There are many ways to be happy, but sometimes when people are stressed and busy, it’s difficult to know which technique will pay off the most. This list can help you to know which ways to be happy are worth your time. Be happier, starting today!
Enjoy Life’s Simple Pleasures
Life’s pleasures – a sunny day, a cookie, a warm bubble bath – may not bring lasting happiness, but they provide ways to lift your spirits temporarily and get into a better mood, which can help you access some of the other ways to be happy, like increasing your optimism or investing time into relationships. Perhaps the best thing about pleasures is that they work immediately. Generally, if you listen to your favourite song and you perk right up, or if you get a massage, you feel great immediately. Pleasures tend to bring diminishing returns – the fifth bite of a cookie isn’t as enjoyable as the first, for example, and cookies every day may make you start to love cookies a lot less. So change things up, but get pleasure in your daily life.
Cultivate Friendships For Stress Relief and Happiness
Relationships bring many benefits for health and stress relief, and cultivating healthy relationships is one of the most proven ways to be happy. While unhealthy relationships can drain you, focusing some energy on cultivating your relationship skills, meeting new potential friends, enjoying time with your friends, offering support when people need it, and otherwise nurturing your relationships can pay off in spades. Don’t let a busy schedule keep you from investing in your relationships – they are ultimately your most important assets!
Talk Yourself Out Of Being Stressed – And Into Being Happy
We feel most stressed when we feel a lack of control in a given situation. Some people feel a lack of control in many areas of their lives. One of the best ways to be happy is to change how you look at the situations you face, so you can recognize where you do have control, and you can stay in the habit of noticing what’s good in life. By developing an outlook of optimism, viewing stressors as “challenges”, and becoming a master of the reframe, you can change the way you perceive your world. And that’s one of the most lasting ways to be happy.
Cultivate Personal Resilience
To a degree, emotional resilience is inborn – some people have personality traits that enable them to weather stressors and crises more easily than others. However, many of the factors of resilience – an optimistic attitude, a sense of humour, and strong social ties, among other things – can be cultivated and maintained. Learn more about how to build resilience – resilient people tend to find it easier to be happy!
Practice Acts of Kindness
You may have heard the old adage, “It’s better to give than to receive,” and instinctively agreed (or looked at the kind of gifts you were exchanging and thought, “Hm…maybe not!”), but we’ve found that giving to others is a proven way to be happy. The emotional lift you get from helping others is very real, just as the lift you get when you receive something from them, but the shift you experience in your self-concept when you see yourself as a “giver” can be a lasting benefit. Learn more about the benefits of altruism, and do something nice today!
Cultivate Gratitude For What You Have
There’s something to be said for having a goal to strive for, but many people take things beyond just working to be their best, and get into a state where they drive themselves into the ground trying to acquire the things that they want that they believe will make them happy. Sometimes many of us do this, to a degree. In this vein, one of the best, most simple ways to be happy is to cultivate gratitude and appreciation for what you have in life – your relationships, the position you’ve achieved in life already, the good things that happen each day, and everything you have now. Those who have a strong sense of gratitude in daily life tend to be happier people. Fortunately, there are simple ways to cultivate gratitude.
Maintain A Sense Of Humour
Cultivating the ability to turn stressful situations into a good laugh is a great way to be happy and relieve stress in your life. Laughter can diffuse the stress of a situation and allow you to relax a little and look at solutions from a new perspective. Maintaining a sense of humour throughout your day is a good way not only to relieve your own stress and bring joy to yourself, but those good feelings can be contagious. Having a light-hearted attitude can help others seen the humour through the stress, and can bring people closer together. Learn to laugh in the face of stress, and even your tough times can be happy times.
Cultivate Gratitude For What You Have
There’s something to be said for having a goal to strive for, but many people take things beyond just working to be their best, and get into a state where they drive themselves into the ground trying to acquire the things that they want that they believe will make them happy. Sometimes many of us do this, to a degree. In this vein, one of the best, most simple ways to be happy is to cultivate gratitude and appreciation for what you have in life – your relationships, the position you’ve achieved in life already, the good things that happen each day, and everything you have now. Those who have a strong sense of gratitude in daily life tend to be happier people. Fortunately, there are simple ways to cultivate gratitude.
Maintain A Sense Of Humour
Cultivating the ability to turn stressful situations into a good laugh is a great way to be happy and relieve stress in your life. Laughter can diffuse the stress of a situation and allow you to relax a little and look at solutions from a new perspective. Maintaining a sense of humour throughout your day is a good way not only to relieve your own stress and bring joy to yourself, but those good feelings can be contagious. Having a light-hearted attitude can help others seen the humour through the stress, and can bring people closer together. Learn to laugh in the face of stress, and even your tough times can be happy times.
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