Simple Ways to Feel Happier Every Day While some factors that affect happiness are out of your control,, there are always actions you can take to amp up your good vibes. While some factors that affect happiness are out of your control,, there are always actions you can take to amp up your good vibes.





We all want to know the secret for how to be happy. It can be quite difficult to see through our pain and past our beliefs, though. But sometimes, the answer is staring us right in the face. Use these 7 strategies to help you create more happiness in your life right now.





Happiness is Not: Feeling Good All The Time If feeling good all the time were our only requirement, then the answer would be “yes.” However, an even-keeled mood is more psychologically healthy than a mood in which you achieve great heights of happiness regularly, after all, what goes up must come down.





Even as children, we’re taught to recognize and celebrate feelings of happiness, and it’s no wonder. Not only is happiness one of the most positive emotions we can experience, but being happy is also the key to a fulfilled, healthy life. Plus, cheeriness is linked to living longer, how hard we work, physical function as we age, and an improved immune system, among other health benefits.









Make Your Life Happier With This Tips

Meditation

If you want to know how to be happy, meditation is a good place to start. Spend 10-30 minutes each morning meditating and you’ll notice an improvement in well-being and a healthier life perspective. Meditation relaxes you and helps you connect with the mind, body and spirit. You can incorporate gratitude in your meditation, listen to soft music or think positive thoughts. Meditation is also associated with lower stress.

Change Your Perspective

The simple act of listing three good things that happened that day increased happiness and decreased depressive symptoms. Furthermore, putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and avoiding a pessimistic outlook really can make you feel better about your situation. Perhaps most interestingly, a change in view can have a really big impact on your overall happiness.

It’s known that “the bad stuff” often outweighs the good in our minds, so psychologists like Timothy Wilson have suggested how perspective changes can help us out when times get rough:



Figure out what happy means to you. Happiness is subjective. There’s no concrete way to define it. It means something different to each of us. So think about what happiness means for you personally. When are you happiest? Who are you happiest with? If you’re struggling to find out how to be happy now, answering these questions will help you immensely. Furthermore, when you ask people what makes their lives happier, they rarely say anything about their mood. They are more likely to cite things that they find meaningful, such as their work or relationships. If you focus too much on trying to feel good all the time, you’ll actually undermine your ability to feel good at all—in other words, no amount of feeling good will be satisfying to you, since what you expect (all the time) isn’t physically possible for most people.If you want to know how to be happy, meditation is a good place to start. Spend 10-30 minutes each morning meditating and you’ll notice an improvement in well-being and a healthier life perspective. Meditation relaxes you and helps you connect with the mind, body and spirit. You can incorporate gratitude in your meditation, listen to soft music or think positive thoughts. Meditation is also associated with lower stress.The simple act of listing three good things that happened that day increased happiness and decreased depressive symptoms. Furthermore, putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and avoiding a pessimistic outlook really can make you feel better about your situation. Perhaps most interestingly, a change in view can have a really big impact on your overall happiness.It’s known that “the bad stuff” often outweighs the good in our minds, so psychologists like Timothy Wilson have suggested how perspective changes can help us out when times get rough:





Spend More Time With Friends/Family: Money Can't Buy You Happiness Staying in touch with friends and family make you happy. Several studies have found that time spent with friends and family makes a big difference to how happy we feel. If you want more evidence that it’s beneficial for you, It can make you happier right now. Social time is highly valuable when it comes to improving our happiness, even for introverts. Several studies have found that time spent with friends and family makes a big difference to how happy we feel, generally.



Listen to sad songs. Happiness is entirely subjective, meaning that what makes one person happy might affect someone else differently. However, listening to sad music seems to be a common activity that's been linked with increased happiness around the globe. In a study that looked at 772 people on the eastern and western hemispheres, researchers found that listening to sad music generated beneficial emotional effects such as regulating negative emotion and mood as well as consolation. If you want more evidence that it’s beneficial for you, It can make you happier right now. Social time is highly valuable when it comes to improving our happiness, even for introverts. Several studies have found that time spent with friends and family makes a big difference to how happy we feel, generally.





Smile. Many people think of happiness as something that comes from the inside out, or from your mind to your behavior. But happiness can also come from the outside in, or from your actions to your mind. The deliberate decision to smile, for example, actually activates happiness-inducing chemicals, as described here.





Eliminate roadblocks

Roadblocks are obstacles that stand between where you are today and where you want to be. A negative environment and negative people are two examples of roadblocks that limit your potential. The first step to more happiness is to identify the roadblocks in your life. The second step is to find paths around, over and through the roadblocks in your life. You may not be able to eliminate every roadblock, but you can work to minimize the threat.



Move closer to work – a short commute is worth more than a big house Our commute to the office can have a surprisingly powerful impact on our happiness. The fact that we tend to do this twice a day, five days a week, makes it unsurprising that its effect would build up over time and make us less and less happy. Having a long commute is something we often fail to realize will affect us so dramatically: Roadblocks are obstacles that stand between where you are today and where you want to be. A negative environment and negative people are two examples of roadblocks that limit your potential. The first step to more happiness is to identify the roadblocks in your life. The second step is to find paths around, over and through the roadblocks in your life. You may not be able to eliminate every roadblock, but you can work to minimize the threat.





Think positive

No matter how bad things may seem, be grateful. Warm water on a cold day? Amazing! Cold water on a warm day? Incredible! You really are very lucky when you get right down to it.



Help Others can make you feel hapiness

To make yourself feel happier, you should help others. In fact, 100 hours per year (or two hours per week) is the optimal time we should dedicate to helping others in order to enrich our lives.

Money spent on activities--such as concerts and group dinners out--brought far more pleasure than material purchases like televisions, shoes, or expensive watches. Spending money on other people, called "prosocial spending," also boosts happiness.



So spending money on other people makes us happier than buying stuff for ourselves. But what about spending our time on other people? A study of volunteering in Germany explored how volunteers were affected when their opportunities to help others were taken away:





Go outside – happiness is maximized at 13.9°C Spending time in the fresh air to improve your happiness: Making time to go outside on a nice day also delivers a huge advantage; one study found that spending 20 minutes outside in good weather not only boosted positive mood, but broadened thinking and improved working memory…

Being outdoors made people happier: Being outdoors, near the sea, on a warm, sunny weekend afternoon is the perfect spot for most. In fact, participants were found to be substantially happier outdoors in all natural environments than they were in urban environments.

The American Meteorological Society 13 published research that found current temperature has a bigger effect on our happiness than variables like wind speed and humidity, or even the average temperature over the course of a day. It also found that happiness is maximized at 13.9°C, so keep an eye on the weather forecast before heading outside for your 20 minutes of fresh air. The connection between productivity and temperature is another topic we’ve talked about more here. It’s fascinating what a small change in temperature can do.





Do things you do when you’re happy — even if you’re not.

Experiencing positive emotions not only appear to have the power to neutralize negative ones, but can also encourage people to be more proactive. Positive emotions may aid those feeling trapped or helpless in the midst of negative moods, thoughts, or behaviors, for example, grief, pessimism, or isolation spurring them to take positive action.





Realize that anything worth doing is worth doing badly.

Challenge and novelty are key elements of happiness. The brain is stimulated by surprise, and successfully dealing with an unexpected situation gives a powerful sense of satisfaction. People who do new things such learn a game, travel to unfamiliar places, are happier than people who stick to familiar activities that they already do well. Remind yourself to “Enjoy the fun of failure” and tackle some daunting goal.



Treat Yourself (the Small Pleasures Matter)

Jokes aside about treating yo’ self, surprisingly, the research has shown that you need to have small wins along the way in order to be truly happy, across many different domains, happiness is more strongly associated with the frequency than the intensity of people’s positive effective experiences.





Regular small pleasures had a bigger impact on happiness than fewer larger ones. Perhaps this is why it’s often so difficult to put off what we want now for what we want later, so beware of the trap here: tough accomplishments that have to be earned oftentimes result in a happier day-to-day.

In what is one of the funniest excerpts I’ve ever stumbled on in a psychology book, Stumbling on





Happiness shares this excerpt from a study that shows why the happiest people often only had 1 sexual partner in the past 12 months:

Why would people who have one partner be happier than people who have many? One reason is that multiple partners are occasionally thrilling, but regular partners are regularly enjoyable. A bi-weekly ride on a merry-go-round may be better than an annual ride on a roller coaster.

Clearly a little treat and consistency now and then can go a long way for your happiness while you make plans for your big goals.



Observe Happiness in Others

This one was really interesting. Most of us like to think we are unique snowflakes, but sometimes things are popular for a reason. In fact, research suggests that the best way to predict how much we will enjoy an experience is to see how much someone else enjoyed it.

Women were able to reduce the inaccuracy of predicting how much fun they’d have on a speed date by reading a rating left by a previous women. In other words, learning about someone else’s experience is a far better way for us to internally evaluate if we will enjoy it as well.



Be Busy, but Not Rushed

Feeling “rushed” is a one-way street to stress and unhappiness, it also notes that less and less people can find that happy medium of being just busy enough.

It seems strange that being very productive would cause one to be happy. Balanced free time is key, as too much boredom can be burdensome, strive for a productive life at a comfortable pace.





Often in finding this balance, you’ll have to find out how to say “no” to things.

For things that you aren’t obligated to do: it either needs to be a “Hell Yeah!” or a simple “No.” That is, if an opportunity comes across your plate (and the more you branch out, the more things will), you need to either be gung-ho about the idea, or you’ll need to say ‘no’ to it.



Focus on your strengths

It’s human nature to focus on your weaknesses, but as I explain in The Lemonade Life, focus your time and energy on your strengths. No one is perfect. Spending time trying to build up every weakness will only lead to frustration. It’s an impossible task to be good at everything. Instead, focus on your core strengths and direct them toward seizing opportunities. This is one of the most effective ways for how to be happy. You will feel more happy, more balanced and less frustrated.



Look for the good in things

It’s easy to see the bad and the downside. Instead, focus on the positive. Look for the silver linings, which are the good things in life. The best books on happiness recommend cultivating positive thoughts: the more you look for the good things, the less stress and negative thinking you can experience.



Do it with kindness

Work can be demanding. Life can be demanding. In the race to “get it done,” it can be easier to rush. However, there’s always time to do it with kindness. Treat people respectfully. Empathy at home, at work and in life is essential to understand others and understand the human condition.



Have Some Close Relationships

Relationships are the most important thing when it comes to overall life satisfaction, at least for most people. Having a close group of people in your life can keep you happy for life, it can also help you live longer.

When someone claims to have five or more friends with whom they can discuss important problems, they are 60 percent more likely to say that they are ‘very happy’.

I’ve yet to see any compelling evidence that more friends equal happier, because after all, the quality of the people in your life matters the most, just be sure to acknowledge that there are many friends to be made, and maintaining a small circle can go a long way in making you a happy person.



Have a core set of values

We also know what it means to have good values. To find happiness, list your values on a piece of paper. Visualizing is a good start, but it will help solidify your set of values when you record them. A core set of values is a great way for how to be happy because it reminds you of the principles and ideals to which you subscribe.



Find your life purpose

Why are you here? How do you create impact? When you know your life purpose, you will know how to be happy because you have a life worth living because you understand why you do what you do. You have direction. You have grounding. You have something you are working toward or someone you are working to inspire.



Think of Yourself Less

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.

Our self-esteem is a bit of a tricky topic, because current research on self-esteem paints a very inconsistent picture: it seems that high self-esteem is certainly related to happiness, but it can produce other problems with the ego.





Happiness Habits Practice The benefits may seem obvious; after all, feeling happy feels good! But the value of happiness habits goes even deeper. Negativity is hardwired into our brains. We are predisposed to pay more attention to bad things than good things. This negativity bias has helped us survive by making us aware of possible threats, problems, and stressors in our environment. However, if we are ruled only by our negativity, we miss opportunities for pleasure, joy, good relationships, and humor. Happiness activities help balance out the negativity bias so that we see and experience the positive aspects of life.





Summary

In fact, happiness does have a pretty important role in our lives, and it can have a huge impact on the way we live our lives. Although researchers have yet to pin down the definition or an agreed-upon framework for happiness, there’s a lot we have learned in the last few decades.

Happiness is so interesting, because we all have different ideas about what it is and how to get it.

