
One study found that people who just thought about watching their favorite movie actually raised their endorphin levels by 27 percent.
If you can't take the time for a vacation right now, or even a night out with friends, put something on the calendar--even if it's a month or a year down the road. Then, whenever you need a boost of happiness, remind yourself about it.
Had a wonderful trip... Well planned.. clubbing.. adventure.. a 10 on 10 trip!! Would cherish it for years...
Holidays... Planned a trip with my buddies..San Diego....
Wow.... I was wonder this.. then atlast thought of googling it.. Here's a study that I came across. Sharing it with you. Now I am pretty convinced and motivated to go it.. this week only.
Meditation is often touted as an important habit for improving focus, clarity, and attention span, as well as helping to keep you calm. It turns out it's also useful for improving your happiness:
In one study, a research team from Massachusetts General Hospital looked at the brain scans of 16 people before and after they participated in an eight-week course in mindfulness meditation. The study, published in the January issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, concluded that after completing the course, parts of the participants' brains associated with compassion and self-awareness grew, and parts associated with stress shrank.
Meditation literally clears your mind and calms you down, it's been often proven to be the single most effective way to live a happier life. According to Achor, meditation can actually make you happier long-term:
Studies show that in the minutes right after meditating, we experience feelings of calm and contentment, as well as heightened awareness and empathy. And, research even shows that regular meditation can permanently rewire the brain to raise levels of happiness.
The fact that we can actually alter our brain structure through mediation is most surprising to me and somewhat reassuring that however we feel and think today isn't permanent.
Meditation helps me from within. I do it and been benifitted so I advice everyone.
Meditation is a morning rule of my life.. the secret of my compassion and energy. All the positivity that I emit throughout the day .. I get through my morning meditation only.
Opps! I just spilled out my secret but worht sharing. :)
Followed my breathing pattern... Deep breathe.. Hold.. Count 1..2..3.. Then slowly release it. Just the perfect simple meditation technique.
In my profession, I need to keep mysellf calm all the time. I see things, I see pain, I see sufferings. I make me crazy. I know I got soft heart. But, I take it in a good way. If I feel the pain, then I would give an effort righ from the depth of my heart to heal it.
To make myself and my heart strong; meditation worked as a wonder.
Keep it calm. It soothes your mind. Hrlps yiu to deal with tye hard situation with an ease. I was not that regular with it. But.. I was having some headache. Had somethng important to decide about.. I was unable to focus.. Then I started meditating. It really helps...
Looking at this image, makes me calm, focused and happy.. I meditated in the morning even if it is for 5 minutes.
I don't have words enough.. Something has hit my brain. Not able to think.. Not able to calm down. Trying to meditate..Jesus give me some strength..
I am not proficient in meditation. Now and again I need some lessons and tricks to rewire my mind. Mostly at the end of the day, my mind refuses to obey me... Meditation helps. All I know that I need to do it in a better way. I well the expert's advice.. the artofliving.com. Perfect for a beginner like me.
"Scan for the 3 daily positives. At the end of each day, make a list of three specific good things that happened that day and reflect on what caused them to happen. The good things could be anything — bumping into an old friend, a positive remark from someone at work, a pretty sunset. Celebrating small wins also has a proven effect of powering motivation and igniting joy. As you record your good things daily, the better you will get and feel."
My three positive things today. :)
This is my small secret that keep me energetic all day long.
I made a practicse of meditating for 10 minutes at least in the morning... I used to be a late riser and suffered from unnreasonable headache a lot that spoiled my day. But, now things changed a lot.
I meditated in the morning... rewiring my brain... So true
After I started meditating I got a relief from stress as well as migraine problems.
I meditate these days to rewire myself... its depression meditation.
I meditate once everyday. I am really really HAPPY.......
Dear Ana, Thanks to your such informative posts, not only I am motivated to meditate but now it's been 3 weeks doing so.
I follow you.
I don't want to put in my words here.. but say that whatever I have read here has taken me with a suprise .. such a connection meditation and happiness??? Goodness.. have a look
Truly.. But I meditate for a short time only..Still it calms me down..
Not sure if I should call it a meditation but I woke up today and just stretched myself on the bed. Then, closed my eyes and try to focus at the middle of my forehead. I try it for 10 mins. Is it okay?
Our commute to work can have a surprisingly powerful impact on our happiness. The fact that we tend to commute twice a day at least five days a week makes it unsurprising that the effect would build up over time and make us less and less happy.
According to The Art of Manliness, having a long commute is something we often fail to realize will affect us so dramatically:
... while many voluntary conditions don't affect our happiness in the long term because we acclimate to them, people never get accustomed to their daily slog to work because sometimes the traffic is awful and sometimes it's not.
Or as Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert put it, "Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day."
We tend to try to compensate for this by having a bigger house or a better job, but these compensations just don't work:
Two Swiss economists who studied the effect of commuting on happiness found that such factors could not make up for the misery created by a long commute.
Setting up a new workshop-cum-showroom closer to my place. Just a few blocks away. It will not only saelping me getting loser to my family. I would be able to ave me time, but also can talk a walk...
This is a seemingly simple strategy but I've personally found it to make a huge difference to my outlook. There are lots of ways to practice gratitude, from keeping a journal of things you're grateful for, sharing three good things that happen each day with a friend or your partner, and going out of your way to show gratitude when others help you.
In an experiment where participants took note of things they were grateful for each day, their moods were improved just from this simple practice:
The gratitude-outlook groups exhibited heightened well-being across several, though not all, of the outcome measures across the three studies, relative to the comparison groups. The effect on positive affect appeared to be the most robust finding. Results suggest that a conscious focus on blessings may have emotional and interpersonal benefits.
The Journal of Happiness studies published a study that used letters of gratitude to test how being grateful can affect our levels of happiness:
Participants included 219 men and women who wrote three letters of gratitude over a 3 week period. Results indicated that writing letters of gratitude increased participants' happiness and life satisfaction while decreasing depressive symptoms.
Check out Author Robert Emmons' book on gratitude. Thanks!: How Practicing Gratitude Can Make You Happier, that would give me some good idea to put in to practice. Ordering it rightaway.
"Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” - Marcel Proust.
I cannot stop reading,, and thought I had share with my friends.. 365grateful.com, stories about gratitude.
1. I just donated for relief to Nepal Earthquake. Honestly, I feel like a human. At this moment, even a single penny counts. I am far more satisfied that ever..
2. I met my school teacher. I recalled how I used to be scared to her in school days. But, really really glad to see her. She didn't change a least except only emblems of old age; the grey hair.
Could think of this things only.
Checking out this article for practicing gratitude; 5 ways to do so. One thing is very true, money doesn't make you happy. So true, so simple.. living in moments is simply the best deal for me.
Positive energy is really contagious... Spreading some love.
I am seriously stunned... Couldn't help it. Have to share it.. Please please please read it and tell me what you think.
Gratitude increases level of happiness by 25%
God help them, who help others... My new year resolution to to practise gratitude and help others as much as I can possibly do.
Sharing is Caring... Really nice words!!
Just created a gratitude group on my whatsapp... Let me give it a day or two .
In this training we have identifyed 5 areas of intervention. The order of intervention may vary from time to time, however we will teach these skills in a suggested order that we suggest ideal , when working with a new client.
1/ Draw a small circle, large enough to write the names of up to 5 people who you consider your closest friends.
2/ Draw a larger circle large enough to write in your next 10 to 20 closest friends.
3/ Draw a circle large enough to write the remainder of you closest 150 friends or acquaintances.
Go ahead and complete the exercise.
Now you have a blueprint of your environment, do you need to make changes? do the people in your circles represent the lifestyle you want to live?
In order to complete this exercise, orange the friends into the circles you may find more beneficial, this may require unfriending people and finding new friends.
Have you now surrounded yourself with like minded people, once this is accomplished we are well on our way to creating our new life.