HappinessFacts, myths, quotes…

Myth 1: Either you have it or you don't.

Say you have two kids you've raised just

the same, but they have opposite

personalities -- one sour, the other sunny.

This makes it hard to dispute the fact that

genes play a powerful role in each

person's happiness. And there's evidence

that suggests genetics contributes to

about 50% of your happiness "set point"

-- the level of happiness that seems most

normal for you.

But that's a far cry from 100%, says

Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD, author ofThe

How of Happiness: A New Approach to

Getting the Life You Want and professor

of psychology at the University of

California, Riverside.

"If you do the work," Lyubomirsky says,

"research shows you can become

happier, no matter what your set point is.

You probably won't go from a one to a

10, but you can become happier. It just

takes commitment and effort as with any

meaningful goal in life."

Not only can you become happier, she says, but it gets easier over time. Work on nurturing relationships, writing in a gratitude journal, committing random acts of kindness, or developing a program of morning meditation or exercise. Changes like these -- proven methods for enhancing happiness -- can become habits after a while, which means they eventually take less effort.

Myth 2: Happiness is a destination.

Many people think of happiness as a

destination or acquisition -- whether it's

marriage, money, or a move to a new

location. Sure, things like these can

contribute to happiness, but not as much

as you might think, Lyubomirsky says.

They account for only about 10% of your

whole happiness picture.

If you've done the math, you now realize that about 40% of your happiness is in your hands. Lasting happiness has more to do with how you behave and think -- things you control -- than with many of life's circumstances.

Robert Biswas-Diener, co-author of

Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of

Psychological Wealth, agrees.

"Happiness isn't the emotional finish line

in the race of life," he says. It's a process

and a resource. Biswas-Diener says

there's a mountain of data showing that

when people are happier, they become

healthier and more curious, sociable,

helpful, creative, and willing to try new

things.

"Happiness is not just an emotional flight

of fancy," he says. "It's beneficial for the

long run, serving a real function in our

lives."

In psychological lingo, this is called the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, says Michael A. Cohn, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher with the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Cohn recently conducted a study with 86 college students who submitted daily emotion reports. The researchers measured the students' ability to flexibly respond to challenging and shifting circumstances and used a scale to assess life satisfaction. The study showed that positive emotions increased resilience -- skills for identifying opportunities and bouncing back from adversity -- as well as life satisfaction.

Myth 3: You always adapt to your happiness set point.

It's true that people tend to adapt fairly

quickly to positive changes in their lives,

Lyubomirsky says. In fact, adaptation is

one of the big obstacles to becoming

happier. The long-awaited house, the

new car, the prestigious job -- all can

bring a temporary boost but then recede

into the background over time.

Why does this happen? One reason, Lyubomirsky says, is

that we evolved to pay more attention to novelty. For our

ancestors, novelty signaled either danger or opportunity – a

chance for a new mate or food, for example. We're attuned to

contrasts, not sameness. But that also means we readily

adapt to positive experiences that happen to us, Lyubomirsky

says.

"I argue that you can thwart adaptation, slow it down, or

prevent it with active ways of thinking or behaving," says

Lyubomirsky, who, after moving to Santa Monica, Calif., found

herself adapting to her beautiful surroundings. To counteract

this trend, she put effort into appreciating the view she saw

when running on a path overlooking the ocean. She says she

now savors that view every day, trying to see it "through the

eyes of a tourist."

To help thwart adaptation, you can also use novelty to your advantage. For instance, if your home has become a little ho-hum, you might try rearranging furniture or hosting parties for a variety of friends. Voluntary activities like these are most effective because they require you to pay attention, Lyubomirsky notes.

Myth 4: Negative emotions always outweigh the positive ones.

For quite some time, research has indicated that negative emotions are

more powerful than positive ones, Cohn says. For example, studies

show that people don't have equal reactions to winning $3 and losing

$3, he says. The loss tends to have a stronger effect than the gain.

Negative emotions might edge out positive emotions in the moment,

Cohn says, because they're telling you to find a problem and fix it. But

positive emotions appear to win out over time because they let you

build on what you have, a finding reinforced by Cohn's recent study.

"We found that as positive emotions go

up, there comes a point where negative

emotions no longer have a significant

negative impact on building resources or

changing life satisfaction," Cohn says.

"Positive emotions won't protect you from

feeling bad about things, nor should they.

But over time, they can protect you from

the consequences of negative emotions."

This may not be true for people with

depression or other serious disorders,

although they do show benefits when

positive emotions are added to

conventional psychotherapy, Cohn notes.

Myth 5: Happiness is all about hedonism.

There's more to happiness than racking

up pleasurable experiences. In fact,

helping others -- the opposite of

hedonism -- may be the most direct route

to happiness, notes Stephen G. Post,

PhD. Post is co-author of Why Good

Things Happen to Good People: The

Exciting New Research That Proves the

Link Between Doing Good and Living a

Longer, Healthier, Happier Life.

"When people help others through formal

volunteering or generous actions, about

half report feeling a 'helper's high,' and

13% even experience alleviation of aches

and pains," says Post, professor of

preventive medicine and director of the

Center for Medical Humanities,

Compassionate Care, and Bioethics at

Stony Brook University in Stony Brook,

N.Y.

"For most people, a pretty low threshold

of activity practiced well makes a

difference," Post says. This might involve

volunteering just one or two hours each

week or doing five generous things

weekly -- practices that are above and

beyond what you normally do.

First documented in the 1990s, mood

elevation from helping is associated with

a release of serotonin, endorphins -- the

body's natural opiates -- and oxytocin, a

"compassion hormone" that reinforces

even more helping behavior, Post says.

Could compassion be rooted in our

neurobiology? A National Academy of

Sciences study showed that simply

thinking about contributing to a charity of

choice activates a part of the brain called

the mesolimbic pathway, the brain's

reward center, which is associated with

feelings of joy.

"Although just thinking about giving or writing a check can increase our levels of happiness, face-to-face interactions seem to have a higher impact," Post says. "I think that's because they engage the [brain's] agents of giving more fully through tone of voice, facial expression, and the whole body."

Myth 6: One size fits all.

If you're seeking a magic bullet or mystical elixir to enhance your happiness, you're bound to be sorely

disappointed. There is no "one size fits all" for happiness.

Instead, there are many ways to boost your happiness. Here are options to try:

Pick an activity that is meaningful to you, Cohn says. Whether you choose an activity that promotes a

sense of gratitude, connectedness, forgiveness, or optimism, you'll be most successful if your

choices are personally relevant to you. And, he adds, this may also keep you from adapting to

them too quickly.

Assess your strengths and develop practices that best use these gifts, Post suggests. Are you a good

cook? Deliver a meal to a shut-in. A retired teacher? Consider tutoring a child. The possibilities

are limited only by your imagination.

Vary your activities because promoting happiness is largely a question of finding a good fit,

Lyubomirsky says. To that end, she helped Signal Patterns develop a "Live Happy" iPhone

application that starts with a short survey to identify the happiness strategies that you're suited to,

such as journaling or calling someone to express gratitude. "You can lose your will [to do those

activities] if it's not a good fit," Lyubomirsky says.

And when it comes to happiness, maintaining your will -- and acting on it -- might just put a

pleasurable, meaningful life well within reach. WebMD

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” ― Aristotle

“One swallow does not make a summer,neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.” ― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“...happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves.... The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement....” ― Aristotle

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.” ― Seneca

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will. ” ― Epictetus

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.”

― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Now if a man thus favoured died as he has lived, he will be just the one you are looking for: the only sort of person who deserves to be called happy. But mark this: until he is dead, keep the word "happy" in reserve. Till then, he is not happy, but only lucky...” ― Herodotus

“The robb'd that smiles, steals something from the thief.” ― William Shakespeare, Othello

“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.” ― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

“You must be the best judge of your own happiness.” ― Jane Austen, Emma

Le Bon David

“Reading and sauntering and lounging and dosing, which I call thinking, is my supreme Happiness.”

"Tendency to joy and hope is true happiness; tendency to fear and melancholy is a real unhappiness."

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

― Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: with a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.” ― Leo Tolstoy, Family Happiness

“Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.” ― Leo Tolstoy

“Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.” ― Henry David Thoreau

“There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.” ― G.K. Chesterton

“Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.” ― Groucho Marx

Life's chief concern

If we were to ask the question: “What is human life's chief concern?” one of the answers we should receive would be: “It is happiness.” How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness, is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure. William James

“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” ― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” ― Albert Camus

“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.” ― Anne Frank

“Whoever is happy will make others happy.”

― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” ― Dalai Lama XIV, The Art of Happiness

“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.”― Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

“Remember laughing? Laughter enhances the blood flow to the body’s extremities and improves cardiovascular function. Laughter releases endorphins and other natural mood elevating and pain-killing chemicals, improves the transfer of oxygen and nutrients to internal organs. Laughter boosts the immune system and helps the body fight off disease, cancer cells as well as viral, bacterial and other infections. Being happy is the best cure of all diseases!” ― Patch Adams

“Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.” ― Stephen Fry

“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.” ― Dr. Seuss

“This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.” ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day.” ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy