Feeling better inside will make the outside better too!

Posted on January 2, 2010 
Filed Under High School Reunion Diet Blog

The High School Reunion Diet can help you get in shape and feel great about yourself before your reunion. However, if you need an extra happiness boost, follow these tips by Jackie Silver and help your brain as much as you’re helping your body.

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Many people include “finding true love” on their New Year’s resolutions list. If you’re looking for your “soul mate” or even if you’re already in a relationship, you can only make things better for both you and your significant other if you’re happy within yourself and not dependent on someone else to “make” you happy. In fact, studies show that happily married couples live longer, healthier lives than single people. So, how can you “make yourself happy” if it doesn’t come naturally? Try these tips for a new attitude that just may make you and those around you smile more.

Aging Backwards Happy Tips:

1. Volunteer - Numerous scientific studies show that acts of kindness can result in significant mental and physical health benefits. Helping can bring on a rush of euphoria, followed by a longer period of calm, often called a “helper’s high” that releases the body’s natural painkiller, endorphins, thus reversing feelings of depression, hostility and stress. The greater the frequency of volunteering, the greater the health benefits.

Keep these statistics in mind: 

  • Personal contact with the people being helped is important.
  • Helper’s high results most from helping people we don’t know (not just family members!).
  • Regular club attendance, volunteering, entertaining or faith group attendance can be the happiness equivalent of getting a college degree or more than doubling your income.

2. Fake a Smile - Charles Schaefer, psychology professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey, found in his research that even self-imposed smiling and forced laughter can boost mood and psychological well-being tremendously. “Phony laughter works because your body doesn’t know it’s fake, even though your brain might,” he says. “Once the brain signals the body to laugh, the body doesn’t care why. It’s going to release endorphins; it’s going to relieve stress as a natural physiological response to the physical act of laughing,” he adds.

3. Express Gratitude, Often - According to Tal Ben-Shahar, author and lecturer at Harvard University, “We too often take our lives for granted. Learn to appreciate and savor the wonderful things in life, from people to food, from nature to a smile.” He currently teaches the largest course at Harvard on “Positive Psychology” and the third largest on “The Psychology of Leadership” – with a total of over 1,400 students.

Once you find your own inner happiness, you’ll be surprised at how other areas in your life will start to blossom. You’ll treat others differently, people will react differently to you and you could take your romantic relationship to a whole new level.

Guest Blogger Jackie Silver’s Bio:

Jackie Silver is Aging Backwards and she shares her secrets, tips and shortcuts in her book, Aging Backwards: Secrets to Staying Young, on her Web site, on TV, on radio, in print and in person. She is the anti-aging expert on the syndicated television show, Daytime, one half of The Ageless Sisters radio show and a weekly columnist with The Tampa Tribune. Silver is sought-after as an anti-aging and beauty expert by the media as well as a speaker and coach who combines her natural reporter’s curiosity with her desire to help others look and feel young.

Sign up for her free newsletter at AgingBackwards and follow her on Twitter: @Aging Backwards for more tips!

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