March 20th is International Day of Happiness.
The benefits of feeling happy
- It can help build stronger social relationships
- Being happy can boost your immune system and provide a stronger resistance to being ill
- A happy outlook can help boost cognitive functioning and improve decision making.
- It has been suggested that it can improve life expectancy.
So how do we practice being happy.
Life is full of challenges, and it can be difficult to remain positive and happy all the time, so here are some tips to help when you are struggling.
- Exercise boosts endorphins and can help your mental wellbeing- especially if you are out in nature.
- Be grateful – it doesn’t matter how small a thing but being grateful improves our mood. There are many things that we take for granted every day – water, heating, (not everyone has access to these) being a sunny day, some-one paying you a compliment. Make a note of them.
- Meditation has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety and can also increase gray matter in the hippocampus, which is linked to emotion and memory.
- Helping others, increases our self-worth and can make us and the people we are helping feel grateful and happy. It’s a win win situation.
- Sleep is an important factor. it is hard to feel happy if we are lacking sleep.
- Switch off social media. It is important to take a break from this on a regular basis.
I hope this helps – above all have a happy day.
