The key is to be mindful of your inner dialogue, focus on the positive aspects of your life, and make a conscious effort to do things that make you happy and comfortable.
Happiness is a fantastic emotion to thrive towards for. It can lead to a healthie, strong longer life. A happy life involves less stress, depression, anxiety and better relationships, and even a boosted immune system as well
If you have been feeling stressed or if you have been having a lot of negative emotions abd thoughts lately, happiness may be hard to come by. Naturally you may be wanting to renew your brain to be happy.
Fortunately, there is a distinct possibility of your desire being met. According to the latest research, a powerful skill called “mindfulness” - the practice of purposely focusing your attention on the present moment - has been found to be the key element to happiness and a healthier mind and overall well-being.
All it takes is a bit of effort and conscious thought, and you can start to enjoy a happier, more positive mindset.
The human brain developed with a negative bias for survival. We are more likely to pay attention to and remember unpleasant things because they were often associated with danger and threats in our ancestral past.
However, times have changed, and we now live in a modern world where most of us do not constantly face life-threatening situations. Our negativity bias is no longer helpful and can actually lead to depression, anxiety, and other mental issues.
This means we can change our brains by changing our thoughts and behaviour. In other words, you can rewire your brain for happiness by practicing positive thinking, gratitude, mindfulness.
This includes things like planning, decision-making, and impulse control. You can improve the function of your prefrontal cortex by repeating positive actions and thoughts.
The key is to be mindful of your inner dialogue, focus on the positive aspects of your life, and make a conscious effort to do things that make you happy. The more you do something, the easier it gets; eventually, it becomes second nature.
Seek out the positive things in your life and don’t look for flaws or mistakes in everything you do or come across. Also, be optimistic about the future as much as possible. Happiness often translates to a healthy life. If you let go of all the negativity, you can enjoy a peaceful life. You can even train your brain to focus on all things positive.
Positive psychology focuses on your inner strength and character traits that promote happiness and health. Exercising, laughing, bonding, having social contacts, loving and caring for someone are activities that all increase the release of endorphins in the brain.
You would know them as the happy hormones. Happiness promotes a problem-solving approach, increases motivation to complete goals, helps in connecting with like-minded people, improves the immune functioning and overall leads to longer healthy life spans.
Having an optimistic outlook in life, being joyful and happy may help to improve heart health, decrease risk of stroke and heart attacks, improve sleep, prevent early onset of memory loss, promote healthier eating, prevent obesity and issues of chronic pain, and arthritis amongst other things.
The following small steps once taken will make a big difference.
Practice Mindfulness in any way you like. The power of becoming self-aware about your beliefs and feelings without judging them is called mindfulness. When you are mindfully aware, you are living in the present moment and not letting your thoughts or emotions control you. The easiest and common ways is to be aware of your surroundings. Pay attention to the sights, sounds, smells, and textures around you. Notice the way things feel, both physically and emotionally. Focus on your strengths. The initial step to this is in identification of your character traits which are protective.
For example, if being creative is a strength of yours then dedicate a few minutes each or a few days each week into channelling that in a goal-directed way. You can paint, draw, learn music, or something new or interesting.
If you choose to focus on the good, you’ll start to feel more grateful and happier as a result. Feeling grateful is not always easy, especially when things are tough. But if you make a conscious effort to find things to be thankful for, it will become easier, and your happiness levels will increase
Develop positive skills by practicing restructuring. The good thing about positive psychology is that it can be learnt.
Train your mind to develop mindfulness, reflective and active listening, perspective taking and then use this awareness in a problem-solving way that improves collaboration between people.
If you want to be happy, substitute your negative thoughts with positive ones. To do this, you must first identify when you are thinking negative thoughts and then challenge them.
This process is called cognitive restructuring and involves identifying the negative thoughts or worries that are causing you distress, challenging the accuracy of the thought
Once you’ve challenged the accuracy of the negative thought, you can cultivate a more positive way of looking at the situation. It may seem silly at first, but repeating this positive thought can help ease your anxiety and worry.
Meditation has been shown to decrease activity in the amygdala, which is the part of the brain responsible for negative emotions like fear and anxiety.
Practise kindness. Positive psychology interventions focusing on compassion can be simple acts like buying someone a small token of love, volunteering for a noble cause, donating something, or helping a stranger in need. Kindness reinforces happiness and positivity.
Seek meaning in your life and engage in meaningful experiences. It helps in understanding what is meaningful to us in life.
Use positive believe in the power of positive imagery. Close your eyes and imagine a beautiful day. Think about where you would want to be, with whom, what you might want to be doing and then imagine doing that.
These kind of brief thought experiments promote a happy outlook. Positive visualization is a technique that involves using your imagination to visualize yourself achieving specific goals. The first step is to choose a goal that you want to achieve.
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