Take care of your body

And then we come to the last of the 12 happiness-enhancing strategies of the scientific work of Sonja Lyubomirsky: taking care of your body! Make sure you get enough sleep. Move at least 150 minutes per week. And another fun one: laugh often! All of which are scientifically proven to have a positive result on your happiness. What can you improve in this area in the new year?

 

Practising religion and spirituality

Scientific research done by Sonja Lyuomirsky shows that practising religion and spirituality contributes to sustainable happiness. It is the eleventh happiness enhancing strategy. Practising can be done by getting (more) involved in a faith community and by reading and pondering about books containing a spiritual topic. In this Advent season we see Christmas coming. Many churches organize services and other activities. In the Bible it says: "The virgin will be with child and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which means, God with us" (Matthew 1:23). To experience that God is with us, is something that really makes us happy is my experience. Do you want to talk more about it? Please feel free to contact me.

 

Commit to your goals

A tenth happiness enhancing strategy is going for your goals. Determine 1, 2 or 3 goals that are important to you and spend time and effort to achieve them. What is your top 3 of goals that you want to achieve? To what do you want to commit in your life right now?

Enjoy life!

The ninth happiness activity: enjoy life! The definition of enjoying is "Every thought or conduct which is able to give joy or to intensify or prolong it.

Which thought or doing what gives you joy?

Strengthen flow experiences

An eighth sustainable happiness activity is to experience more flow. Flow is a state of being intensely immersed and involved in the present moment. Those are the moments when you completely forget about time. Usually, these are the moments in which you are challenged and where you have to make an effort and use (all) your skills. Take a look at the picture below. Do you have that kind of moments? In your work? At home? How can you enhance this experience? What is needed for that?