Managing Happiness

If you’re in pain (physical, financial, emotional), how do you deal with it? When you’re having an unhappy day, what process do you initiate to find happiness?

A certain mindset is necessary to manage the daily fluctuations of happiness & pain. Being a survivor of chronic pain (arthritis in 13 joints all over my body, including toes), I am very experienced at managing it. My #1 rule: focus on the happiness in your life to get through the pain.

This page is an attempt to share with you, fellow humans, my process of finding & managing happiness. If it benefits you in any way (puts a smile on your face, inspires or motivates, etc.) please leave a comment below, it’ll lessen my pain. Thank you for reading, this is my 4-step protocol for Managing Happiness:

1. Quantify your happiness
2. Find inspiration
3. Start looking for happiness – easy or not-so-easy ways
4. Still struggling? Use science to find happiness

How are you today?

Quantify Your Happiness

• Use a 1-10 scale to know where you’re at

• Use Twitter to Track Your Happiness

Inspiration

• Chicago Ideas Week: Quotes for Change – we all need inspiration to make those tough decisions in life. Start with these quotes from superstars of humanity

Simple Ways to Find Happiness

• 10 Tips About Life, People & Happiness – a consolidated list from @Julien’s list of 100 Tips.
• A Time To Hug - one way to find a happy place
• New Research Suggests: find happiness by giving - Give, accept, reciprocate…
• Create Good Karma - find happiness by being kind to others, and others will be kind to you
• Volunteer – scientific research suggests that volunteering leads to better health, therefore happiness

Abstract Ways to Find Happiness

• The Benefits of Randomness - finding a way out of a jam (boredom, traffic, or a bad day)
• Tom’s Happy Melody of the Week – a list of You Tube’d songs that Tom uses to cheer up
• Chimpanzees: the grandparents of society - the benefit of learning from and protecting the past
• The Bohr Model of Friends - managing energy levels and relationships
• The Therapy of Writing - documenting your life to identify patterns & trends, problems & solutions
• Meditation and Neuroplasticity – you can change your brain.

The Science Behind Happiness

• Happiness Research – scientists all over the world are studying happiness. These are some of their reports.