happiness

Why Your Brain Cares How You Cope – (Forbes)

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Meditate Meditation

Here are some excerpts from a fascinating article about methods for coping with unhappiness or stress.

Last year, a Harvard study confirmed that there’s a clear connection between mind wandering and unhappiness. Not only did  the study find that if you’re awake, your mind is wandering almost half the time, it also found that this wandering is linked to a less happy state. (You can actually use the iPhone app used in the study to track your own happiness.) This is not surprising, since when your mind is wandering, it’s not generally to the sweet things in your life: More likely, it’s to thoughts like why your electric bill was so high, why your boss was rude to you today, or why your ex-husband is being so difficult.

Another study found that mind wandering is linked to activation of network of brain cells called the default mode network (DMN), which is active not when we’re doing high-level processing, but when we’re drifting about in “self-referential” thoughts.

Meditation is an interesting method for increasing one’s sense of happiness because not only has it stood the test of time, but it’s also been tested quite extensively in the lab. Part of the effect of mindfulness meditation is to quiet the mind by acknowledging non-judgmentally and then relinquishing (rather than obsessing about) unhappy or stress-inducing thoughts.

New research by Judson Brewer, MD, PhD and his group at Yale University has found that experienced meditators not only report less mind wandering during meditation, but actually have markedly decreased activity in their DMN. Earlier research had shown that meditators have less activity in regions governing thoughts about the self, like the medial prefrontal cortex: Brewer says that what’s likely going on in experienced meditators is that these “‘me’ centers of the brain are being deactivated.”

They also found that when the brain’s “me” centers were activated, meditators also co-activated areas important in self-monitoring and cognitive control, which may indicate that they are on the constant lookout for “me” thoughts or mind-wandering – and when their minds do wander, they bring them back to the present moment. Even better, meditators not only did this during meditation, but when not being told to do anything in particular. This suggests that they may have formed a new default mode: one that is more present-centered (and less “me”-centered), no matter what they are doing.

“This is really cool,” Brewer says. “As far as we know, nobody has seen this type of connectivity pattern before. These networks have previously been shown to be anti-correlated.”

So is being happy all about shifting our tendency away from focus on ourselves? Research in other areas, like neurotheology (literally the neurology of religion), suggests that there may be something to this. Andy Newberg, MD at the University of Pennsylvania has found that both in meditating monks and in praying nuns, areas of the brain important in concentration and attention were activated, while areas that govern how a person relates to the external world were deactivated. These findings may suggest that for people who practice meditation or prayer, the focus becomes less on the self as a distinct entity from the external world, and more on connection between the two.  This reflects the idea discussed earlier where shifting attention from inside to outside is at least part of what quells unhappiness.

These findings on meditation and prayer are fascinating. If you would like to read the original article, you will read about smoking as a way of coping, and how addictions that are intended for coping with unhappiness or stress actually cause MORE unpleasantness.

Want to Be Happier? Stay in the Moment

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The Paradox of Happiness:

Even though the conditions of our lives have improved dramatically, we haven’t actually gotten any happier..

Happiness has a lot to do with the contents of our moment to moment experiences

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To be happy, we have to be completely immersed and focused on our experience

…in the moment.

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Matt Killingsworth’s experimental data suggests that people are much happier when they are focused in the moment, and less happy when their minds wander.

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In other words,

Mind-wandering -> Unhappiness

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By developing a scientific understanding of happiness,

we  can more consciously create a future that is richer, healthier, and happier

=D

When considering Manifestation and the Law of Attraction,

if you’re happy most of the time,

you attract more events, people, and experiences

that make you feel happy.

With gratitude comes happiness and with happiness comes gratitude.

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gratitude happiness

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” Oprah Winfrey

“Realize that now, in this moment we have more than enough. It’s okay to have dreams, it’s okay to aspire to grow, to learn, to evolve and to achieve big things but it’s also important to celebrate yourself, to celebrate your accomplishments, to celebrate the present moment and to celebrate your life.  With gratitude comes happiness and with happiness comes gratitude.”

check out the full article at PurposeFairy.com

LIKE Alpha Alchemy on FaceBook for even more Leading Edge Personal Development

=)

Practicing Happiness – by T Harv Eker

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If you’re not happy until (fill in the blank)…you’ll never be happy.

…You’ve created the HABIT of attaching your happiness to something outside of you. You’ve created the habit of delaying your happiness until (fill in the blank) happens. This being the case, you’ll never have LASTING happiness.

Learn to be happy now, and still go after the (fill in the blank) that are your dreams and goals.

And if you know anything about the Law of Attraction, you know that being happy now will bring you that (fill in the blank) even faster 😉

 

Another great blog from Harv:

“iStock_000013387204Small1

Practice makes perfect, right? Wrong!

First of all, nothing’s ever perfect. I’d even say you don’t really want anything to be “perfect.” Why not? Well, once you’ve reached it, where else is there to go but backwards or, even worse, nowhere?

No, the point of practice isn’t perfection. We want to strive for perfection, yes, but that’s only going to work if you understand that it’s not just about the destination but the journey as well. That’s why it helps to look at the process when it comes to those outcomes we’re reaching for. Because what would be the point of getting to where you always wanted to be if you’re beat up and worn out by the time you get there? Where’s the happiness in that?

Happiness is a process as much as an outcome. Don’t get me wrong – a hard-earned victory is awesome. But think about it; should happiness in life be restricted to success in finances, or business, or career, or the attainment of goals?

We have all been there at some point in our lives, saying something like, “If only I had [fill in the blank], I’d be so much happier.” Hey, sometimes we may even get whatever it is we think will make us happy, but what usually ends up happening? We’re psyched for a little while—if at all—and then we find out it wasn’t really enough to make us as happy as we thought it would. There’s always more.

You can work your butt off to get to where you want to be by practicing your delivery, your backhand swing, your investment strategies—you can practice anything until you get it down, but that doesn’t mean things are always going to turn out perfectly. Practice doesn’t make perfect.

Practice becomes habit, and habits become permanent unless we consciously change them. We’re practicing something all the time through our habits, even when we’re not really thinking about it. If you practice the thought that “I’ll be happy when [fill in the blank] happens,” then guess what? You’re always delaying your happiness until [fill in the bank] happens. Not because things will never be great, but because you’ve become a master at being unhappy. Unhappiness will be your habit!

You have to practice being happy no matter what is going on in life; whether you win or lose, succeed or experience temporary setbacks, whether everything is the way you have always dreamed or if you are still on the road to your next major destination.

Practice whatever you want to be in the future now. If you want to be more patient and less reactionary, then practice patience now. If you want to be a manager of your own personal wealth, start managing your finances now no matter how much money you earn. If you want to be successful, then practice being successful now. Start small. Engage in things that you’re already good at and challenge yourself to be better, even if it’s just in small increments.

The key is to enjoy the process and the journey. We can have moments of perfection, times where we wouldn’t want a single thing to change, but it’s unfair and unrealistic to ask that of life all the time. But it’s totally within our control to practice being whatever we want to be right now!

So now it’s your turn:  What are you going to practice right now?  What’s that one thing you want to achieve and are willing to enjoy the process while making it a habit?”

 

“Playground Wisdom” on Happiness

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“Watch this video and revisit happiness in its simplest and most genuine form. The light hearted kind that delights you. The tiny gesture that puts a smile on your face. The one that fills your heart with warmth in seconds. The type that revives the kid in you and reminds you of who you are.

Check out more of the amazing music that was kindly provided in this video by: http://www.lullatone.com.”

 

-from FinerMinds =)

The Healer’s Diary: Success Stories of Mind/Body Healing

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The Healer’s Diary is a free downloadable PDF that presents numerous Success Stories of Those Who Healed Themselves and Their Loved Ones, from the Silva Method =)

…everything about that sentence is profoundly amazing and inspiring.

Success stories in the Healer’s Diary include using the powers of mind to help:

-quit smoking…after 2 weeks of practice

-remove tumors…after 6 months of practice

-overcome depression

-bring health and happiness back into your life

-help a loved one overcome cancer

-heal skin conditions

-end stuttering and boost confidence

-spontaneous healing of grapefruit sized tumor

-lose a lot of weight, reduce blood pressure, and eliminate sleep apnea

-cope with Chemo3

-overcome severe insomnia

-get off medication

-heal a 30 year heart defect

-cure a terminal case of hepatitis

-come back to life after paralysis

-get rid of thyroid nodules

-stop panic attacks

-control diet

-lose weight

Go here to download the Healer’s Diary

=)