Even before Christ, philosophers were trying to make sense of happiness. Does real happiness exist, or is it an illusion? What does it depend on? Is it attainable?
Having searched through encyclopedias, I found this definition. Happiness is a philosophical category that implies an ideal state of supreme satisfaction with life. Happiness is contentment with oneself (according to Aristotle).
Since then there has been much new research on happiness. Researchers write that we have learned more about happiness in the last 30 years than we did in the previous 2,000 years since Aristotle.
Many people think that happiness is a bright emotional outburst, an incredible lift when you want to jump for joy. Perhaps happiness can be achieved by finding the right balance of hormones?
Three types of happiness hormones are considered: dopamine, serotonin and endorphins. They are all produced in our bodies and depend on our activities, the distribution of physical and mental load, nutrition and health.
The benefits of endorphins: these hormones make our lives more fun, cheerful, keep us in high spirits. With a sufficient amount of endorphins, anxiety goes away, stress is reduced, pain is blunted, blood pressure is regulated, and mental processes are accelerated. Endorphins help fight depression and relieve chronic fatigue.
Inadequate distribution of work and rest modes, infectious diseases, physical and emotional burnout, weak immunity, mental disorders reduce hormone production.
Benefits of serotonin: This hormone is responsible for good mood and emotional stability. It keeps our moods from moping and “bouncing.” Adequate serotonin production improves thinking and mental abilities.
On the contrary, with a lack of hormone there is a drop in mood, lethargy, getting stuck on trivialities and empty actions, depression. In critical psycho-emotional states, a lack of serotonin can even lead to suicide. Psychological problems also affect physical health. The prolonged lack of sunshine reduces the production of hormones.
Dopamine is the hormone of joy and pleasure and is also called the motivation hormone. It is also an antagonist of prolactin, the hormone of stress, nervousness. The benefit of the hormone: dopamine is produced as if as a “reward” for the action performed: we feel a burst of energy, pleasure from what we have done. Therefore, this hormone is associated with motivation. It pushes us to accomplishments, to feats, to new and interesting things.
The amount and balance of hormones secreted in different situations is our character. What does the amount of these happiness hormones depend on? And it depends a lot on the overall condition of our body, on how we take care of it. And a healthy lifestyle plays a big role here – fresh air, lots of movement, proper nutrition.
But if you look deeper, happiness is not a destination station, but a path. Happiness is inside – in our hearts, in our minds. And you don’t have to be healthy and rich to be happy. You don’t need positions to be happy, you don’t need money or power.
It is necessary to learn how to achieve your happiness, to fill your heart and soul with infinite happiness every morning. The truth of life is not about acquiring wealth and success faster. First you have to learn how to be happy.
Perhaps the truth of life is that happiness is the energy we have to fill our heart and soul with every morning? Perhaps psychologists are right when they say that happiness should be charged every day, just as you charge your computer or your phone? So how do you do it? Psychologists write about the habits of a happy person!
Our habits are directly involved in our lives; they affect our decisions, attitudes toward the world, and other things. Habits dictate whether we are successful, happy or unhappy. However, we are able to change them on our own in order to direct our own life in the right direction.
A certain set of good habits can help you achieve your goals. So, the habits of a happy person:
- Above all – it’s a smile! Smiling helps to find a positive attitude and is a normal reaction to human satisfaction. There are definitely people like that in his entourage. Happiness can attract happiness!
- A happy person quickly recovers from the shocks suffered, simply by learning a lesson from the situation lived through.
- A happy person knows how to give back. Such people willingly share their positivity. Also included in the concept of giving is the ability to listen to others and to love sincerely.
- A happy person first of all notices the positive aspects of what is happening. Of the long series of events positive thinking person will remember more good.
- A person with a positive attitude strives for happiness. A happy person thinks about the future, about what in it can give him even more happiness.
- Happy people like to walk. Evening and daytime walks in the fresh air are good for distracting your mind from unnecessary thoughts.
These are all habits of behavior of a happy person, confident in himself, not burdened by imaginary fears and wasting strength on the hardships of the past.
But in fact happiness is much closer to a feeling of deep satisfaction with life than to rapture, to complete peace. It is a state, not an emotion, and it is woven of many shades. In other words, the feeling of happiness does not depend on happiness hormones, nor on the overall personality or psychological disposition.
Happiness is about making other people happy. Maybe it’s comparable to the feeling when parents are happy for their children. Happiness can only be achieved in balance. When people have the right mutual combination with each other, when they begin to feel in the right society, when all problems disappear, when the environment supports us in homeostasis, when people begin to feel as if they are floating, being in a state of inner and outer peace, this will cause them to feel happy.
In other words, the feeling of happiness does not arise from one’s momentary selfish satisfaction of one’s desires and perhaps wanting to feel happiness at the expense of others. The feeling of happiness comes from coming together, a sense of balance, just as a healthy body feels full of life when it properly supports, functions, and balances itself. So in the human community we should take the example of nature and strive to do the same. And then we will see what the purpose of life is for us. Feeling in this state will be happiness.
