Another thing I set out to research was what being happy does to us. We all know that being happy lightens our mood and brightens our day. However, what does it do beneath those two? Through my research, I found these two things that really uncover the hidden benefits of being happy. Hopefully this will change your outlook on how much your mood affects what you do.

First of all, let’s look at what negative thoughts do to our brain.

Negative thoughts can include a lot, but for now, we’ll narrow it down to fear, anger, and stress. What negative thoughts really do are limit the choices your brain “gives” you. For example, lets say you go out into the wild and see a lion. The first thing in your mind is to run as it’s our natural instinct. However, there were many other options you could have chosen, like grab a stick or climb a tree, but your brain limits your thoughts.

To summarize: Negative thoughts narrow one’s thinking and limit the options they can come up with.

With that in mind, lets go back to the two things that happiness does to us on a deeper level.

1. Opens Up the Mind

The first thing that happiness does to you is open up your mind, therefore creating more possibilities for the same problem. Barbara Fredrickson, a psychology reader at the University of North Carolina conducted an experiment for this very purpose, and the results were as astonishing to me as it might be to you.

To start the experiment, she divided her subjects into groups of 5 and showed each group a different kind of video, which would elicit positive or negative emotions. However, one group served as the control group, and were shown neutral clips. Afterward, she asked each person to think of a situation where the same feelings would come up and to write down how they would proceed. They each got a piece of paper with 20 blank lines that began with the phrase, “I would like to…” Participants who were shown the negative clips wrote down the fewest. The participants who saw the positive clips, however, wrote down the highest number of responses that they would consider.

This goes to show how much of an impact positive thoughts can really help you.

2. Can Help Save your Life

Being happy can have a part in saving your life too. It may sound weird at first, but it really can. Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center found that people who mostly had positive outlooks in their life (upbeat, enthusiastic, and content with their life) had a lower chance at heart disease than their counterparts with sour outlooks at life. Who knows, it could end up being very useful later in our lives. It also goes to show how much of an impact happiness has on our lives. Who would have of thought that happiness can prevent something as big as heart disease?

Hopefully, this can help you see the various effects of happiness. It’s really interesting how something so simple as being happy can have effects like opening up our minds and possibly saving our lives. I really hope these new studies can really help the world become a much happier place.

To end, here are some fun facts about general happiness:

• The happiest occupations are: Clergyman, Actor, Architect, Fireman
• America is actually the 16th happiest country. Iceland takes the honor as number 1.
• Happiness actually varies with the temperature. Happiness is maxed at 13.9 Celsius or 57 Fahrenheit.
• The hippocampus is the area responsible for happiness and positive memories.

About Sumukh Setty:

Sumukh is a budding author (First Book: What We Wish We Could Do At School). You can follow him on Twitter at @SumukhSetty.

Sources

Happiness May be Different for Each Person

How Positive Thoughts Build Skills

Photo Creds to EEPaul on Flickr