Fox Carolina - 2015 Healthy Lifestyles

When happy
becomes sad

It’s the time of year when temperatures have dropped and many of us become sluggish, pack on pounds, and want to crawl into a cave until spring. For as many as

6 percent of Americans that urge becomes crippling. They have SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder. Such seasonal mayhem is caused by shortened and delayed sunlight hours. Light and darkness are connected to mood. As our brain waits to receive the morning light and that light comes later, our body’s timing pushes later and we have difficulty waking. You can help prevent the doldrums with early morning exercise (at first light so your body gets more sun) and a healthy diet. If that doesn’t help, your doctor may suggest medication or a light therapy box, which uses intense rays to trick the body into thinking it’s summer.

FAKE IT Research shows that going through the motions can trigger emotions. So smile at passersby until your grin becomes genuine. Approach your workday with a jaunty step until you actually get caught up in real enthusiasm.

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS It may sound hokey and old-fashioned, but it works. People who keep a gratitude journal, pausing each day to list three things that they’re thankful for, are happier and healthier.

ASK OTHERS WHAT MAKES THEM HAPPY By asking people about happiness, you encourage them to stop what they are doing and reflect on what is meaningful. And it’s contagious. It’s almost impossible to hear about someone’s happiness without being caught up in it yourself.

SEEK HELP Don’t let depression go untreated. See your doctor.

Happiness is healthy. One study from the University of California, Berkeley found that female grads with genuine smiles in yearbooks went on to have more satisfying marriages and a greater sense of well-being. And the University of Kentucky found that 90 percent of those in the most positive quarter of the novices at the School Sisters of Notre Dame were still alive at age 85, versus only a third of the least positive 25 percent. So much for the old adage about the good dying young.

Can you embrace bliss, even if it seems as if you’re more down than up lately? Happily, the answer is yes. “Happiness is rather like a cholesterol level—influenced genetically, but also by things we can do,” says David Myers, psychology professor at Holland, Michigan’s Hope College and author of The Pursuit of Happiness.

Remember, though, not to overthink it. Don’t make happiness itself the goal. Instead, concentrate on its main ingredients: solid relationships, gratitude, and that magical thing called hope.

ɋ NURTURE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS Research repeatedly shows that people’s happiest experiences come from intimate relationships—friends, family, spouses.

ɋ LEARN TO APPRECIATE You can sustain the feel-good by savoring things. The ability to see ordinary things with a sense of wonder is essential to contentment.

ɋ BE KIND Positive events lead to further kindness. That’s what a Cornell University study found when researchers gave chocolate chip cookies to half the students in the library. When student volunteers deliberately dropped books on the floor, the people given cookies were much more likely to help those whose books fell.