“Sages going back to Socrates have offered advice on how to be happy, but only now are scientists beginning to address this question with systematic, controlled research. Although many of the new studies reaffirm time-honored wisdom (“Do what you love,” “To thine own self be true”), they also add a number of fresh twists and insights.” (O, The Oprah Magazine)
Thanks for that great article Bivvy, it had some tips that we can put into effect right now.
Here is a recent One Minute Motivator that adds one more tip to the list of things we can do to move up on the happiness scale:
“Talking about the good and bad things that happen can lead to happiness ? even if it is from opposite ends of the phone line. In a controlled lab experiment, psychologist Rich Walker of Winston-Salem State University found that the reasons are two-fold: people tend to emphasize positive emotions and mitigate negative ones when telling a story, since memory’s natural bias is to keep tabs on the good stuff and gradually lose the emotional intensity of a bad event; and the process of storytelling can affect how one feels about what happened even up to a week later. In other words, talking about a negative experience made the emotional intensity of that memory fade faster than if the event had not been recounted. Walker says that storytelling works best when there is a lot of audience diversity ? it helps to tell the story many times to a variety of people. “
Anyone wanting a FREE daily email of the One Minute Motivator can go to http://www.brightmoment.com and enter your email address, or for a video version of them go to: http://youtube.com/user/motivationalexpert
OK thanks again and keep the good stuff coming, Ed Smith.
Thanks Ed! I like your tip about stories.