Imagine a lovely rural setting, a cosy nook at your favorite café, at home, or a marvelous place where you regularly go to, taking in pleasure in activities that rekindles fond memories of positive moods. This is why certain activities that we choose to incorporate into our daily lives can actually sparkle the origins of our positive moods.
It may surprise you that when you often engage in activities that promotes positive moods, it not only does wonders for your well-being but also activates successful outcomes at work and delightful living too.
Studies have shown that happy individuals are peculiarly successful across several life dimensions, including friendship, work performance, and health. Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky from the University of California, Riverside (UCR) - Department of Psychology had research the happiness-success link, including if frequent experiences of positive moods (such as joy, interest, and pride, and infrequent negative emotions) could be a precursor of successful outcomes. The research results revealed that happiness is associated with and precedes numerous successful outcomes, as well as behaviors paralleling success. In addition, the experience of positive mood which is the hallmark of well-being, may lead to many of the desirable successes that are valued by the society in the context of work, family and blissful living.
What’s really interesting is not just the linkage of positive feelings towards success. Related research studies by Professor and Psychologist Ed Diener have also found that the relative proportion of time that people felt having a positive mood vs a negative one was actually a good precursor of happiness. Contrastingly, the intensity of positive mood was not really a determinant of happiness over time.
In another words, the more frequently you feel positive moods in a normal range that you are familiar with is surprising more valuable than pursuing intense positive moods. And overall as you engage in frequent positive moods, your well-being may get energized, and it bolsters successful outcomes for you in multiple dimensions including work, friendship, health.
This is how we can already enhance our well-being easily by incorporating these simple activities in our daily lives more frequently and thus invite positive moods to arise:
#1 Rejoice in healthy activities that you are enthusiastic about more frequently. This may include activities like flow endearing hobbies, self-care, developing daily gratitude attitudes
#2 Engage in activities that influence serotonin flow in our brain
#3 Try enticingly new creative pursuits. Check out this previous article on how our readers have also discovered “The Best Way to Grow Our Well-being Effortlessly with Creative Things that We Can Do This Week”.
You may be wondering how we can positively influence serotonin flow in our brain and cultivate positive moods, here’s news that may excite you. This journal article by Simon Young has absolutely useful tips that may just be the best kept secret until now. You may not intuitively believe it, but it involves several tips including these two:
#4 Spending time in a naturally bright environment.
Research has shown that the depletion of amino acid tryptophan which is associated with mood-lowering effects was significantly blocked when the research study was carried out a brightly lighted environment instead of dim light. This is generally in tune with doctors suggesting that people spend more time outdoors as it is beneficial for our overall well-being. If you are wondering how much of outdoor time should we have in a week, our recent article on “How to Determine are You Having Enough Time in the Nature for Well-being" could be an alluring discovery for you.
#5 Exercise, including exercise to moderately fatigue, as both are associated with an increase in tryptophan.
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