Easy, Fun Ways To Be Happier

What if I told you there were some fun activities that actually change your brain to see the world in a more positive light? Would you be interested in trying one or more?

Shawn Achor has done a wonderful job distilling much of the positive psychology research into a few simple actions to do on a daily basis to literally change the neural connections in your brain enabling you to view life more positively.

1. Meditate. Meditation is disconnecting from your thoughts. One of my favorite analogies is that of smell. When you walk into a room and smell a scent that is not pleasing, you stop smelling. In other words you detach from the smell. With meditation you practice detaching from your thoughts. You may want to start with one or two minutes at a time. If your mind wanders to a thought, just detach from it. There are many meditation training apps or guided meditation on Youtube.
2. Conscious Acts of Kindness: Many of us are doing kind things for people on a daily basis. We often don’t even notice we are doing kind things throughout the day. Start to notice and forget expectations. Reach out to a friend and ask how their day is going, hold the door open for someone, in your mind remind yourself this is an act of kindness, and don’t expect a thank you.
3. Exercise: Exercise is so beneficial to our bodies and minds. If you are exercise aversive think of ways to have fun physically. Find something you enjoy doing that is physical and do that. There are always ways to incorporate ways to get more activity in our day; park away from entrances of buildings, take the stairs, use a bathroom that is far from your desk or even better, go to another floor to use the bathroom and take the stairs, make a game out of doing housework incorporating jumping jacks or lunges or exercise during the commercials if you are watching television. Make sure you are in good enough shape for the activity you are doing an work at your fitness level. Most important, HAVE FUN!!
4. Journal: This doesn’t have to be long daily entries but is does need to be positive. Try one prompt for a week like, Today I was most proud when. . . or Today I knew life was good when. . .  Again, have fun with it.  
5. Appreciations: This is fun to do as a family around the dinner table if you have the luxury of eating together. Everyone has a chance to share three good things that happened in the day. Using a one to ten scale, ten being lottery winning (or anything that would bring you great happiness), these appreciations (I like to call them happies) may be the ones, two and threes. Some of my favorite I find in nature like beautiful flowers, wildlife, and taking walks. It is also pretty great when my favorite song comes on the radio when I am driving, my lunch just hits the spot or dinner is extra delicious.

Doing any or all of these activities on a daily basis will help your mind rewire to see more positive in each day.

A bonus, you can share your appreciations of a loved one with a loved one on a daily basis. We always like to hear how we are appreciated and we focus on the positives of the loved one. It is a win-win for every relationship (romantic partners, roommates, children or friends).

Feel free to comment below on how you are using some of these tools to enrich your life.