Winston Churchill said: “ a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty”, so optimism should become more common.
Why do I say that? Because happiness and positive thinking are good for your health and boost the quality of your life.
Happiness and positive thinking are not only about being happy or displaying a good attitude, it’s about much more, about a specific way of living your life. The impact of positive thinking has been studied and it seems that it can create value and help you obtain some skills that last longer than a simple smile, and you can use them later in life.
Don’t be afraid to experience joy, love, contentment, and other positive emotions because, first of all, it’s good for your health. If you spend more time having positive thoughts, you create positive emotions and a positive mental state that it’s called happiness.
Someone said that “once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.”, and that’s actually true because thoughts have a direct impact on your reality and can shape your life.
It’s possible for you to find it very difficult to change the negative thinking and beliefs that run through your head, and that’s because you believe that you need different circumstances to have a positive attitude and enjoy happiness. Happiness is not outside of you, actually, it starts with you and is something you have within you at all times.
If you need some extra motivation to get happy we’ll give you one: happiness is good for your health and that might be the most important and irrefutable argument in favor of happiness. It goes hand in hand with good health and long life. It protects your heart, strengthens your immune system, combats stress, gives you fewer aches and pains, combats disability and disease, lengthens your life.
Interesting things you should know about happiness and positive thinking
- companies pay with 41% less in health-related costs for employees who consider themselves happy;
- according to an analysis of 30 studies, happy people are less likely to get sick through cold and flu seasons;
- among older people optimists have a lower risk of heart attack than do pessimists;
- 7 and a half is the number of extra years people who feel more positively about getting older life, compared to those who feel negatively;
- having regular contact with 10 or more friends significantly increases your happiness;
Steps to become a happier person
- Exercise: it has a high effect on your happiness and positive thinking that is actually a strategy for overcoming depression
- Sleep more: sleep affects your sensitivity too negative emotions, so more sleep, less negativity
- Spend more time with your loved ones: you are happy when you have family, you are happy when you have friends and almost all the other things you think make you happy are actually just ways of getting more family and friends
- Get outside more: long walks on nice days improve your positive thinking;
- Help other people: two hours every week is the optimal time you should spend helping others
- Don’t forget to smile: it can make you feel better and it’s more effective when you back it up with some positive thoughts;
- Practice gratitude: you can choose how to do it because there are a lot of ways to practice it, such as sharing the good things that happen every day with someone you love, keeping a journal with the things that you are grateful for, etc.
- Do things that you love: you surely know what things work well for you. Maybe it’s playing the piano, maybe it’s baking cookies, maybe it’s swimming in the ocean, but you go for it and do it.
It’s called that as people age, they are looking for situations that will improve their moods, so as you get older, especially past middle age, you’ll tend to naturally grow happier. How nice is that?
