Measure Happiness Try These Tests Yourself

How do scientists measure happiness? There are lots of tools out there, but they all take 3 basic approaches. Try these happiness tests yourself to explore what makes you happier.
How do scientists measure happiness? There are lots of tools out there, but they all take 3 basic approaches. Try these happiness tests yourself to explore what makes you happier.

Scientists have a challenge measuring happiness because, to some extent, happiness is like beauty- it is in the eye of the beholder. Feelings like happiness are subjective and we can never really know if other people experience happiness the way we do. Dr. Daniel Gilbert, a happiness researcher in positive psychology and the author of the book Stumbling on Happiness, acknowledges this. He explains that individual responses vary, but large numbers of people tend to respond in similar ways. So, if a person thinks she is happy, she probably is. This leads to the first approach to happiness tests:
1. Ask People How Happy They Are
There are lots of tools that use this approach the measure happiness. One of the most common is the life satisfaction survey. This is a short series of questions that ask people to rate their satisfaction with life on a scale of 1 to 7 or 1 to 10. Much of the information collected on the circumstances that lead to happiness was gathered using this approach. This approach can
Survey
One way to measure happiness is to ask people how happy they are.
also be used to test many other characteristics of happiness. You can try a simple example by writing a number on a piece of paper from 1 to 10 to represent your level of happiness at that moment. Then engage in an activity or think about something else for a while before asking yourself the same question. If you answered differently after the activity, then you have just measured a change in your happiness level based on what you did in between. On his website, www.authentichappiness.com, Dr. Martin Seligman , one of the founders of the positive psychology movement, has several free happiness tests. You can even track differences in your scores over time and your results become part of his research.
2. Observe Happy People
Susan McMillin
A Genuine Smile
Some of the early happiness research is based on a study that followed women from the 1960 Mills College year book. The researchers studied the pictures and picked out the women who had “genuine� smiles that involved the muscles around their eyes as well as their mouths, then followed all the women through their lives. The women with the genuine smiles were more likely to be happily married, they lived longer, and they consistently reported themselves as happier than the women who didn’t smile. This is just one of many examples where researchers use direct observation to measure happiness levels. This works because much of our body language is unconscious and connected to our thoughts. For example, the muscles around the eyes are very difficult to control voluntarily, but crinkle automatically when a person is genuinely happy. You might observe this approach to measure happiness yourself if you happen to see a picture or video of yourself during a happy period. Or, you might use this approach to judge someone else’s happiness. When people walk with a bounce in their step and a smile on their face we observe that they are happy.
3. Measure Physiology
The EM Wave Heart Monitor
Biofeedback device from the Institute of Heart Math used to help develop a happy state.
Scientists have observed common physical side effects of happiness. From brain waves, to hormone levels, to heart rate and blood pressure, happiness carries markers in the body.

One simple tool that uses this approach is a mood ring. The rings change color with the temperature of your fingers. Warmer hands track to a happier and more relaxed mood. Some companies also make biodots- little stickers you can put on your body to change color with skin temperature.

The Institute for Heart Math has developed an accurate and reasonably priced biofeedback devive called the EM Wave that measures the regularity of heart beats, a proven sign of the physiological state of happiness. This particular machine is very helpful for those who want to learn how to induce a happy state through meditation or skill. There are many forms of biofeedback machines from simple mood rings to machines costing $1000’s and only available through therapists.

Now that you know how to measure happiness, try these techniques to be happier now and see how much of an effect you can have. You can use these happiness tests to find out what works best for you.
http://www.happylifeu.com/Measure-Happiness.html

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How to Be Happy in Life - The 9 Paths to Happiness

Sometimes it appears that life throws more obstacles in our path than we can handle. However, even in the face of the most challenging circumstances, you can make the choice to be happy by following these 9 paths to happiness. 1. Honor Yourself: Remember what the flight attendant says, "Put your own oxygen mask on first." You are of no use to anyone else if you have not taken care of your own needs first - this includes your own emotional, as well as physical, well-being.

2. Forgive Everyone For Everything: Forgiveness is a gift to yourself. YOU created the stress in your life by getting angry, and YOU can instantly remove that stress by granting forgiveness. Expressing your forgiveness to the other is optional - internalizing that forgiveness is required in order to live a joyful life. Don't forget to also forgive yourself for everything you regret ever having done or not done.

3. Have Gratitude For All Of Life: As with forgiveness, gratitude is a gift to yourself. Saying "thank you" is a powerful way to create great relationships, but the real power of gratitude is internalizing an immense thankfulness for your very existence - everything that has ever occurred or failed to occur in your life.

4. Respect Your Mind: Faith is powerful, but it is no substitute for observing, paying attention, weighing alternatives, and choosing with intention. Without conscious choice, there is no freedom or happiness.

5. Design Your Future: Don't be a passive tumbleweed blown by the winds of life. Envision the future you want, and then take action to create that future. Often, you will fail. Plan again and take action again.

6. Begin Today, and Never Give Up: There is no better time to begin than today - each and every "today." When obstacles stop you, think of new ways to reach your goals. In the words of the Oriental proverb, "Fall seven times, stand up eight."

7. Be Of Service To Others By Radiating Happiness: Being of service is one of the greatest paths to happiness, but remember that your greatest service to others is the person that you are, rather than the tasks you accomplish. Your greatest gift to others is to give them happiness, and by far the most powerful way to do that is to be an example of happiness and to radiate that happiness to others.

8. Dance Lightly With Life: Life does not have to be a serious undertaking. You will make mistakes, you will feel regrets, and eventually, you will die - so what? Happiness comes from dancing lightly with life - playing hopscotch on the river of life - leaping gracefully from joy to joy while laughing at the threats of calamity - even laughing hysterically at our human frailness when we do fall into the muddy torrent.

9. Know Unity With Spirit: There are as many ways to connect with Spirit as there are people - each of us has our own way to receive strength and serenity from the Infinite. Your life will be happier if you acknowledge that you are not alone, become open to that presence, and create ritual to celebrate your connection. You may feel your bond with Spirit at the Lord's Supper, in Songs of Praise, in Calls to Prayer, in Meditation, while doing Yoga or Qigong, or while walking in the woods. However you connect with Spirit, do it today.

Sign-Up for Jonathan's Daily Inspiration - Daily Quote email, and read his article : 7 Secrets for a Happy Life.

Jonathan Lockwood Huie is an author of self-awareness books. He has been dubbed "The Philosopher of Happiness" by those closest to him, in recognition of his on-going commitment to seeing Joy in all of life.

Today is your day to dance lightly with life. It really is. - Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jonathan_Huie
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Have you ever thought about killing yourself?

I mean like life kicks you on the balls and you could hardly breathe and you just wish you would die. Every once in a while we get screwed for no reason right? And we struggle to get out, but it seems that somehow we are being pushed to square one. That’s when we get really frustrated yet we know we can’t do anything about that so we just want to quit. I know you all know what I’m about to say, that aint an escape but have you ever really thought about killing yourself seriously?? I mean like questioning yourself “what the hell is behind the curtains?”, what is after this life?

I don’t like to think about stuff like that, that makes me get confused and all, and I don’t believe there is a reason for me to even think about those kind of things. Yet one of my friends got my wheels turning on this, is it just an illusion or Is it just real? Cause if we try to think in a silent room with our eyes closed about ourselves, “where were we before we were born? Where the hell will out thoughts and mind be when we die?” we get a headache (well I did and the one who told me to test it out did) cause we just can’t believe we (our intellect this great mind and reasoning brain with its thoughts) would come to an end.

I know it’s a bit scary to Question about issues related to faith, but isn’t it high time someone just open up a place where we could go and openly ask questions and clarify our doubts without having the fear of being prosecuted. I mean c’mon you can’t stop us from thinking at least have the decency to sit down like man and talk about it.

Yeah I’m too happy to talk about things like this, and this blog post have nothing much about the heading , but these thoughts got me really thinking, its too happy to live what happens after this than???

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Ups and downs

All of us have heard the saying “life is ups n downs” right?. Well back in the old boring stupid gloomy (and whatever horrible thing that comes after that) days I went out for a cup of coffee with a friend, we were talking about how cruel the world we live in is, you know thing don’t always go as we plane and shit always happens and we win if we know how to handle it. After like 40 minutes another friend joined us and he was like the man (at least he likes to think he is), from the very start he denies life is ups and downs he goes on saying life’s only ups, the thing is we just don’t see it.

His idea is You know every down is also an up making ups and downs (which is an up) a life. If you think about it you’d know, for example:  you might want to go somewhere on a holiday and you missed the flight, in your perspective that’s a down, but when something tragic happens to that flight, you’d go “thank god I wasn’t on it” which suddenly makes that down an up. Not always we see that up but the bad things whish happen in our lives are actually plus points for us. Apart from the stupid things we do on purpose like drugs and murders (I guess lol).

So if we understood this and whenever something happens know that it’s for our best it happened, it would be really easy to live and much easy for our heads. Life is something we don’t have control on, whatever we do it goes on, if you can’t beat it go with it.
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Can you please forget about that!!!

You see whenever someone who is close to you make a mistake or somehow hurt you (mostly deliberately) and when you mention it they’d go “honey can you please forget about it” and when they repeat the same thing you would talk about and it they’d go blaming you “hey you said you forgave me and forgot about it”.

You see there are few things we have to understand we humans don’t have silicon chips and transistors and capacitors in our body (except for those few who actually have them). So when something happens we can’t just forget about it like we do a “Shift+ delete” on a computer system. no!! not in this world, that feature was never enabled for us humans, and the fact is not even on a computer system, whatever you do it seems there are people who can “actually” get it recovered.
Especially when we humans get overjoyed or are hurt badly, we humans never forget those moments, it’s like they are carved on to our DNA strains. (if so I guess they might even be passed on to the next generation) so no matter how much our love to someone would keep us quiet, when we experience the same kind of happiness or sorrow, similar moments like that form the past would be recalled by our brain. No matter how much we try not to mention those good moments we had with our ex when we have similar moments we end up upsetting our partner by mentioning the past event.
We should understand this is a common thing in all human beings so we don’t have any right to be mad at our friends or partner about things like this and blame them for “dwelling on the past”. If we know and understand we all have this character and its things which make us really value and appreciate our life. We would have a better understanding and a lovely bond in our relationship, rather than that suspicious look with the thought our partner is always thinking to get in touch with their past.
Life would be pretty boring if we could just forget things when we want or when someone tell us to do so, some of us would not even have a single bit of memory or moment to be happy or to reflect onto.
So stop telling me whenever I point out your fault to forget about it!!! I won’t!!! I’d even blog about it and distribute flyers about it.



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“Happiness”

               After all the name is Ufaaverikan (happiness) so I believe the first post should somehow be relevant to that, afterwards I can write any crap I feel like. Right???

                 Well I’m not an expert on being happy or anything but I believe when you are on something for a long period of time you are eligible to advice on that right???, I’ve been genuinely happy for 20 years consecutively without being sad!! I know that’s hard to believe but that’s the truth, NO!! I’m not 20 years old I’m older than that and yes I’ve been sad and I guess that’s the first few years of my life.

                In my life I’ve come to notice a few things about the place we call earth and the thing we do in our life which we call life or “living” (even if it means trashing others lives). And one of those things is we humans are either running away from some sort of pain or going towards something which we would gain pleasure from, even if it’s for a very little while.

                The behavior of running away from pain or jogging towards pleasure is what we call “life”, for example; in the morning we drag our bodies off our soft cushion beds and away from our wives to go to a job which in most cases are very tiring, boring and also we don’t get that appropriation we deserve, yet we keep going to it over and over again. But why?? The answer is, we suffer everyday for a certain amount of time cause we don’t want to be unemployed and spend our lives on the streets, we don’t want others to look at us as total loser, we simply don’t want our wives to go “why cant you work like everyone else and earn something to keep us warm and our bellies filled, if you don’t I’m leaving” well that’s the reason we got to our boring and painful jobs. Or on the other hands some of us who are a bit fortunate go to their jobs to work for a raise, appropriation, self improvement and to be able to score that big buck “to knock that lovely girl off her feet and make lots and lots of babies with her all the time”.

                In this running and always on the go idea we don’t actually get what we want all the time, it’s very unpleasant and harsh out in the real world. We may be scared of being fired so we are regularly on time for our jobs and yet one day we get fired for some stupid flip. Or that big project we thought would give us that big buck to go to Las Vegas or to Maldives to spend a fancy vacation just didn’t end up the way we planned.

                The answer to these setbacks and  tragedies is very simple, we have to understand each one of us is a single soul and we have to deal with our problems alone no matter how many people are there as our families and friends. We might do things for our families or just for the sake of making our friends smile but does that thing make you happy?? Yeah,  yeah making someone else makes you happy too I know that so how about you sit in front of an asylum and see those old naggers smile at you all day and be happy about that, I guess that’ll keep you warm and filled up.

                I won’t call it being selfish or rude, it’s the only way you can live without being hurt, if you don’t depend on anyone and know your limits and know how to get to your goals on your own, you can be happy for as long as you wants to be, unless you wanted to get married!!!! When you get married that’s another story.
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