Happiness begins at....

[rubato]

Happiness is mostly biologically determined.

Overall you have an equilibrium level of happiness which can be shifted up or down by events, you get a promotion, someone whose opinion matters to you pays you a compliment, a pet dies, your car is stolen &c, but most people will return to their usual setpoint after a while. IIR there was some published research which showed this back in the later 1990s.

yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

I wouldn't think "mostly", though I'd be interested in reading that paper.

From what I can see, no researchers isolate the biological from the social.

[The Hen]

Well you certainly seem to have an unnatural chirpiness to your nature. You are consistently boyishly optimistic about situations and dismiss negatives very easily.

It can be most irritating on a Sunday morning.

That surely can't be assigned to your upbringing or adoptive parents attitude towards things. So, has it come from your biological parents, or is it something you cultivated yourself as a rebellion towards Llanelli?

[Gob]

Well you certainly seem to have an unnatural chirpiness to your nature. You are consistently boyishly optimistic about situations and dismiss negatives very easily.

It can be most irritating on a Sunday morning.

That surely can't be assigned to your upbringing or adoptive parents attitude towards things. So, has it come from your biological parents, or is it something you cultivated yourself as a rebellion towards Llanelli?

I don't know, but to go along with rubato's theory, I'm wondering if I suffer from "anti-depression". I've always been happy. Even when I was unhappy, I was happy, if that's possible.

Trite as it may sound;

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Has a degree of usefulness. If you remove the "God" and substitute "I will".

I've certainly no problems with my attitude to life, it's served me well for 50+ years, and I am in no way in any hurry at all to change it.


Here's an interesting site.

http://www.thehappinessinstitute.com/

[Gob]

Where's Lord Jim?

Live in the world of possibilities

Former president Ronald Regan had a standing rule in his staff meetings.

Staffers were never permitted to say; "that will not work because". Instead every new idea was approached with the concept "This will work if..."

Challenge yourself to adopt a similar attitude and avid thinking in terms of problems that need to overcome. Instead focus on ways to make your dreams and ideas possible.

http://ezinearticles.com/?10-Every-Day- ... &id=348135

[loCAtek]

Ok, Gob I officially hate you.

[Sean]

KRYTEN: Quite extraordinary. Lanstrom (a doctor) postulated that there are two kinds of virus. Positive and negative. The negative we already know about.

LISTER: Yeah, like the flu, rabies, that kind of stuff.

KRYTEN: But she also believed that there are positive viral strains which actually make human beings feel better.

CAT: Such as?

KRYTEN: Well, at a very basic level she predicted a kind of ‘reverse flu’ - a strain of virus which promotes an unaccountable feeling of well-being and happiness.

LISTER: That's happened to me! Me life's been turned to complete and utter crud, and I've woken up in the morning feeling good for no apparent reason!

KRYTEN: The chances are, sir, that on those occasions you had unwittingly contracted Lanstrom's virus. According to her notes, twentieth-century DJs suffered from it all the time.

[@meric@nwom@n]

My husband is unnaturally cheerful and optimistic. I have seen him sad but never depressed. I have always thought it was is biochemical makeup.

[Miles]

I turned 60 last december. The unfortunate side of this is my health, which is piss poor at best. However I won't be sitting on the stoop wishing I had done things differently. I may still be sitting on the stoop but I will have a smile on my face remembering all the things I did do.

[tyro]

I feel pretty good most of the time. I like the way it visibly annoys other people, especially the ones that don’t like me.

Their annoyance makes me happy, and so I feel pretty good.

[Guinevere]

Happiness is mostly biologically determined.

Overall you have an equilibrium level of happiness which can be shifted up or down by events, you get a promotion, someone whose opinion matters to you pays you a compliment, a pet dies, your car is stolen &c, but most people will return to their usual setpoint after a while. IIR there was some published research which showed this back in the later 1990s.

yrs,
rubato

A gross oversimplification. Mood is biologically influenced. Seratonin levels (or lack thereof) in all of us influence our moods which can impact "happiness" to some degree. Men have more seratonin than women; younger women have more seratonin than older women (levels can be related to estrogen levels); sunshine and light can influence seratonin levels, so people living in San Diego probably have more than people living in Seattle.

So it makes sense that a male living in Australia, who gets outside a lot (Gob) has a generally positive mood when compared to say a female over 50 living in Ohio, who works long hours indoors (@W). But does that make him happier -- too subjective to say, I think.

[Crackpot]

Indiana not Ohio

[@meric@nwom@n]

From the sound of it Gob works long hours inside as well. I likely get outside as much as he does. I suspect that his job, working with loonies, is no less stressful than mine, though likely not as physical.

[Guinevere]

@W, I wasn't picking at you, and I would have chosen myself as the example but I'm not over 50 FWIW, it seems to me (and obviously I don't know but I'm explaining my thought process) that Gob works a bunch he also gets far more time off than we do.

As I said, I don't think just biology is responsible for our "happiness," its far more complex than that, but seratonin levels can influence how we feel and react.

[loCAtek]

Perhaps, most antidepressants basically allow the brain to use it's own serotonin.

[Gob]

Cor, here' a blast from the past.

on: September 05, 2003, 10:10:36 AM

I suffer from being over happy. Well, when I say suffer, I mean benefit obviously. I have known few people as happy as myself. Even when I was in the depth of despair a few years back, I was still thinking positively, and was cheerful after a fashion. It was all rather confusing.

At one point I became a goth, as listening to their morbid, bass heavy, droning, doom, gloom, death and disaster music took the edge of my over abundance of good humour.

Since moving to Oz my condition has become worse, or better, depending how you look at it.

Those of you who read my occasional letters home, serialised here as "This is Australia"*, may get the impression that I career from disaster to distaster, aleviated by the occasional cock up. This isn't far from the truth. But it's the way in which these disasters are put into perspective, and the humour in them brought out and cherished that makes the difference.

Here's an example;

I waited for hours, then I got to the counter. I showed my Brit license and my pass certificate to the girl behind the counter. “Oooh, never done this before”, she said. Nor had the girl in the booth next to her, or the supervisor. Anyway, they got the idea sorted eventually. I nearly got accredited for a full motorbike license as well, by mistake. Bugger, that would have been handy.

So then she said, “put your eye’s against the viewer in front of you”. An eye test? I shat it. My eyes are good enough for driving, but not for tests. Fortunately they let me keep my glasses on.

So, after punching a hole in my Brit license to stop me having two licenses to play with, I got an Ozzie driving license.

Right! I headed out to the car for my first “proper” burn as an Ozzie driver, and found I’d left the lights on, and the battery was now flat. Fuck my luck.

I stopped an elegant woman in a big Lexus. “You wouldn’t mind giving me a jump start would you, I’ve got all the cables, it won’t take two ticks!” I don’t know if it was the accent, the desperation, or well… me just being me… but she reversed away at some speed.

I got a jump-start eventually, and drove home slowly.

Now then, I could have wrote it thus;

I waited for hours, and bloody hours. I showed my Brit license and my pass certificate to the girl behind the counter. She didn't have a clue what to do, typical. Nor had the girl in the booth next to her, or the supervisor. Why to they employ these incompetant twats? I nearly got accredited for a full motorbike license as well, by mistake. Just my fucking luck that I didn't. Ha, I'd only have gone and killed myself on a motorbike in any case.

So then she said, “put your eye’s against the viewer in front of you”. An eye test? Why? What for? Just more bloody beaurocracy. Are they all accredited opticians there? My eyes are good enough for driving. With my glasses on I passed.

Right, finished at last. I headed out to the car for my first legal drive as an Ozzie driver, and found I’d left the lights on, and the battery was now flat. Fuck my luck.

I stopped an elegant woman in a big Lexus. “You wouldn’t mind giving me a jump start would you, I’ve got all the cables, it won’t take two ticks!” She sped off, the ignorant cow. Why are people all so selfish?

I got a jump-start eventually, and drove home slowly, cursing the test, the test centre, and Ozzies in general.

Not quite as good a read I think? (You may think differently)

So what the fuck am I whittering on about here?

Well scientists have just proved what I believe, and have used as a part of my therapeutic interactions with clients for years.

More importantly I use it as my script for life, and hope to infuse the Hen & Hatch with it.


Be happy, be well. Make your own happiness, don't treat it as a matter of chance.

Last Updated: Monday, 1 September, 2003, 23:03 GMT 00:03 UK

Negative thoughts 'make you ill'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3198935.stm

Having negative thoughts really could make you more illness-prone, say scientists. A study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences links "negative" brain activity with a weakened immune system.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison studied people with high levels of brain activity in a region linked to negative thoughts. Those with the highest activity levels responded worse to a flu vaccine.

Scientists already knew that pessimists - people rated as more sensitive to negative events - show more activity in a part of the brain called the right pre-frontal cortex. More activity in the left pre-frontal cortex is linked to positive emotional responses.


Dr Richard Davidson, who led the research, studied 52 people aged between 57 and 60. Each of them was asked to recall one event which made them feel very happy, and one which left them feeling sad, afraid or angry. The electrical activity in these parts of the brain was measured to check whether their left or right pre-frontal cortex was more active.

Afterwards, each volunteer was given a standard flu vaccine shot. Vaccines work by eliciting an immune response which should hopefully persist and help the body tackle a genuine infection threat if it should arrive. Each research subject was tested over the following six months to gauge the success of the vaccine by measuring the levels of antibodies generated by the vaccine.

Those who had shown the most powerful right pre-frontal cortex activity also had the worst immune reactions. The reverse was true for those who had the most powerful reactions in their left pre-frontal cortex, the side associated with happy reactions.

Dr Davidson said: "Emotions play an important role in modulating bodily systems that influence our health. "We turned to the brain to understand the mechanisms by which the mind influences the body."

[Crackpot]

the format is fucked for that post

[Gob]

Fixed it!

[rubato]

Happiness is mostly biologically determined.

Overall you have an equilibrium level of happiness which can be shifted up or down by events, you get a promotion, someone whose opinion matters to you pays you a compliment, a pet dies, your car is stolen &c, but most people will return to their usual setpoint after a while. IIR there was some published research which showed this back in the later 1990s.

yrs,
rubato

A gross oversimplification. Mood is biologically influenced. Seratonin levels (or lack thereof) in all of us influence our moods which can impact "happiness" to some degree. Men have more seratonin than women; younger women have more seratonin than older women (levels can be related to estrogen levels); sunshine and light can influence seratonin levels, so people living in San Diego probably have more than people living in Seattle.

So it makes sense that a male living in Australia, who gets outside a lot (Gob) has a generally positive mood when compared to say a female over 50 living in Ohio, who works long hours indoors (@W). But does that make him happier -- too subjective to say, I think.

Saying that it is "mostly" due to biochemistry is less ignorantly reductionist than attributing it all to serotonin. One tiny factor in all of the things which make up human biochemistry.

yrs,
rubato