We know that happiness is good for our health and well-being. In most ways, it is what keeps us motivated. And as life goes on we tend to search and find more reasons to be happy. But where exactly does our share of happiness come from?

Are we born with it?

Is it possible that happiness lies on every cell of your body? Well it is, and you can blame your neurotransmitters for that. Neurotransmitters are brain chemicals that pass information from a neuron to a cell. Simply put, it is your brain telling the rest of your body to be happy under certain circumstances. According to studies, high concentrations of norepinephrine - a type of neurotransmitter - leads to feelings of elation and euphoria. Studies also show that high levels of some neurotransmitters - specifically norepinephrine - can increase happiness while low levels of neropinephrine have been linked to feelings of depression.

The human brain has also been found to have a “reward system” which is a collection of brain structures that attempts to regulate and control behavior by inducing pleasurable effects. The “reward system” is actually a part of the brain’s limbic system which influences how we respond to the world around us. The limbic system is involved in many of our emotions and motivations, particularly those related to survival, such as fear and anger. The limbic system also regulates feelings of pleasure related to our survival, such as those experienced from eating and sex. The feelings of pleasure, which scientists call reward, are very powerful. If something is pleasurable or rewarding, you want to do it again. The feeling of pleasure then increases the levels of neurotransmitter neropinephrine and causes us to feel happy.

The functions of rewards are basically directed into the modification of behavior and positive emotions. Primary rewards include things that are necessary for survival such as food, water, shelter, and even sex. On the other hand, the value of the secondary rewards originates from the primary. These are money, music, pleasant touches, etc. Such rewards are physical and sensory however, their effects on us are entirely psychological. The more we feed our reward systems, the more we feel pleasure and obtain happiness.

Or is it learned?

In every mistake, hardship, or situation we face, there is always a tendency for us to gain something. But do you know that happiness is one of those things you can actually learn? When we have a problem, it is natural for our brains to work on coping with it and eventually, solving it. As a matter of fact, studies have shown that the applications of coping strategies or learned behaviors can improve a person’s mood. Successfully coping with a challenge increases the amount of norepinephrine released in the brain therefore causing happiness.

For instance, aerobic exercise - which is used as a coping strategy by many persons - can actually stimulate the output of norepinephrine by as much as four and one half times normal. Studies have compared athletes’ “runner’s high” to drugs wherein there is a “tolerance” effect and that a person’s body gets used to a certain level of the drug. In this case, norepinephrine serves as the drug and that the more a person tolerates in achieving happiness, his body works on increasing the said neurotransmitter.

Or maybe it’s in our consciousness…

Different situations in our lives can lead us into learning coping strategies and this can actually bring us happiness. Let’s say that we have found a solution that helped us solve a problem. We tend to keep this particular situation in mind so that the next time we face the same problem, we would know what to do. That’s when happiness comes into cognition.

Studies show that when people use coping strategies successfully, it can lead to feelings of pride and self-efficacy. These studies show that when people are experiencing feelings of pride and self-efficacy their bodies are also releasing a number of chemicals. Among the chemicals released is the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, which produces feelings of happiness.

In the long run, we tend to keep the coping strategies we learned because we know that they worked for us and actually produced happiness. It eventually becomes part of our consciousness and once you search for the same solution, your brain automatically ticks into these information.

Everyday Life

Sure, we are always in the look-out for reasons and ways to be happy. However, we still stumble on a few rocky situations from time to time, robbing us of our happiness. But life does not stop there. Since we have already experienced and enjoyed being happy, problems should serve as the reason to move on and find happiness again. This is where hope and optimism come in. These two, like happiness, are great motivators for us to be healthier physically, mentally, and emotionally.

When we are deprived of happiness, there’s always this tendency for us to lure into a depressed state which is not bad after all. What’s important is that we try to find sense in the situation we are in and then work on finding solutions. Hope is what drives us to work hard to improve ourselves and produce good results. Optimism, on the other hand, causes us to look on the bright side of things and influences us to do our best so that we can expect good outcome.

Happiness, hope, and optimism are three different things but share a common denominator. They are all great motivators for us to enjoy life, endure our hardships, find solutions, and then enjoy again. In fact, being happy, hopeful, and optimistic does not stop within ourselves. In one way or another, we are able to share them to the people close to us by being with them, giving them advice, or by simply being a friend. If we impart these motivations to other people, then it’s a step to making the world a better place to live in, since we encourage them to find their own share of happiness.

Sources: www.mentalhelp.net, www.bipolar.about.com, www.bettyphillipspsychology.com, www.addictionscience.net, www.cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk, www.foxnews.com

The parts of our body are connected to each other. Each has its own purpose. Like our brain, it helps us control what to do in our daily routines. In connection to happiness, do you know that there is a little part in our brain that sends information to our heart whether we feel surprised, worried, dreaded or happy?This is the hypothalamus. It’s a tiny, sub cortical structure shaped like an ice-cream cone. Its bottom tip rests on the chickpea-sized pituitary gland, which it uses to link the nervous system with the endocrine system.

It is true that everything we feel, it comes from our heart. But before our emotion starts, the Hypothalamus processes it first. It is also the reason why our mood changes. To further explain this, let me give you the story of Phineas Gage.

He was a foreman in a railroad construction company. One day, he was excavating rocks to make way for a railroad track. He then used dynamites to make things easier. But tragedy struck him unexpectedly. When he detonated the dynamites, a tamping iron flew in the air and passed through his head; from his cheek to his brain. Fortunately, he survived the incident but his mood changed. According to the doctors, Gage’s case had confirmed findings that certain parts of his brain were affected. It gave evidence that his frontal cortex is involved in his personality because after the incident, the once jolly and quiet man suddenly became hot-tempered.

We sometimes say that we are not happy with our life. Happiness can be controlled by our mind. Our emotion is a state of mind.

It is the same as a heart transplant. Although the patient has changed his heart, his love never changed. Same with other kinds of emotion such as anger, anxiety, and happiness, it will always be there unless you try to forget it as it is controlled by the mind.

With the advent of technology and widespread use of the internet. Information in now in our fingertips. No more queing in the library to borrow books to read, we just need to sit back and relax in front of our computers or even mobile phones and get the information, on demand.

It is certainly beneficial and very useful for us who live in a fast paced, result-oriented world. Things we can’t do five years ago is now a matter of minutes to finish.  But as with all good things come the opposite effect. Technology brought us to think factually. It is something that we live in a world that needs constant confirmation in science. We learned not to listen to our hearts. We lost our instinct.

Science is attacking itself!

There were numerous scientific studies that show not believing in scientific facts makes for better happiness!

Here are some examples that further illustrates why science do not mix with happiness:

Spirituality.

Believing in God is very different in the factual and truthful world of science. While science is very specific, religion is very vague and is open to interpretations. That’s why different kinds of religious denominations exists today. But even so, it is proven ’scientifically’ that having a faithful trust in the creator of heaven and earth is much happier than their religion less counterparts.

United Kingdom’s Royal Economic Society has done a research on this, they found out that Christians have significantly higher levels of happiness in the areas of life satisfaction and quality of living. Meanwhile, their faith serves as a cushion, absorbing the letdowns in life.

Let us consider the happiest country on earth, Israel. This predominantly Jewish country, sandwiched between Muslim nations has a different, positive way of thinking. Their religion made them optimistic as they do not believe they will die and suffer the eternal flames of hell.

Medicine.

The buddhist believes that everything is controlled by the mind. Whatever sufferings we inflict in our lives is the effect of our actions, choices which are subliminally created by our minds.

Today, psychological assessment of patient is necessary when taking medicines. The reason? Many patients just wanted what they think will make them better without going through the facts. It may be the because of the influence that pharmaceutical drugs causes instant relief - because the doctors told them so.

Most of these patients - who wishes to get ‘cured’ instantly - just needed some advice that can make them feel better. Unfortunately, many of them do not believe as they prioritize the scientific facts than the doctors diagnosis.

Here comes the Placebo effect, a treatment for patients who does not really need medications. What this treatment does is by giving the patient what they want, albeit it really has no effect on them. For example, a person who believes he has migraine may want to take medications and will insist on a doctor to give him. The doctor - who knew that he is not really suffering from migraine - will give him fake medicines that looks like the real thing but without any effect whatsoever. The outcome? A better patient and a happier life.

Harvard Medical School professor Ted Kaptchuck has a word in this:

“Scientific perspective is so rational that it forgets that the passion and foibles of human beings are part of the dialogue and discourse of all ages. I don’t mean to say science is bad, but there’s a hubris there that science has all the answers and you’ve just got to get rid of all the superstitious stuff and then we’d have a great world.”

On the other hand, science is still important to us. We cannot discover the importance of happiness without the help of the largely organized and specific science.

For years, the pacemaker was synonymous with the heart. But new technologies are now pushing the positive effects created by the small electronic into the brain.Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic of the Harvard School and Brown Medical school created a brain pacemaker to treat depression and Obsessive-compulsive disorder, commonly known as OCD.

They already implanted the brain pacemaker into 17 people suffering from depression and on 26 patient with OCD. They tracked the depressed for a year and with OCD for three years and found substantial improvements in mood, social and occupational functioning.

Now, there’s no more reason to be unhappy!

Source: www.reuters.com

Whenever we are down and want to feel better, we always seek an outlet to release our emotions: talking to a friend or family member, or writing in the diary. “Putting our feelings into words helps us heal better. If a friend is sad and we can get them to talk about it, that probably will make them feel better.” said Matthew D. Lieberman, associate professor of psychology at the University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA) who conducted a study that reveals why expressing our feelings makes our gloominess, anger and anguish less.

The study explains that one can benefit from the ancient buddhist teaching of “mindfullness meditation,” a technique in which an individual focuses to his present emotions, thoughts and body sensations, such as breathing, without passing judgment or reaction. A person simply releases his thoughts and “lets it go.”

David Creswell, a research scientist from the UCLA said Lieberman has now shown in a series of studies that simply labeling emotions turns down the amygdala - a region in the brain which serves as an alarm to activate a series of biological systems to protect the body in times of danger -a response in the brain that triggers negative feelings.

Creswell said.”We found the more mindful you are, the more activation you have in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the less activation you have in the amygdala. We also saw activation in widespread centers of the prefrontal cortex for people who are high in mindfulness. This suggests people who are more mindful bring all sorts of prefrontal resources to turn down the amygdala. These findings may help explain the beneficial health effects of mindfulness meditation, and suggest, for the first time, an underlying reason why mindfulness meditation programs improve mood and health.”

How is it done? Creswell said that one way to practice mindfulness meditation and paying attention to present-moment experiences is by labeling the emotions verbally. “for example, ‘I’m feeling angry right now’ or ‘I’m feeling a lot of stress right now’ or ‘this is joy’ or whatever the emotion is,” he said Creswell felt excited in the study because it brings a connection between the ancient buddhist teachings and modern neuroscience.

“more than 2,500 years ago, [Buddha] talked about the benefits of labeling your experience. Now, for the first time since those teachings, we have shown there is actually a neurological reason for doing mindfulness meditation. Our findings are consistent with what mindfulness meditation teachers have taught for thousands of years.”

Source: Science Daily

Whenever we watch buddhist themed movies, the character of the monk is never left out. They were portrayed as fun loving, calm and simple people. Their smile catapults us into happiness and relaxation. Moreover, there is always a scene of them reaching for zen while meditating. Could this be the reason for their happiness?

Scientists from the Harvard and the University of Wisconsin (UW) in Madison has been long studying the brains of monks and other people practicing meditation. Their MRI images reveal that the meditative mind is physically different than a mind in normal state. Harvard University’s Sara Lazar said:

Scientifically,”Brain regions associated with attention, interoception and sensory processing were thicker in meditation participants than matched controls, including the prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula.”

It may be a little hard to understand but Dr. Richard Davidson of UW provided a simpler, practical explanation.

“…by meditating, you can become happier, you can concentrate more effectively and you can change your brain in ways that support that.”

So far, there has been no information whether or not meditation causes happiness. Even the Dalai Lama, the 68-year old Nobel Prize Winner and leader of Tibetan buddhist worldwide wanted to know the answer. He hopes that the researchers can prove scientifically if meditation has medical and emotional benefits in order to impart to other people their way of relieving suffering and finding happiness.

(Read CBC, image courtesy of cambodia4kidsorg)

Do you have parents who laugh at simple jokes and tend to smile a lot? Have you ever asked yourself ‘why am I like them?’ Don’t fret; a new study from Brisbane, Australia establishes a connection between happiness and our genes. Yes, the element in our body that made us like our parents.

According to the research from the University of Edinburgh and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, genes in our body play a role in our personality and happiness. When they studied 937 pairs of twins, they found out “identical twins have a very similar personality and well-being…”

Although it is amazing how our genes carry other details aside from the blueprint of our physical appearance, researchers found out that genes are not all the reason as half of our happiness is related to external factors such as work, health and relationships.

Now I’m wondering about Ben Stiller’s children…

(Read ABC)