The Science Of Happiness

LiveAnew uses the science of happiness, positive psychology, to help individuals find more purpose, more happiness, and more friends. Positive psychology focuses on what is right with the individual and not on individual weaknesses. Positive psychology looks at what you’re good at, what you value, and what you enjoy doing, and capitalizes on these elements when looking at how to live a happier and more fulfilling life.

Key Principles Of Positive Psychology (The Science Of Happiness)

Broaden and Build: Broaden and build theory suggests that emotions are functional.  Negative emotions serve to limit our thoughts and behaviors, helping us to act more decisively during times of stress or danger.  Positive emotions, by contrast, serve to expand, or broaden and build our physical and mental capabilities. As individuals, when trying to achieve a “stretch goal” we should strive to take on small goals that are inside our wheelhouse, that help us experience success and positive emotions, before we move on to larger goals. For more on broaden and build click here.

The Importance Of Social Relationships: Our personal happiness has much to do with our friendships and time with family.  In today’s fast paced high technology world– we are often making contact, but not really communicating.  It is important to take the time and nurture some relationships. It’s more about quality than quantity, it’s not all about family relationships. Friends sometimes challenge us to grow more than family can, and social relationships provide one of the strongest buffers against negative life events.Not only does companionship predict more positive emotions, but a lack of it predicts low well being on many fronts, including mental distress and poor health. For more exercises to improve social relationships click here.

Kindness: It’s easy to be kind. Giving an encouraging word will make you happy as well as the person you are encouraging.  There’s good reason for you to make time to extend a little more kindness to those around you. Research shows that kindness reduces stress and releases endorphins, reduces blood pressure, helps your outlook by perceiving others more positively, creates positive feelings, and puts you into a position to likely get these emotions in return. Click here to find out more about  how to improve kindness.

The Key To Personal Growth: What makes you take action in life? Is it being involved in sports, stamp collecting, researching your genealogy, or volunteering at your church?    Research has shown that getting involved in any intentional activity that serves to grow us individually actually helps us live longer and healthier. The fact is we find it easier to do those things that connect with our values.  Some of us value physical exercise far greater than others.  Just because you recognize an activities importance, doesn’t mean you hold it high in value relative to other actions.  So don’t be too hard on yourself.  Instead, take a look at your values. What ranks high? What do you enjoy doing; maybe even so much that time seems to stand still while you are doing it? The fact is that there are multiple ways to create well-being in life and our well-being is directly tied to our health.

The Sigmoid Curve For Personal Growth: Have you ever had something in your life that seemed fulfilling and enjoyable, but as it ran it’s course, you found that it lost most of it’s flavor.  Don’t worry, this type of thing is not uncommon. Author and Philosopher, Charles Handy suggested that these engagements in our life are much like the Sigmoid curve. As things in our life grow dull we often start looking for our next “curve”; however, Handy suggests that the proper time for this is actually when things are going well, not when things have gotten stale. This principle suggests that we should be seeking to grow and challenge ourselves even when things are seemingly going well. This way we prevent getting “stuck in a rut”. Click here to see a short video about these principles.