Henry David Thoreau
Showing posts with label The Art of Happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Art of Happiness. Show all posts
Monday, December 29, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
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)
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)
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
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 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.
Monday, December 15, 2008
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
Friday, December 12, 2008
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."
(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."
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Happy Quote of the Day
Action may not always bring happiness,
but there is no happiness without action.
but there is no happiness without action.
Benjamin Disraeli
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
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
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
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Happy Quote of the Day
If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time.
Edith Wharton
Sunday, December 7, 2008
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."
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."
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Happy Quote of the Day
"Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be."
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Friday, November 28, 2008
Happy Quote of the Day
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
Mohandas K. Gandhi
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Happy Quote of the Day
Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,
but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.
but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Introducing: The Art of Happiness
Introducing: The Art of Happiness
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom
November 22, 2008, My 41st Birthday, New York City:
The Art of Happiness
I’ve decided.
I’ve decided to celebrate my birthday by doing something and being someone positive; by giving back to this beautiful life and this wonderful world, so that others might feel as grateful as I am for being and feeling as alive, healthy and wise, as I feel today.
I’ve decided to begin a new blog dedicated to living a life in the pursuit of Happiness, Love and Positive Thinking. It is called The Art of Happiness (aofh/blogspot.com). It is an endeavor that is a long-time coming.
The blog promises not only to bring daily good news to its readers, but it will also inspire and show people how to make the most of our unified existence.
Chock full of wisdom, this blog will not only make you think, ponder, and appreciate all the great things in life, but it will also do its best to make you smile, feel, laugh and inspire you to do the same for others.
So, please help me celebrate by passing on the good news to all your friends and family! The official URL for the blog is: http://AofH.blogspot.com (AofH stands for Art of Happiness)
*
To inaugurate the blog I am reposting a classic story and photo of mine, one of my favorites and one that perfectly summarizes why I am launching this new endeavor:
THIS IS MY GOD
August 5, 2005
I was lying in the kiddy pool on my back, admiring the deep blue sky, when I lifted this ball before me, and, immediately, I had my epiphany—perhaps, one of the greatest I have ever had.
*
An hour later, Enzo, my oldest son, asks me, "Papa, if you could have three super powers, what would they be?"
It took all but a mere moment for me to realize my answer.
"Well, first I would want the power to always by happy. Second, I would like the power to make others happy, especially those that are seemingly often angry, sad or otherwise discontent."
Alas, when I got stuck on thinking of a third superpower, Enzo interrupted me and blurted, "No Papa! Those aren’t super powers! You have to want powers like 'flying,' 'becoming invisible,' 'shooting fire,' or 'super-human strength'…"
“Oh,” I answered, “I guess I don’t know then,” and lied back again to soak in the sun that was shimmering upon the water, for I had decided that in the pursuit of both sanity and serenity, I was not going to begin a deep philosophical discussion with my six year old—not because he would not fathom its murky depths, but primarily because I knew he would likely take too avid of an interest and interminably ask "Why?" at every turn.
*
And it is not until now, upon this epistolary reflection, that I see that the raising of my deity and my response to my son’s hypothetical inquiry were in fact, indeed, connected.
Because, as I have surmised before, I do believe (indubitably I do) that a strong current of optimism runs through me—one that empowers me to believe in self-actualization, the fearsome force of the individual will, and the belief that there is a little good in almost everyone and everything. Moreover, if not more importantly, it is both my belief and my will to share this positive energy with others, if only to alight much the same power in them.
See the original post, with over 90 comments from fellow flickr users:
This is My God, August 5, 2005
See Related Story: Men For Others, November 7, 2008
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