Be

If you want to be happy, be.

Leo Tolstoy

You’ll hear the same message from me over and over again—Happiness is an action verb and not simply a present tense. In other words, happiness requires a pro-active effort.

As per many of the conclusions from the scientific studies I’ve presented here in this blog, happiness is determined by three primary factors—1. a genetic proclivity toward this state of being and disposition, 2. advantageous or conducive circumstances, and perhaps most importantly, 3. a concerted effort.

For what comes naturally for some of us, doesn’t always come. You’ve got to meet happiness head on if you want to be happy more often than not.

That’s why the Constitution guarantees the right to pursue happiness and doesn’t simply guarantee happiness outright.

In Benjamin Franklin’s own words, “You have to catch it yourself.”

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.

Palmer Sondreal

Happy Quote of the Day

That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.

Henry David Thoreau

Happiness is a Pair of Good Genes

Happiness Is Partly Inherited
(From LiveScience, as posted 04 March 2008)

The key to happiness may lie in your genes.

Psychologists at the University of Edinburgh and the Queensland Institute for Medical Research in Australia have found that happiness is partly determined by personality traits that are largely hereditary, along with your situation in life.

The researchers used a personality test called the Five-Factor Model on more than 990 twin pairs. Matching that with happiness data taken from the pairs, they found that people who do not excessively worry, and who are sociable and conscientious tend to be happier.

The research, detailed in the March issue of the journal Psychological Science, identified evidence for common genes that result in the personality traits that predispose people to happiness, the researchers said.

"Although happiness is subject to a wide range of external influences we have found that there is a heritable component of happiness which can be entirely explained by genetic architecture of personality," said study team leader Alexander Weiss of the University of Edinburgh.

While these genes won't guarantee happiness, the personality mix they result in could act as a trigger when bad things happen, allowing people to have an "affective reserve" of happiness that can be called upon in stressful times.

And while the genetic influence is strong, about 50 percent of the differences in people's happiness in life can still be chalked up to a variety of external factors, such as relationships, health and careers. Research done by Ed Diener of the University of Illinois finds that the happiest people have strong friendships, for example.

Happy Song of the Day

Soak Up The Sun
by Sheryl Crow

Happiness is a an Episode of Family Guy

December 23, 2008, New York City:

Happiness is a an Episode of Family Guy

For the last twenty years I have been one of those freaks who makes it a point not to watch television.

However, as there are always exceptions to the rule in my world, especially when you’re the one making up the rules and you happen to rule your world.

So, from time to time I have let myself enjoy a show or two.

Toward the end of my marriage my ex and I spent the last year we were together watching every episode of all six seasons of Six Feet Under on DVD.

My latest TV fix is 30 Rock. I recently saw the first 7 episodes one night with my ex via Netflix on demand and found it to be hilarious, especially since it stars my hero, Alec Baldwin.

And, there was a time where I often broke down and watched Family Guy on youtube. Comically-genius, irreverent and occasionally shocking when pitted against today’s PC-standards, the show is a must see for anyone who needs a dose of good-old fashioned laughter.

*

I recently began reading Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert and he proposes that there is no such thing as "happiness," that it is a state of mind that is too hard to define and that it is merely an inascertainable emotional state-of-being.

Moreover, Gilbert writes that happiness is so wholly subjective that there is no way to derive a universal formula or secret for satisfaction.

In one example he purports that if you were talking with an alien from outer space at a bar that you could not successfully describe what happiness was.

I completely disagree.

I think that if you simply smiled or laughed that people from all over the world (if not the universe), from practically every culture at various points in human history would understand what you meant by happiness.

Now, we all may not laugh or smile at the same things, but I think for the most part the vast majority of the human race laughs or smiles because they feel happy.

And so, since I recently was re-introduced to Family Guy via my kids who introduced me to hulu.com this weekend, if you happen to need something funny to cheer you up today, I highly recommend watching one of the “most popular” episodes of Family Guy on hulu.com.

Click HERE to watch.

How Happiness Works: Action Counts

The Science of Lasting Happiness
Through controlled experiments, Sonja Lyubomirsky explores ways to beat the genetic set point for happiness. Staying in high spirits, she finds, is hard work

(As published in Scientific American, March 2007 by Marina Krakovsky)

The day I meet Sonja Lyubomirsky, she keeps getting calls from her Toyota Prius dealer. When she finally picks up, she is excited by the news: she can buy the car she wants in two days. Lyubomirsky wonders if her enthusiasm might come across as materialism, but I understand that she is buying an experience as much as a possession. The hybrid will be gentler on the environment, and a California state law letting some hybrids use the carpool lane promises a faster commute between her coastal Santa Monica home and her job at the University of California, Riverside, some 70 miles inland.

Two weeks later, in late January, the 40-year-old Lyubomirsky, who smiles often and seems to approach life with zest and good humor, reports that she is "totally loving the Prius." But will the feeling wear off soon after the new-car smell, or will it last, making a naturally happy person even more so?

An experimental psychologist investigating the possibility of lasting happiness, Lyubomirsky understands far better than most of us the folly of pinning our hopes on a new car--or on any good fortune that comes our way. We tend to adapt, quickly returning to our usual level of happiness. The classic example of such "hedonic adaptation" comes from a 1970s study of lottery winners, who a year after their windfall ended up no happier than nonwinners. Hedonic adaptation helps to explain why even changes in major life circumstances--such as income, marriage, physical health and where we live--do so little to boost our overall happiness. Not only that, but studies of twins and adoptees have shown that about 50 percent of each person's happiness is determined from birth. This "genetic set point" alone makes the happiness glass look half empty, because any upward swing in happiness seems doomed to fall back to near your baseline.

"There's been a tension in the field," explains Lyubomirsky's main collaborator, psychologist Kennon M. Sheldon of the University of Missouri-Columbia. "Some people were assuming you can affect happiness if, for example, you picked the right goals, but there was all this literature that suggested it was impossible, that what goes up must come down."

Lyubomirsky, Sheldon and another psychologist, David A. Schkade of the University of California, San Diego, put the existing findings together into a simple pie chart showing what determines happiness. Half the pie is the genetic set point. The smallest slice is circumstances, which explain only about 10 percent of people's differences in happiness. So what is the remaining 40 percent? "Because nobody had put it together before, that's unexplained," Lyubomirsky says. But she believes that when you take away genes and circumstances, what is left besides error must be "intentional activity," mental and behavioral strategies to counteract adaptation's downward pull.
Also in this issue of Scientific American

* Skeptic Free to Choose
* Feature Articles The Promise of Plasmonics
* Technicalities The Car Doctor Is In

Lyubomirsky has been studying these activities in hopes of finding out whether and how people can stay above their set point. In theory, that is possible in much the same way regular diet and exercise can keep athletes' weight below their genetic set points. But before Lyubomirsky began, there was "a huge vacuum of research on how to increase happiness," she says. The lottery study in particular "made people shy away from interventions," explains eminent University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin E. P. Seligman, the father of positive psychology and a mentor to Lyubomirsky. When science had scrutinized happiness at all, it was mainly through correlational studies, which cannot tell what came first--the happiness or what it is linked to--let alone determine the cause and effect. Finding out that individuals with strong social ties are more satisfied with their lives than loners, for example, begs the question of whether friends make us happier or whether happy people are simply likelier to seek and attract friends.

Lyubomirsky began studying happiness as a graduate student in 1989 after an intriguing conversation with her adviser, Stanford University psychologist Lee D. Ross, who told her about a remarkably happy friend who had lost both parents to the Holocaust. Ross explains it this way: "For this person, the meaning of the Holocaust was that it was indecent or inappropriate to be unhappy about trivial things--and that one should strive to find joy in life and human relationships." Psychologists have long known that different people can see and think about the same events in different ways, but they had done little research on how these interpretations affect well-being.

Count your blessings every day? Not if you want to be really happy.

So Lyubomirsky had to lay some groundwork before she could go into the lab. Back then, happiness was "a fuzzy, unscientific topic," she says, and although no instrument yet exists for giving perfectly valid, reliable and precise readings of someone's happiness from session to session, Lyubomirsky has brought scientific rigor to the emerging field. From her firm belief that it is each person's self-reported happiness that matters, she developed a four-question Subjective Happiness Scale. Lyubomirsky's working definition of happiness--"a joyful, contented life"--gets at both the feelings and judgments necessary for overall happiness. (If a sleep-deprived new mom feels fulfilled but frazzled, and an aimless party girl feels empty despite loads of fun, neither would consider herself truly happy.) To this day, she rarely sees her studies' participants; they do most exercises out in the real world and answer detailed questionnaires on the computer, often from home. To assess subjects' efforts and honesty, she uses several cross-checks, such as timing them as they complete the questionnaires.

The research needed to answer questions about lasting happiness is costly, because studies need to follow a sizable group of people over a long time. Two and a half years ago Lyubomirsky and Sheldon received a five-year, $1-million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to do just that. Investigators have no shortage of possible strategies to test, with happiness advice coming "from the Buddha to Tony Robbins," as Seligman puts it. So Lyubomirsky started with three promising strategies: kindness, gratitude and optimism--all of which past research had linked with happiness.

Her aim is not merely to confirm the strategies' effectiveness but to gain insights into how happiness works. For example, conventional wisdom suggests keeping a daily gratitude journal. But one study revealed that those who had been assigned to do that ended up less happy than those who had to count their blessings only once a week. Lyubomirsky therefore confirmed her hunch that timing is important. So is variety, it turned out: a kindness intervention found that participants told to vary their good deeds ended up happier than those forced into a kindness rut. Lyubomirsky is also asking about mediators: Why, for example, does acting kind make you happier? "I'm a basic researcher, not an applied researcher, so I'm interested not so much in the strategies but in how they work and what goes on behind the scenes," she explains.

Initial results with the interventions have been promising, but sustaining them is tough. Months after a study is over, the people who have stopped the exercises show a drop in happiness. Like a drug or a diet, the exercises work only if you stick with them. Instilling habits is crucial. Another key: "fit," or how well the exercise matches the person. If sitting down to imagine your best possible self (an optimism exercise) feels contrived, you will be less likely to do it.

The biggest factor may be getting over the idea that happiness is fixed--and realizing that sustained effort can boost it. "A lot of people don't apply the notion of effort to their emotional lives," Lyubomirsky declares, "but the effort it takes is enormous."

Happy Quote of the Day

Joy is not in things; it is in us.

Richard Wagner

Happiness is Giving (not getting)

Can Money Make You Happy?
Money may not buy love, but it can buy happiness…

(As Published in Scientific American, March 21, 2008, by Larry Greenemeier)

The catch is: you have to spend it on someone else. Researchers at the University of British Columbia (U.B.C.) and Harvard Business School report in Science that people who lavish gifts on others and give to charity are happier than their peers. As part of the study, U.B.C. psychologists gave volunteers a wad of cash to spend; half of them were told to splurge on themselves and the other half to spend it on others. The givers rated themselves as being happier, on average, than the self-spenders. The findings mesh with those of a Harvard B-school survey of 16 people who were asked to measure their happiness before and after receiving cash bonuses. Those who spent more of their loot on others rated themselves as happier than their co-workers who had failed to spread the wealth. "These findings suggest that very minor alterations in spending allocations, as little as $5," says study author and U.B.C. psychologist Elizabeth Dunn, "may be enough to produce real gains in happiness on a given day." (Boston Globe, The New York Times' Tierney Lab)

Happy Quote of the Day

Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

Albert Schweitzer

Science Says: Its the Small Things That Count

Make Yourself Happy
Small acts that create immediate pleasures can add up to long-term satisfaction

(As published in Scientific American, March, 2005, by Maja Storch)

Little events sometimes have far-reaching consequences. For example, the reason I'm no longer driving a delightful but temperamental Alfa Romeo is because of a chocolate Easter bunny. I used to bring my car to a repair shop that employed a mechanic with whom I was most pleased. Then one day he phoned to inform me that he had resigned. "But why?" I asked him. "A new owner has taken over," he replied. "The working atmosphere isn't like it used to be. I just didn't feel good there anymore."

Immediately the psychologist in me was intrigued. "So what was different?" I wanted to know. "Well, I guess it was just little things," he said. "Like, at Easter, the owner's wife would always slip a chocolate bunny into everyone's toolbox. It made you feel like someone out there was making an effort." The Easter bunny didn't come anymore, the esteemed mechanic left, and my next car was a reliable but less glamorous Saab.

Behind this trivial story lurks a central topic of psychology: how personal happiness originates. Psychologists hope that once we understand this, we might be able to create these feelings at will.

Short-Term Joys
Personal happiness has two components: one is short-lived and immediate, and the second is long-term and "habitual." The instant variety could best be described as an intense experience of joy. These feelings range from sensual pleasures to so-called flow experiences--brought on by acts in which we become totally immersed and lose all sense of self. Instant happiness can also emerge when you are just relax-ing on your balcony after a hard day's work, with your feet up as you watch the sun go down. Short-term pleasures create a stirring of emotions that psychologists refer to as positive affect.

Many people can motivate themselves before beginning an unpleasant task by anticipating the good feeling of success they will get when the job is completed. And simple acts of social caring can create positive affects for others: a smile, a word of praise, a kind letter--or a chocolate Easter bunny.
Also in this issue of Mind

* Illusions Mind the Gap
* Features What's Wrong with This Picture?
* Features Unleashing Creativity

Most individuals underestimate the power this factor can have in both their private and professional lives. One extravagant annual company picnic does not create a healthy working environment; it takes many immediate, smaller happy moments to achieve this atmosphere. All employers should demonstrate to their employees that they care. Even if employers are focused only on the bottom line, for only minimal time and expense they can noticeably increase job satisfaction and, therefore, productivity. The same applies to family relationships and partnerships. Each person--alternating each week, for instance--can take a turn "being responsible" for positive feelings by bringing home owers, getting tickets for a movie, or planning a weekend outing together.

A very different tactic can also elicit immediate feelings of happiness--the reduction of anything that makes you unhappy. Let us say you are in a meeting at work at which another employee shoots down one of your proposals with an unannounced set of statistics. Because he did not submit his figures before the meeting, you have not prepared a reply. Everyone is impressed with his pie chart, even though you are sure no one really understands it. You are overtaken by a wave of anger, and, worse, you can think of nothing to say.

By becoming aware of your somatic markers, you can build a foundation of positive thoughts.

To dissipate the unhappiness that will most likely stay with you after such a meeting, you can use a device we have developed at the University of Zurich called the idea basket. Imagine that there is a basket in front of you and that you are going to fill it with suggestions from your colleagues and friends. Begin by making a detailed list of which situations, circumstances and triggers have led to specific negative emotional experiences. Then ask as many trustworthy and discreet people as you can to come up with appropriate ways to respond.

Try to get ideas from people in as many different social groups as possible. Certainly ask your favorite co-worker, but also approach your son's kindergarten teacher, the neighborhood bricklayer, even your 14-year-old daughter--despite her adolescent behavior that sometimes leaves you wondering how sound her thinking really is. Often those whose minds have stored experiences through very different connections produce the most surprising and helpful ideas. Once your suggestion basket is full, choose several options that could reduce the negative aspects and then resolve to act on them. Even if you cannot fully transform the negative into a positive in a given situation, curing it even halfway can greatly improve your happiness.

Long-Term Satisfaction
By creating an ongoing series of short-term highs and reversing lows, you are already on your way to long-term, habitual happiness. This state expresses itself as an all-encompassing feeling of satisfaction with life. According to psychological surveys, factors that can strongly contribute to this state are financial security, a well-ordered social environment and a trusting relationship. And yet many people experience a "dissatisfaction dilemma"--they just do not feel happy even when they have in place favorable life circumstances, such as the ones just mentioned. The way to resolve the dilemma is to squeeze into each day as much immediate happiness as possible. By using every opportunity to feel happy, you awaken positive feelings that can buoy your spirits.

Here are just a few possibilities:

# In the morning, become aware of the rising sun; at breakfast deeply inhale the fragrance of your coffee.

# While riding to work on the train, watch the landscape rather than pointlessly riing through papers from the office.

# When you get to work, greet your co-workers with a "good morning" before you check your e-mails.

# After an hour or two, take a small break; you will feel better, and it will improve your concentration on the next task as well.

# Buy a flower during lunchtime and beautify your desk.

There is only one important rule here: the more the better. It is the number of such happiness motivators that count--not their quality. Many seemingly trivial acts add up to the joy of living.

You can also stimulate long-term satisfaction intellectually. If you maintain positive thoughts, you will indeed start to feel happier. This is not to say that habitual happiness can be grounded in figments of the imagination. It must be based on a solid foundation, which means fulfilling your desires, hopes and expectations as best as you can. But to do so, you first have to know what you want. On this score, somatic markers can help.

Scientists now know that sensory information is under permanent scrutiny by an automatic, internal process that promptly monitors experiences that pour in from our external world. The ability of an individual to know what is good for him or her is relative to how carefully the person can perceive and heed this internal commentary of somatic markers. Such markers are perceived either as a physical sensation or as a feeling, or a mixture of both. They originate in our emotional memory of experiences, which is a group of brain structures that store and evaluate every meaningful moment we have gone through. Bad experiences send out negative somatic markers; pleasant ones produce positive signals.

You can train yourself to be consciously aware of your somatic-marker signals. By doing so, you will build that intellectual foundation of positive thoughts. In the long run, only individuals who have the self-confidence to guide their lives by their own system of values, regardless of public opinion or fashionable trends, can find true satisfaction. Somatic markers can provide invaluable guidance, helping you make the right decisions, realize long-term goals, and find the necessary motivation to transform your resolutions into action. In the process, you will create the preconditions that ensure long-term happiness.

Happy Song of the Day

Don't Worry, Be Happy
by Bobby Mcferrin

Happiness and Artistic Genius

Happiness: Good for Creativity, Bad for Single-Minded Focus
Happy people are open to all sorts of ideas, some of which can be distracting

(As published in Scientific American, December 18, 2006, by JR Minkel)

Despite those who romanticize depression as the wellspring of artistic genius, studies find that people are most creative when they are in a good mood, and now researchers may have explained why: For better or worse, happy people have a harder time focusing.

University of Toronto psychologists induced a happy, sad or neutral state in each of 24 participants by playing them specially chosen musical selections. To instill happiness, for example, they played a jazzy version of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. After each musical interlude, the researchers gave subjects two tests to assess their creativity and concentration.

In one test, participants in a happy mood were better able to come up with a word that unified three other seemingly disparate words, such as "mower," "atomic" and "foreign." Solving the puzzle required participants to think creatively, moving beyond the normal word associations--"lawn," "bomb" and "currency"--to come up with the more remote answer: "power."

Interestingly, induced happiness made the subjects worse at the second task, which required them to ignore distractions and focus on a single piece of information. Participants had to identify a letter flashed on a computer screen flanked by either the same letter, as in the string "N N N N N," or a different letter, as in "H H N H H." When the surrounding letters didn't match, the happy participants were slower to recognize the target letter in the middle, indicating that the ringers distracted them.

The results suggest that an upbeat mood makes people more receptive to information of all kinds, says psychologist Adam Anderson, co-author of the study published online by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. "With positive mood, you actually get more access to things you would normally ignore," he says. "Instead of looking through a porthole, you have a landscape or panoramic view of the world."

Researchers have long proposed that negative emotions give people a kind of tunnel vision or filter on their attention, Anderson says. Positive moods break down that filter, which enhances creativity but prevents laserlike focus, such as that needed to recognize target letters in the second task, he says.

As for the myth of the depressed but brilliant artist, Anderson speculates that creativity may be a form of self-medication, giving a gloomy artist the chance to adopt a cheerful disposition.

Happy Quote of The Day

Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear the phone is for you.

Fran Leibowitz

It Only Gets Better...

Midlife Misery: Is There Happiness After the 40s?
A new study reveals that the middle age blahs are almost universal, but not forever

(As published in Scientific American, January 30, 2008, by Lisa Stein)

Closing in on 40? 50? Feel like life is passing, er, has passed you by? Maybe even left you in the dust? You're not alone. In fact, new research shows that fellow midlifers throughout the world--or at least a significant chunk of it--share your pain. But fear not: if you endure, the study shows, things will begin looking up again, once you get over that speed bump in the road of life called (gasp!) middle age.

Researchers from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., and the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, after scouring 35 years worth of data on two million people from 80 nations, have concluded that there is, indeed, a consistent pattern in depression and happiness levels that is age-related and leaves us most blue during midlife.

According to the study, set to be published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, happiness follows a U-shaped curve: It is highest at the beginning and end of our lives and lowest in-between.

The researchers found that the peak of depression for both men and women in the U.K. is around 44 years of age; in the U.S., women on average are most miserable at age 40 whereas men are when they hit 50. They found a similar pattern in 70 other countries.

So what's at the root of this depressing dip? Not sure, say authors Andrew Oswald of Warwick University and Dartmouth's David Blanchflower, both economists. But they speculate, as Oswald put it, that "something happens deep inside humans" to bring us down rather than shattering events (such as divorce or job loss), because it tends to creep up on us over time.

"Some people suffer more than others, but in our data the average effect is large. It happens to men and women, to single and married people, to rich and poor and to those with and without children," Oswald said. "Nobody knows why we see this consistency."

"What causes this apparently U-shaped curve, and its similar shape in different parts of the developed and even often developing world, is unknown. However, one possibility is that individuals learn to adapt to their strengths and weaknesses, and in midlife quell their infeasible aspirations," he added. "Another possibility is that cheerful people live systematically longer. A third possibility is that a kind of comparison process is at work in which people have seen similar-aged peers die and value more their own remaining years. Perhaps people somehow learn to count their blessings."

The good news: the data show that most people emerge from this low ebb in their 50s. And, "by the time you are 70, if you are still physically fit, then on average you are as happy and mentally healthy as a 20-year old," Oswald said. "Perhaps realizing that such feelings are completely normal in midlife might even help individuals survive this phase better."

Mind you, not everyone agrees. Other studies have shown similar such curves in many countries, but there are exceptions; it has been reported that in some places middle-aged folks are quite happy. In fact, reaching middle age in some parts of the world is considered something to be proud of. (Imagine that.) But if you're not one of those perky midlifers, remember this: you may be down in the dumps now--but it won't be long before you're on the brink of bliss.

Happy Song of the Day

Good Day Sunshine
by The Beatles

they are healthy because they are happy...

Happiness Is the Best Medicine
(As published in Wired, by Rowan Hooper, 04.18.05)

The pursuit of it was written into the Declaration of Independence, but finding the causes and effects of that elusive "it" -- happiness -- has been notoriously difficult.

Whatever brings you happiness, be it large breasts, lots of money, respect from your peers, a large bar of chocolate or even semen, it's hardly controversial to say that happy people are generally healthier than unhappy ones. That conclusion might be intuitively obvious, but just why are happy people healthier?

That's what researchers at University College London's Department of Epidemiology and Public Health are interested in. They have found that the functioning of certain key biological processes is improved by happiness.

"Psychosocial factors are vital to health," said Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology and public health at the university and director of the International Centre for Health and Society. "In people who have their basic needs met -- clean water, sufficient food and shelter -- a crucial determinant of health is how circumstances affect the mind. That is, psychosocial factors."

Other studies have shown a connection between happiness and longevity. In 2001, Deborah Danner, at the University of Kentucky's Center for Gerontology, analyzed the handwritten autobiographies of 180 nuns of mean age 22, and compared the positive emotional content of the writings with the nuns' health six decades later. It turns out that sisters who used words like "joy" and "thankful" lived up to 10 years longer than did those who expressed negative emotions.

Marmot and colleagues, including health psychologist Andrew Steptoe, wanted to know what causes these differences. What is the mechanism that helps happy people live longer?

To find out, they studied the emotions and health of more than 200 middle-aged Londoners in their daily lives. They found that people who reported that they were pretty much happy every day were verifiably healthier. Happiness is associated with reduced neuroendocrine, inflammatory and cardiovascular activity. Their work is published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

To investigate the psychobiological connection, the UCL scientists put their volunteers -- men and women of white European origin aged 45-59 -- through laboratory stress tests and monitored their blood pressure and heart rate over a working day. Saliva samples were taken to measure the volunteers' cortisol content. Cortisol is a stress hormone related to conditions such as type II diabetes and hypertension.

"Cortisol is a key hormone," said Steptoe, "because it has an impact on so may different physical conditions."

The results were clear-cut. There was a 32 percent difference in cortisol levels between the least and the most happy subjects. Happy subjects also showed lower responses to stress in plasma fibrinogen levels, a protein that in high concentrations often signals future problems with coronary heart disease. Finally, happy men had lower heart rates over the day and evening, which suggests good cardiovascular health.

In addition to screening for happiness, Steptoe and colleagues also used an established method to measure psychiatric disorders that are known to predict coronary heart disease. So they were able to control for psychological distress -- and they found that health-related biological factors were independently related to happiness. In other words, people aren't just happy because they are healthy, they are healthy because they are happy.

It's all good news for comedians. Laughter is good for you -- it's practically official. Last month researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore showed that laughter is linked to the healthy function of blood vessels.

The researchers showed volunteers funny or stressful segments of movies and found that those that provoked laughter apparently caused the tissue that forms the inner lining of blood vessels, the endothelium, to dilate to increase blood flow.

Spirituality and religion, too, seem to be somehow beneficial to health. Last week at the American Academy of Neurology meeting in Miami Beach, Florida, Yakir Kaufman, director of neurology services at Sarah Herzog Memorial Hospital in Jerusalem, presented results suggesting that spirituality and the practice of religion may help slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease.

"We learned that the patients with higher levels of spirituality or higher levels of religiosity may have a significantly slower progression of cognitive decline," said Kaufman.

The new work may help to demystify the effect of spirituality or religion.

"There is some evidence that religious beliefs help people cope with the stresses and strains of life," said Steptoe, "so this could be linked with the same processes that we have studied."

Marmot concurred. "Our research shows that psychological processes have profound biological effects," he said. "Spirituality can be one example of how the brain, acting through its connections with the neuroendocrine system, can have important effects."

Happy Quote of the Day

Action may not always bring happiness,
but there is no happiness without action.

Benjamin Disraeli

5 Quotes to Remember in Times like These

Following are the opening paragraphs from a piece that my friend, Steve Williams, Executive Director of RainTiger.com, just posted. Like Steve, I write a monthly column for RainTiger.com called Expressions.

Click HERE to read this month's post: Plotting My Escape

5 Quotes to Remember in Times like These
By Steve A. Williams

With all the negative things that have been happening in our world, it has become harder and harder to watch the news. You turn on the television and there is an onslaught of information on the world's economic crisis, or the state of global unemployment, or of warring countries. Stocks seem to be fall more than rain these days. Finding something positive to hold on to has been as scarce as water in the Sahara.

No matter where you live, the current events of the world have affected everyone. Our world use to be more compartmentalized and negative news didn't seem to stretch across seas or even to neighboring countries. But because of the interwoven connectivity of today's world, the proverbial butterfly effect has a greater magnitude of consequence. Nevertheless, no matter where you find yourself, here are five quotes to remember in times like these...

Click HERE to continue reading 5 Quotes to Remember in Times like These

Happy Quote of the Day

If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time.

Edith Wharton

Ancient Wisdom: Happiness and Smiles Are Common Sense

That said...(i.e. new studies find that Happiness and Smiles are contagious), the wiser amongst us didn't need a study to remind us of such ancient wisdom.

Dale Carnegie published something in his motivational classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People, in 1936 that advocates the exact same thing. It is a bit of common sense that in this mad-mad world we simply need to be reminded of from time to time.


The Value of a Smile at Christmas Time
(original author unknown)

A smile cost nothing, but gives much.

It enriches those who receive, without making poorer those who give.

It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever.

None is so rich or mighty that he can get along without it, and none is so poor but that he can be made rich by it.

A smile creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in business, and is the countersign of friendship.

It brings rest to the weary, cheer to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and is nature's best antidote for trouble.

Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away.

Some people are too tired to give you a smile. Give them one of yours, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give.

Smiles Are Contagious Too!

This is simply another take, POV, on the previously posted study, but I thought it was worth sharing nonetheless and allthemore...

Smile! Study Says Happiness is Contagious
(From APP, as posted on foxnews.com on Friday, December 05, 2008)

LONDON — When you're smiling, the whole world really does smile with you. A paper being published Friday in a British medical journal concludes that happiness is contagious — and that people pass on their good cheer even to total strangers. American researchers who tracked more than 4,700 people in Framingham, Mass., as part of a 20-year heart study also found the transferred happiness is good for up to a year.

"Happiness is like a stampede," said Nicholas Christakis, a professor in Harvard University's sociology department and co-author of the study. "Whether you're happy depends not just on your own actions and behaviors and thoughts, but on those of people you don't even know."

While the study is another sign of the power of social networks, it ran through 2003, just before the rise of social networking Web sites like Friendster, MySpace and Facebook. Christiakis couldn't say for sure whether the effect works online.

"This type of technology enhances your contact with friends, so it should support the kind of emotional contagion we observed," he said.

Christakis and co-author James Fowler, of the University of California in San Diego, are old hands at studying social networks. They previously found that obesity and smoking habits spread socially as well.

For this study, published in the British journal BMJ, they examined questionnaires that asked people to measure their happiness. They found distinct happy and unhappy clusters significantly bigger than would be expected by chance.

Happy people tended to be at the center of social networks and had many friends who were also happy. Having friends or siblings nearby increased people's chances of being upbeat. Happiness spread outward by three degrees, to the friends of friends of friends.

Happy spouses helped, too, but not as much as happy friends of the same gender. Experts think people, particularly woman, take emotional cues from people who look like them.

Christakis and Fowler estimate that each happy friend boosts your own chances of being happy by 9 percent. Having grumpy friends decreases it by about 7 percent.

But it also turns out misery don't love company: Happiness seemed to spread more consistently than unhappiness. But that doesn't mean you should drop your gloomy friends.

"Every friend increases the probability that you're at the center of a network, which means you are more eligible to get a wave of happiness," Fowler said.

Being happy also brings other benefits, including a protective effect on your immune system so you produce fewer stress hormones, said Andrew Steptoe, a psychology professor at University College London who was not involved with the study.

But you shouldn't assume you can make yourself happy just by making the right friends.

"To say you can manipulate who your friends are to make yourself happier would be going too far," said Stanley Wasserman, an Indiana University statistician who studies social networks.

The study was only conducted in a single community, so it would take more research to confirm its findings. But in a time of economic gloom, it also suggested some heartening news about money and happiness.

According to the research, an extra chunk of money increases your odds of being happy only marginally — notably less than the odds of being happier if you have a happy friend.

"You can save your money," Christakis said. "Being around happy people is better."

Happy Quote of the Day

"Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be."
Abraham Lincoln

Happiness Is Contagious

Happiness: It Really Is Contagious by Allison Aubrey
(posted on NPR.org, December 5, 2008)

Turns out, misery may not love company — but happiness does, research suggests.

A new study by researchers at Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego documents how happiness spreads through social networks.

They found that when a person becomes happy, a friend living close by has a 25 percent higher chance of becoming happy themselves. A spouse experiences an 8 percent increased chance and for next-door neighbors, it's 34 percent.

"Everyday interactions we have with other people are definitely contagious, in terms of happiness," says Nicholas Christakis, a professor at Harvard Medical School and an author of the study.

Perhaps more surprising, Christakis says, is that the effect extends beyond the people we come into contact with. When one person becomes happy, the social network effect can spread up to 3 degrees — reaching friends of friends.

To study the spread of emotion, the researchers plotted out the social connections of about 5,000 individuals enrolled in the ongoing Framingham Heart Study.

On three separate occasions between 1984 and 2003, the participants filled out a questionnaire designed by the Center for Epidemiological Studies to assess depression and emotional health.

To measure happiness, Christakis relied on people's answers to four questions in the survey, including: "How often during the past week would you say: I enjoyed life? I felt hopeful about the future?"

When he and his colleagues plotted out how the happy and unhappy participants were connected in social space, an interesting picture emerged.

"We find that people at the center of the social network tend to be happier," says co-author James Fowler, a political science professor at U.C. San Diego.

Imagine a birds-eye view of a party: "You may see some people in quiet corners talking one-on-one," Fowler says. Others would be at the center of the room having conversations with lots of people. According to the study findings, those in the center would be among the happiest.

"We think the reason why is because those in the center are more susceptible to the waves of happiness that spread throughout the network," Fowler explains.

Of course, it's true that emotions can be fleeting; happiness is elusive and sometimes it's situational. For these reasons, emotional states are difficult to measure, says Robert Provine, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "There are lots of challenges."

Nonetheless, Provine, who has studied the contagion of laughter, says this study is impressive in showing that moods can be contagious, too.

Happy Song of the Day

Walking On Sunshine

The 1985 Original by Katrina & The Waves

The 2007 Remake by Aly & AJ

The Love We Lost

The Love We Lost
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

December 3, 2008, New York City:

HAPPINESS IS NON-VIOLENT: Taking a Stand on Gun Control

I have long been an advocate of, a believer in and a preacher for the practice of non-violence both as a call-to-action and an action-plan; as a philosophy and a religion; as well as a personal mantra and national anthem.

Hence, my revelry this morning when I heard Mayor Mike’s clarion call:

“The gun law is designed to send a message—DON’T CARRY A GUN.”

Yay! Mike!

Yay! Mayor Bloomberg!

10-10 News had reported that Hizoner, New York City’s Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, was taking a stern stance on gun control in light of the recent gun charges against New York Giants’ linebacker, Plaxico Burress, who accidentally shot himself in the leg with his own handgun, which he had carried into the Latin Quarter nightclub on Friday night.

Thank you Mike.

I couldn’t agree more with his position, because I strongly believe that we are living in the stone-age here in the U.S. when it comes to gun control laws, because the U.S. is practically the last place on earth, or at least in the western hemisphere, where individuals can carry hand-guns.

*

Happiness is gun control.

Happiness is anger management.

Happiness is non-violent.

As I was riding on the train home yesterday, reflecting on the musing I had just posted about on the right for all of us to enjoy one of the basic tenets of the Declaration of Independence—Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness—I also thought it would be equally important for me to speak my peace on the controversial debate over the interpretation of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms.

That is, should the amendment be interpreted as "individuals have the right to posses weapons as a means of self-defense," or is it merely a "state’s right to form a militia"?

Back in 1776 there was no established and organized law enforcement—there were no sheriffs or police officers or National Guard even.

Hence, whereas in 1776 we were just beginning to come together as a society— people were still venturing into the unknown, pioneering the land and staking their claims in the wild-wild west—232 years later there is truly little-to-no need for a single person to bear arms.

Today, we have in force an intricate system of law enforcement which not only includes the policeman on the beat, but everything from meter maids, security cameras and a supreme court, as well as hundreds of thousands of laws and rules and tidbits of legislation that regulate society at all levels—national, provincial and municipal.

*

Gun control is a particularly important issue considering that alongside this good news, a new report from the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism was released today that states “the U.S. can expect a terrorist attack using nuclear or more likely biological weapons before 2013, “ according to this morning’s Metro newspaper.

Thus, the vital import of Bloomberg’s actions. Because, as I’ve said many times before—global change begins at home. And if we can do something to stop the violence here, perhaps we just might have a fighting chance to influence the malicious intentions of others elsewhere.

Yay! Mike!

Yay! Mayor Bloomberg!

I applaud your strong stance on gun control, especially since I believe that it takes far more courage to broker and maintain peace, than to start a war.

So, once again, Happiness is the belief in and practice of nonviolence.

Make Love—Not War.

*

Related Stories:
Hanging with Hizoner at Gracie Mansion or “A Married Woman and A Thousand Gay Men”

The Gang’s All Here

I support MUNDO UNO

Make Love, Not War

Every Woman is Special

Got Milk? Join The Campaign for Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness

Got Milk? Join The Campaign for Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” Jalal ad-Din Rumi

December 2, 2008, New York City:

Got Milk? Join The Campaign for Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness

Happiness is honesty.

However, critical to the successful tenure of honesty (and thus happiness) is tolerance.

People often lie because they are afraid of being rejected, afraid of being judged, and know, based on experience, that they cannot be honest, lest they face unfortunate consequences, because they are “different” and not falling in line with the program.

Although I spent almost 8 years studying international relations at the university and thus learned a great deal about détente, diplomacy and compromise, my oldest son, who was four at the time, taught me my greatest lesson about the importance of truth and the tolerance of others.

We were eating dinner and I was being stubborn and making him “eat everything on his plate,” as I often did, as I still do on occasion. The torment of this poor child was justified by some adulthood nonsense like “I work hard to put food on the table, so now you’ve got to eat it.”

But the ugly truth was that Enzo didn’t like what I had made for him. To the health-and-money conscious chagrin of many parents like me, this is often the case with kids. Thus, getting them to “eat their vegetables” is often like trying to push a square peg into a round hole.

However, as “right” as I may have been to force my child to eat what I had served him, I was also inadvertently teaching him—intolerance and importance of learning to lie. Because, although the honest truth was that the meal was distasteful to him, to survive and avoid an unpleasant experience, he had to learn to deceive me by placing the half-chewed morsel in his napkin.

When I caught him, I immediately recognized my own folly and simply laughed, kissed him and excused him from the table. I felt somewhat ashamed that I had tortured my innocent four-year old son in the name of an ideal, and immediately recognized why and where and when we begin to learn to lie; where the innocence of childhood is lost and where the misery of adulthood begins.

In sum, it is often when we are up against intolerance, when we know that speaking or being or acting honestly will only get us in trouble that we hide, disguise, deceive or lie by omission.

This is why teaching and learning—to compromise our ideals, to accept that our truths are not necessarily the truths of others, and making an effort to accept others, regardless of their differences, is so vital to the health and well-being of humanity and the world today.

"How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these." George Washington Carver

*

On Sunday morning, after standing in the cold pitter-pattering of rain for thirty-minutes, I got to go inside to see Milk.

Film critics are already saying that Sean Penn deserves an Oscar for his leading role as Harvey in this heroic and inspiring movie.

Milk is the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay publicly elected official in the United States, if not the world, who went from feeling lost at 40 in New York at his new corporate job in New York City in 1970 to leading and tragically becoming a martyr for the gay pride movement in San Francisco when he and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated on November 27, 1978.

Writer John Cloud remarked on Milk’s influence, "After he defied the governing class of San Francisco in 1977 to become a member of its board of supervisors, many people—straight and gay—had to adjust to a new reality he embodied: that a gay person could live an honest life and succeed." In 1999, Time Magazine listed Harvey as a hero and an icon and as one of The Time 100 Most Important People of the Twentieth Century.

Until Harvey came along in 1977, there was much to be said for the lack of tolerance in the United States. Although the nation had witnessed and been changed by the women’s and civil rights movements, millions of people whose love, affection and desire for others of the same sex were still hiding in the closet for fear of being judged, imprisoned and often subject to the threat of violence.

(By the way, much like the use of the misnomers of “black” and “white” have long been used to abet the division of races throughout history, I strongly believe that we should stop associating being “gay” primarily with one’s sexual orientation. Because being homo-sexual means a lot more than who you are apt to sleep with. As per Keith Olbermann’s recent commentary, it is also very much a a question of love, affection and the pursuit of happiness. )

As Time Magazine summarized it in their June 14, 1999 issue, being Gay and accepted in America still had a long way to go a mere thirty years ago:

"In the 1970s, many psychiatrists still called homosexuality a mental illness. In one entirely routine case, the Supreme Court refused in 1978 to overturn the prison sentence of a man convicted solely of having sex with another consenting man. A year before, it had let stand the firing of a stellar Tacoma, Wash., teacher who made the mistake of telling the truth when his principal asked if he was homosexual…To be young and realize you were gay in the 1970s was to await an adulthood encumbered with dim career prospects, fake wedding rings and darkened bar windows."

Thus, due to the brave actions of a man like Harvey Milk, a vast number of normal, loving, productive, creative and happy people all over the U.S. were encouraged and instilled with the courage to come out openly about who they were and fulfill one of the basic tenets of the Declaration of Independence signed over 200 years earlier—“that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

"If a bullet should enter my brain, let the bullet destroy every closet door." Harvey Milk


*

This morning I read an article in amNewYork, courtesy of Mike Swift of the San Jose Mercury News, titled “Homosexuality in Genes…”

According to this article, recent studies have shown that “compared to straight men, gay men are more likely to be left-handed, to be younger siblings of older brothers and to have hair that whorls in a counterclockwise direction.”

Although one might argue that this new scientific evidence strengthens the notion (i.e. the obvious truth) that homosexuality is a natural, normal and innate inclination, I was also alarmed by the way this news piece presented the significance of the study results. Because by focusing on identifiable, physical traits one might be giving license to bigots to discriminate.

That said, in light of the recent controversial passing of Proposition 8 in California and the release of the critically-acclaimed film Milk, these study results are timely, encouraging and will hopefully lead to some intelligent conversations and conclusions about human nature, living life honestly and the value of tolerance.

As always, thanks for reading.

"I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird." Paul McCartney


See also: A Question of Love

Happiness...is being able to see

Happiness...is being able to see
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

orginal photo

“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.” Helen Keller

December 1, 2008, New York City:

Seeing, Into The Future

Happiness is being able to see.

Even Helen Keller—who was both blind and deaf for most of her life, yet went on to become one of the most inspirational and accomplished figures of our time—wrote “Of all the senses, sight must be the most delightful.”

Yet, as the ancient adage goes, often we don’t realize the value of something until we have it taken away.

Thus, two days after Thanksgiving, I was reminded of how lucky I am to have vision, after my eyesight was temporarily taken away from me.

It was a Saturday morning and I had woken up, just like any other day. After a cup of coffee and some photo editing, I decided to get some exercise.

Thus, I decided to take the boys for a ride in the park, while I ran alongside them.

After putting on my clothes, I went into the bathroom and exchanged my eyeglasses for my contact lenses.

I put one in, but it was unusually blurry. So I took it out, rubbed some more saline solution in and put it back in. Alas, this did not fix the problem.

As it had always been the weaker of the two, I figured that my left eye was having, hopefully, a minor—and only temporary—adjustment problem (i.e. I didn’t have enough coffee). Thus, I took the contact out again and placed in my better, right, eye.

Alas, this didn’t seem to fix the problem, as my vision still remained blurry. Needless to say, a bit of confusion ensued.

And so, after putting in the second contact lens, I decided that I would deal with this after the run, hoping that somehow, along the way, it would all clear up.

I didn’t think about it too much while running, as I was much more concerned by my hard breathing and heavy legs.

However, by the time we had made it around the park, I had an epiphany…

Could it have been that my ex had taken my contacts and somehow placed hers in the case I was using? It seemed like a strange exchange theory, but I was eager to get home and ask her if she felt as if she had “Supervision” all of the sudden.

Upon my arrival I immediately asked her without thinking…for if only I had taken a moment to assess the situation again, I would have realized that it was unlikely that she done anything that morning, as she was still wearing her eyeglasses.

Of course, this only got me in trouble, because when we checked, we discovered that I had opened the wrong contact case.

Apparently, we had both placed them in the same place the night before in the cabinet under the sink. Thus, I had simply reached under and grabbed the case that I assumed was mine. Oops.

Nonetheless and allthemore, I was ecstatic to have my vision back, and to regain the confidence that I wasn’t just suddenly going blind.

Silly as it may sound, having just celebrated my 41st birthday, I am aware that I’ve now essentially reached the top of the hill and that I must face reality, accept the inevitable and prepare for the latter half of my journey.

Now that I’ve made all my mistakes and have much experience to bank on, I’d like to think I am entering the most exciting half of my life.

However, I am also aware that along with the wisdom, comes the price we pay for all good times we had making all those mistakes we made earlier on in life.


"Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy ride."
Bette Davis as Margo Channing in All About Eve