Happiness

Purpose - The purpose of this article is: a) to share thoughts on the happiness; b) to use it to capture comments and feedback from others; c) promote discussion on the subject. It is not a recipe for achieving happiness.

Impact of Happiness on well-being of a person includes:

• Better health
• Resilience
• Longer life
• Better work performance
• Better relationships and social interactions

General characteristics of happy people includes:

• sense of purpose or meaningfulness
• kindness - curiosity
• Independence
• sense of humour
• self-esteem
• aesthetic appreciation

Wealth and happiness

• A recent review concluded that "money can buy you happiness, but not much, and above a modest threshold, more money does not mean more happiness."
• Individuals usually get richer during their lifetimes—but not happier. Ghana, Mexico, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States all share similar life satisfaction scores despite per capita income varying 10-fold between the richest and poorest country.
• Given the choice between winning the lottery and being left permanently disabled by injury, everyone would take the money. Yet a year after either of these events, people apparently return to their previous levels of happiness.

Social Networks - Clusters of happy and unhappy people are visible in the network, and the relationship between people’s happiness extends up to three degrees of separation (for example, to the friends of one’s friends’ friends). People who are surrounded by many happy people and those who are central in the network are more likely to become happy in the future. Longitudinal statistical models suggest that clusters of happiness result from the spread of happiness and not just a tendency for people to associate with similar individuals. Friendshipfamily and friends are crucial for individual well-being. The wider and deeper the relationships with those around you the better. It is even suggested that friendship can ward off germs. Our brains control many of the mechanisms in our bodies which are responsible for disease. Just as stress can trigger ill health, it is thought that friendship and happiness can have a protective effect.
Religion - People with strong religious beliefs display higher life satisfaction scores. They seem to cope better with stress, have better sex life (?) and display fewer cases of drug abuse, depression and suicide. Buddhist monks seems to be happier than others. Studies by mind and life institute indicate that meditation helps to reduce negative emotions such as hate, envy, and anger while nurturing compassion and kindness.
Marriage and children - According to research the effect of marriage adds on average seven years to the life of a man and something like four years for a woman. Surprisingly, having children doesn’t lead to greater happiness.
Leisure activities - Leisure activities can also create more smiling faces, with those who play sport, exercise or work in the garden are generally more satisfied.
Politics and Happiness - In Lord Layard's new book, 'Happiness: lessons from a new science', he argues that the relentless pursuit of economic growth is exacting a high price from the national psyche - leaving depression and emotional impoverishment in its wake. His polemic is that we should radically rethink economic and social policy to reorient it towards increasing the happiness of the population.
Psychology of unhappiness - As a psychology graduate working in animal- behaviour labs, Seligman discovered "learned helplessness". Dogs who experience electric shocks that they cannot avoid by their actions simply give up trying. They will passively endure later shocks that they could easily escape. Seligman went on to apply this to humans, with "learned helplessness" as a model for depression. People who feel battered by unsolvable problems learn to be helpless; they become passive, slower to learn, anxious and sad. This idea revolutionised behavioural psychology and therapy by suggesting the need to challenge depressed people's beliefs and thought patterns, not just their behaviour.Psychologists such as Seligman are convinced you can train yourself to be happier. His teams are developing new positive interventions (treatments) to counteract the brain's nagging insistence on seeking out bad news. The treatments work by boosting positive emotion about the past, by teaching people to savour the present, and by increasing the amount of engagement and meaning in their lives
Anatomy of Happiness -The right hemisphere of the brain seems to be sensitive to negative emotions, while high activity in the left hemisphere is associated with happiness. Happiness is not a single or simple state of mind. Its main components are:

• Physical pleasure
• Absence of negative emotion

Pleasure is the result of a rush of dopamine in the reward system. It can be brought on by a simple sensory or sexual thrill or by a more complex route, e.g. sight of someone you love. Pleasure lasts as long as the neurotransmitters continue to flow. Absence of negative emotion is essential for happiness. As soon as strong fear, anger, or sadness enters, pleasure is reduced. The amygdala is responsible for generating negative emotions. To prevent them flooding the brain, this part of limbic system must be quiet. Working hard on non-emotional mental tasks inhibits the amygdala and hence keeping busy is often said to be the source of happiness. The ventromedial cortex creates a feeling of cohesiveness - without the world seems pointless. over activity in this area is associated with mania.The ability to feel negative emotions derives from an ancient danger-recognition system formed early in the brain's evolution. The pre-frontal cortex, which registers happiness, is the part used for higher thinking, an area that evolved later in human history.Happiness is neither desire nor pleasure alone. It involves a third chemical pathway. Serotonin constantly shifts the balance between negative and positive emotions. It can reduce worry, fear, panic and sleeplessness and increase sociability, co-operation, and happy feelings. Drugs based on serotonin, such as ecstasy, produce a relaxed sense of wellbeing rather than the dopamine pattern of euphoria and craving.