Happiness is not a due from life, you must work for it and darn hard. The choice is yours! Learn how :)

1. Author Cat Payen
Happiness is here, worked darn hard for it too!
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Oct 05, 2016 77 views
Written by Cat Payen
Niche:
Business Home and Family Reference and Education
Happiness
There have been many articles, scientific research done on and about happiness.
So what is happiness - chemistry part :-)
Let’s not get bogged down with the chemistry here, just suffice to look at the image below of the major hormones
that you will hear about, just to let you know for this is not the purpose (!) of this article:
Dopamine -
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2. neurotransmitter feeding the reward pathway
involves motivation, drive, pleasure
addiction
high levels = disconnected with reality
low levels = addictive behaviours and addictions
Noradrenaline -
Neurotransmitter
stress hormone co-ordination of flight or fight response
mediation of emotions
mediation of physical symptoms - raised heart beat, alertness, decision making behaviours…
GABA - Gamma amino butyric acid
Inhibitory neurotransmitter
slows down nerve transmissions
allowing nerve recovery
high levels = relieves anxiety and reduces stress
Serotonin
constrict blood vessels - HAPPINESS HORMONE
most commonly used in antidepressants.
Beta - endorphin
natural opioids produced in response to pain, excitement, exercise
cf same as morphine receptors in brain, spinal cord and nerves
cause mild sedation, relieving pain
sense of well being
Oxytocin
often called trust hormone/bonding hormone
even the love hormone
unique to mammals
important during birthing and sexual related activities
trust and pair bonding
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3. And now happiness - action part :-)
Happiness folks is hard work! It does not come to you, you have to create it.
2 components of happiness for it to work out:
Purpose and pleasure.
So with the above mind shattering statements gone are the excuses:
I can’t be happy I’m too fat
I can’t be happy I had bad parents
I’m too old
I hate my job……….
One extremely efficient way to counter this argument is to be grateful. Yes that is right suppose you hate your job, so
let’s start looking at ways you could be grateful here: the office has the bare necessities, I have colleagues who, by
putting me down all the time in fact help me to rise and shine above myself (and them), I have a boss who thinks I’m
so good he keeps on piling it on, no one eats with me because I have somethings of value to say …. You see every
situation can be turned around, and this is the first step. Afterwards it becomes a game and you race with yourself to
see just what love you shall give today, a smile at the bus driver, the person sitting next to you on the train, even
sharing your newspaper (oh yes sorry we are all digitalised now - I have not commuted in ages!!)…. Hope you get
the gist and you can even start a gratitude journal - I have the app just in case I forget ;)
The other I can't be happy syndrome - I’ll be happy when….
I have the nice job
the lovely car,
the big house
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4. the nice soul mate…
Unfortunately this too is not very wise! You see this is playing victim mode and one must snap out of it to attract the
very people we want to, the bigger, nicer things in life need a bigger you to step up! Care though…
Purpose without pleasure
If you’re helping out with serving the soup for the homeless and have no pleasure in that then it won’t work. What I
mean is happiness will not be found
Pleasure without purpose
If you’re at the best beach in the Seychelles, say, at the spa again the lack of purpose will eventually catch up with
you and you will be bored and slightly down even!
Happiness must be worked at and chosen!
So you must work at it every day, and every minute of the day too. We have a choice always, I can hear you now,
yes but this horror story happened to me, and so …. No this is victim again! What you can do is this
Let’s suppose something horror story type happened to you
HERE
so now you have a CHOICE of HOW to react.
You can either
go down oh woe is me victim road
or
you can say ok, this is pretty bad, what is the lesson I must learn here so that it does not happen again? What can I
take responsibility for?
And then this horror story thing turns out to be a blessing in fact :)
I sincerely hope you understand all this and I will be writing more articles on the subject so as to go into more detail
of all of this so stay tuned - you know what to do, right? Join either the RSS feed or my newsletter feed (by giving me
your email and name in the box provided).
The choice is yours to take :)
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