Most people think that happiness – or lack of it – is a matter of luck and circumstance. But you have the power to be happier this year.
“You can actively create happiness with your actions,” says Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of California-Riverside and a colleague of the University of Pennsylvania’s Martin Seligman, Ph.D., founder of the discipline known as “positive psychology.”
The bonus? Happy people are generally healthier than others and often live longer, according to a 2008 joint study by the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha and Erasmus University in the Netherlands.
That may be because happy people see more options in life and deal with adversity and stress more effectively, researchers conclude.
Follow these 11 tips, and you could be on your way to having your happiest – and healthiest – new year ever.
1. Raise your default happiness level.
Genes determine 50% of your reactions to life-changing circumstances – good or bad – according to Lyubomirsky’s research over the past 20 years, which she describes in her book The How of Happiness (Penguin Press). That means your baseline happiness level tends to stay within a certain range.
Read the remainder of this article from Lifescript.com.
