The Bluebird Patch

How to improve your happiness level within minutes " It requires some effort to achieve a happy outlook on life, and most people don't make it ." Author and researcher Gregg Easterbrook Did you know that recent studies suggest that 40% of what makes us happy is within our control? So why not try some of the strategies listed below. You might be pleasantly surprised. 10 Things You Can Do to Imp rove Your Happiness Level (in no particular order) 1. Counting your blessings, expressing gratitude for what you have. 2. Choose experience over stuff. Psychologist Ryan Howell found in his research that people felt “more alive” when reflecting on experiences compared to things—and that experiences led to more happiness in those around them than their purchases did. Howell says, "As nice as your new computer is, it's not going to make you feel alive." Lottery winners report that after a while, money and possessions don’t make them as happ...

The key to a happy life is having a balanced life! You would think that because it's summer, I'll have more time to blog, but it has been the other way around. Driving to Atlanta to take my daughter, to her not one but two volunteer jobs, takes so much energy and time, that I just can't focus and find time to blog about the things I like and love. I also need to keep my youngest one busy, so by the end of the day, I always feel the pressure to start blogging, but my body is tired and my brain is a mush.  This got me thinking. How many times do we succumb to the pressure to go against our bodies? If we are tired why don't we take a nap, rest, I don't know, just do something about it? Why do we always feel bad is we slow down? Why do we rush so much through live? Since when it's a bad thing to reduce stress and cultivate mindfulness? Where is this "false guilt" of  "if you slow down that must mean you are not doing things correctly...

  Happiness is Love at First Sip! New research shows that coffee may make drinkers more cheerful by stimulating their response to positive words.  Scientists believe it stimulates parts of the brain connected to positivity, therefore making us more happy by g iving us a better outlook on life.   Coffee also can ward off dementia and it’s also linked to a lower suicide rate, according to a large-scale study from the Harvard School of Public Health.     

Andrew Oswald, professor of economics at the University of Warwick, tells Della Bradshaw that research shows happy employees add more to the bottom line. The man dubbed "professor of happiness" says trials have shown a 12 per cent increase in productivity if test subjects were made happier.

What triggers happiness in our brain when we exercise? Exercise can help you  trigger more  happy chemicals  naturally. When you exercise as your heart begins to pound your brain chemistry reacts almost immediately to get you feeling better both physically and mentally.  " University of Bristol researchers found that employees who enjoyed a workout before going to work - or exercised during lunchbreaks - were better equipped to handle whatever the day threw at them.  It also found that people's general mood improved on days of exercise but they became less calm on non-exercise days. The research, published in the International Journal of Workplace Health Management, is the first of it's kind to prove that exercise during work hours has mental, as well as physical benefits." Read more:  dailymail.co.uk  

Make time for the things that make you feel good. When you are feeling down it's important to do things that makes you feel happier, healthier and more fulfilled. If all else fails, practice gratitude and repeat out loud, someone else is happy with less than what I  have, someone else is happy with less than what I  have, someone else is happy with less than what I  have.   When you repeat something out loud you anchor the concept better by using two or more of your senses. Studies prove that if you repeat to yourself negative feelings about a subject you increase your chances to fail! If you want to feel happier, " t rash negative" and replace with "positive thoughts." For example, replace "I can’t do it" with "It’s not easy, but I am tough and I accept this challenge." Prove you can and you will! This is a self-fulfilling prophecy as attitude directly effects the memory!

The looking-glass self is a popular theory within the sociological field that explains the formation of self-image via reflection or based on their understanding of how others perceive them. Because people conform to how they think others think them to be, it's difficult, or arguably impossible, to act differently from how a person thinks he or she is perpetually perceived.  Three Main Components of The Looking Glass Self The rudiments of Cooley's sociological theory can be reduced to three facets.   One imagines how they appear to others. One imagines the judgment that others may be making regarding that appearance. One develops a self-image via their reflection; that is, the judgments or critique of others. Next time you take a look at yourself in a mirror, try to understand that what you see in the mirror, is a result of the reactions to us that we have seen in people we spend time with.  The thing that moves people to pr...

Work schedule flexibility seems to be the number one contributor o f a women happiness in the workplace. Flexible hours can dramatically affect happiness and improve productivity. Below is an infographic from Accenture that illustrates the findings of Accenture’s Defining Success research conducted for International Women’s Day 2013. Further, research reveals that many professional working women, if given the option, would choose flextime, spending time with family, and helping others over making more money. Other studies show women want friendly and supportive work environments and are, therefore, working with organizational leaders to achieve them.   

An international team of scientists led by the University of California , Los Angeles has found that a hypothalamic neuropeptide hypocretin (also known as orexin )  greatly increases when humans are happy but decrease when they are sad .  The finding, published online in the journal Nature Communications , suggests that boosting hypocretin could elevate both mood and alertness in humans, thus laying the foundation for possible future treatments of psychiatric disorders like depression. " We show that hypocretin-1 levels are maximal during positive emotion, social interaction and anger, behaviours that induce cataplexy in human narcoleptics". Orexin , also called hypocretin , is a neurotransmitter that regulates arousal, wakefulness, and appetite. The most common form of narcolepsy, in which the sufferer briefly loses muscle tone (cataplexy), is caused by a lack of orexin in the brain due to destruction of the cells that produce it. Read more at: Nature.c...

  Did you know? Spring cleaning can improve your happiness and productivity. De-cluttering gives us an opportunity to start afresh, get organized,and let go of things that no longer serves you. Researchers at Princeton University Neuroscience Institute published the results from their report “ Interactions of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Mechanisms in Human Visual Cortex ” and concluded that physical clutter negatively affects your ability to focus and process information.   " The first and most fundamental prediction of biased competition theory is that objects compete for neural representation in visual cortex. A large body of evidence from both single-cell physiology and neuroimaging suggests that multiple stimuli present at the same time within a neuron’s receptive field (RF) are not processed independently, but interact with each other in a mutually suppressive way. In single-cell physiology studies (Britten & Heuer, 1999; Luck, Chelazzi, Hillyard, & Desimone, 19...

A study suggests that the happiest people at 16 and 18 earn around 10% more than the average income a decade later. The happier you are as a teenager, the more money you are likely to earn by the time you reach 30, according to a long-term study that tracked the wellbeing and income of more than 10,000 people. Researchers found that the unhappiest people at age 16 and 18 earned 30% less than average earnings a decade later, whereas the happiest earned around 10% more than average. They also found that every one-point increase on a life-satisfaction scale at the age of 22 was associated with an increase of almost $2,000 in annual earnings by the age of 29. The effects could be down to several factors, said the researchers, including the higher probability of getting a university education if you are happier, as a result of being more optimistic and less neurotic.  Read more: The Guardian

Is being busy the secret to happiness? A recent study, “Americans Less Rushed But No Happier: 1965–2010 Trends in Subjective Time and Happiness”, suggests the key to a happy life is to be busy but don’t feel rushed. “Respondent reports of feelings of being ‘always rushed’ declined by 6–9 points from those reported in 2004. The decline was found both among employed and unemployed respondents, indicating it was not simply a function of higher unemployment.” However, feeling less rushed didn’t seem to have much benefit:  “people reported feeling no happier even when they were less overwhelmed. The highest levels of happiness were found among people who reported almost never having excess time but almost never feeling rushed.  In 2009 – 2010 time-pressured people continued to report being less happy even after controls for marital status, employment and other important predictors of happiness.    Somewhat higher correlations with happiness w...

Kimberly Schonert-Reichl , an applied developmental psychologist at the University of British Columbia wanted to see how performing random acts of kindness can decrease bullying, increase empathy and caring for others in children. She conducted a longitudinal experiment  in 19 classrooms in Vancouver, 9- to 11-year olds were instructed to perform three acts of kindness (versus visit three places) per week over the course of 4 weeks. Students in both conditions improved in well-being, but students who performed kind acts experienced significantly bigger increases in peer acceptance (or sociometric popularity) than students who visited places. Increasing peer acceptance is a critical goal, as it is related to a variety of important academic and social outcomes, including reduced likelihood of being bullied. After four weeks, the students again reported on their happiness and identified classmates they would like to work with. While both groups said they were happier, kid...

I have been watching a lot of videos and interviews online from self-proclaimed "happiness experts" and of the things that struck me the most is how the meaning of the word "happiness" has been used incorrectly over and over again.  It really worries me to hear so many silly tips on how to "obtain" happiness. I swear if I hear one more silly happiness tip I'll personally send an army of bluebirds to poop on your head! ;)  Maybe I'm wrong, but proclaiming that you will be happier by organizing your closet, acquiring a perfume collection, jumping up and down or having a memorandum box is as effective as being hungry and taping food all over your body to satisfy your craving. The problem about all the "happiness tip" out there is the attribution all these "happiness experts" are giving them. Is not what they are saying but what they are suggesting. I understand and acknowledge the principle that h appiness, howev...

For Chinese people, psychological and physical health, harmonious family and stable marriage (or be in love) are the top three factors to happiness. That's according to a survey conducted by the Women's Studies Center of Peking University, among 4,175 people via Internet or printed questionnaires. The results were released at the ongoing 3rd Asia Women's Forum, which opened in Hong Kong yesterday. The survey indicated that 26.7 percent of people listed good health as the most important factor to happiness, harmonious family 23 percent and stable marriage (be in love) 19.1 percent. According to the survey, people with higher education, higher incomes and stable marriage appeared to experience more happiness. 

Good thoughts harvest gratitude, love, and acceptance. Our thoughts shape our actions, our habits, and our character. Our thoughts also affect our relationships and how we approach everything in life. As we learn to control our negative thoughts, we gain the strength to live a happy life.

   Only you can make you happy. Don't place your happiness in the hands of the unknown. Take responsibility of your own happiness and stop blaming others for your unhappiness. You need to figure out ways in which you can be happy despite others' (negative) behaviors and despite the external circumstances. Happiness depends much more on your attitude than it does on objective, external circumstances.

Did you know that by focusing on a signature strength you can become significantly happier? "When 577 volunteers were encouraged to pick one of their signature strengths and use it in a new way each day for a week, they became significantly happier and less depressed than control groups. And these benefits lasted: Even after the experiment was over, their levels of happiness remained heightened a full six months later. Studies have shown that the more you use your signature strengths in daily life, the happier you become."  * Illustration by Avkari Alon

“ There's no secret to happiness. There's no special formula, happiness project, self-help book or “tips” that can help you achieve it. Happiness is one of those things you think is easy to achieve when the reality is that it's one of the hardest. It took me years to understand such simple concept. Happiness is a skill that needs to be learn and p ractice. I was one of those people who believed that joy, euphoria, or even pleasure was a clear sign of happiness but I was wrong. I have learned over the years that happiness is a much deeper concept. Happiness doesn’t come from external sources, but from a deeper place in our soul. Happiness is not something that can be defined, for the merely fact that once you try to do it, you immediately deprived the person standing next to you from achieving their own. You cannot dictate to other people what happiness is. You can only lead them to find their own.  One thing is for sure. You have to be brave in order to be ...

UC Berkeley has helped establish a new psychology department at China's Tsinghua University. Professor Kaipeng Peng discusses the Science of Happiness.He says the social changes brought about by China's move from socialism to capitalism have made the study of psychology there more important, and that the collaboration also helps American psychologists learn more about psychological differences between cultures. Video produced by Roxanne Makasdjian, UC Berkeley Media Relation" The ranks of China's millionaires continue to grow, but the increased wealth has done little to boost the country’s gross domestic happiness, according to psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley. They say the pursuit of prosperity in the nation is fast outpacing mental health and well-being, and are seeking to correct that imbalance by spreading the science of happiness in China. As part of that effort, UC Berkeley psychologists, along with colleagues at Tsinghua Unive...