Being happy is important for our own health and well-being, but it is also important for the happiness of people around us. To be a more, helpful, caring, loving parent, for example, we need to be happy in ourselves. To be more productive at work, we need to be happy and have our minds focused. To have a healthy relationship with someone else, we need to have a healthy relationship with ourselves as well. So here are some ways that you can keep yourself happy to benefit yourself and those around you.
Exercise
When you exercise your body, you are making sure that your mind is kept happy and active too. That’s because even a little exercise can help to reduce stress levels – a walk (albeit a brisk one) around the block is enough in many cases to re-set your thinking, lower the cortisol hormone in your body, and replace it with serotonin and endorphins. If you think you don’t have time to exercise, try setting your alarm just 10 minutes early and going for a walk after your breakfast. This will make you feel happy and positive for the day ahead, and it will help to keep you fit and healthy.
Keep Your Appointments
It can be tempting not to keep appointments when it comes to our health, but they are so important, not to mention the fact that someone else could have the appointment if we decide not to go. If you’re feeling unwell, the doctor is the best person to speak to, even if you’re worried that you might be wasting their time; it’s far better to be told there is nothing wrong than to put off seeing someone and allow the outcome to become a lot more serious.
Other appointments can be made regularly so that you are checked over to ensure that nothing untoward is happening. These include visiting the dentist and optometrist. Your dentist will be able to spot signs of gum disease, for example, and your optometrist will notice if you need a new prescription for your contact lenses. If that is the case, you can buy new ones online; there is more info here. Making and keeping these regular check-up appointments will ensure that you are kept in good shape.
Meditation
Enjoying some medication once a day is another way to keep yourself happy. It need only take 10 minutes or so, and you just have to find a quiet spot where you can sit and let your mind go black. Relax and calm yourself, concentrating on your breathing, so that you can prepare for the day ahead. Taking these few moments to yourself at the start of the day means that you can re-align your thinking and stay in a positive frame of mind, to begin with. This will make any challenges that come your way much easier to deal with, and they won’t distract you or stress you so much.
Write A Journal
Writing your thoughts and feelings down is a massively therapeutic thing to do, and you can be sure that whatever you write in your journal is yours and yours alone to know about, so you really can be honest and write what you feel. This could be your thoughts and feelings; it could be things you are grateful for in your life, it could be what you are worried about, or even what you wish for in the future. Taking a few minutes to write all this down before bed each night will relieve your mind of thinking about it, and therefore will ensure you have a better night’s sleep, which in turn will make you happier the next day.
Read
Reading is another great way to make yourself happy. Reading is actually a kind of meditation, in that you won’t be thinking of your own concerns and worries when you are enjoying a good book, but will instead have a mind full of the writing itself. This is the ideal way to get away from ‘real life’ for a little while, and it also allows your mind to heal itself so that by the time you do come back to reality, you are more able to find solutions to your problems. It doesn’t even have to be a book – you can enjoy a magazine or newspaper too. Anything that means you can escape for a while and let your mind be free.
Get In Touch With Friends
Life has a habit of getting in the way somewhat, and that means that we can easily lose touch with our friends, even if we were once extremely close. By getting in touch with these old friends – ideally through the telephone, but email or other methods will work as well – we can make ourselves wonderfully happy. The years will fall away and any worries about career and family, for example, will be forgotten as you relive the past together.
Have Some Me Time
‘Me time’ is important for everyone every now and then. We are all so busy that there hardly ever seems time to just be alone, doing something we enjoy. However, this can be the ideal way to keep us happy, and for our mental state to be repaired, so you should never think of this me time as selfish – it is actually a good thing for you to do, and it is a good thing for your loved ones too. You could be anything from go to a spa to listening to music to having a short power nap.
Unplug
As great as technology is, sometimes it can make us feel very unhappy indeed. If you find that the first thing you do in the morning is reach for your smartphone to check in on your emails or social media, and then you feel down because the news is all bad, people are complaining (or boasting) or that email you were hoping for hasn’t yet come through, try not checking at all. Leave your phone in another room altogether and only pick it up once you have awakened, perhaps mediated, maybe exercised, had your breakfast and you’re ready to start the day.