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When we talk about happiness, we first think about how difficult it is. And then, looking back at our lives, we decide that we are quite happy anyway. Neil Pasricha, a Canadian writer and director of the Global Happiness Institute, is convinced that to be happy, you just need to train your brain.
Having worked with people for many years, Neil Pasricha is fully convinced of how difficult it is for us to feel happiness. As a result, he wrote the book The Equation of Happiness.1where he explained how to train your brain to be happy. This is how the formula he received looks like: «wish nothing + do something = have everything.» He found six simple solutions that we can use every day to become happier. And you need to start as early as possible.
1.Three walks
According to researcher Amanda Hyde, physically active people are more positive compared to those who prefer not physical activity, sports or gymnastics, but another type of relaxation and recreation: “Moreover, we found that the positive attitude increases even more on those days. when we keep our physical form at its best.”
It won’t take much of your time: half an hour of brisk walking three times a week. A XNUMX-minute brisk walk or jog has been proven to help treat depression even better than medication.
2.20 minute essay
For 20 minutes, write about what was good and positive happened to you today, and it will definitely make you happier. Why? Because you will experience this experience again and again: as you write and reread, your brain will seem to take you back to where you felt good.
Just such an experiment was conducted at the University of Texas: couples were asked to remember and write down all the positive things that happened to them during the day (they were asked to devote 20 minutes to this three times a day). Subsequently, it turned out that not only these people, but also their relationships became happier.
3. Be kind and spontaneous
Five good deeds a week — and you will become happier! Try paying for your girlfriend’s coffee for no reason, help your neighbor mow the lawn, or write a thank you note to the concierge. The experiment showed that the mood of all those who figured out how to help their neighbor improved significantly. Why? The answer is simple: people appreciated their help, sincerely thanked them, and everyone felt better from this.
4.Complete shutdown
Learn to relax, «disconnecting» from everything vital. Try one day to do nothing after work or spend a «blank weekend»: this will help you tune in to a new mood and a new week.
5. Find yourself in the flow
The state of “flow” is a special state that is achieved through the complete merging of a person with his activity, when instead of fatigue he feels a surge of energy. In a state of flow, we do not notice time, we forget about hunger and thirst, we do not remember social roles, dissolving in an action that seems important and interesting to us.
It does not matter how you personally call the state of complete immersion in your favorite business. The main thing is to find and designate for yourself a feeling that will be in tune with what the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of the “flow” theory, is talking about.
6. Two-minute meditation
A team at the Massachusetts Institute compared people’s brain MRI before and after meditation. It turned out that after a meditation session, the part of the brain responsible for compassion and self-knowledge increased, while the part associated with stress decreased. Research shows that meditation helps to «program» our brain, which increases the level of happiness.
1 «The Happiness Equation» (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2016).