15 Simple Steps to Improving Your Personal Happiness
Are you struggling to find happiness in your daily life? Frustrated? Can’t shake yourself out of it?
Sometimes you get stuck facing problem after problem. How do you keep yourself going?
Laying out steps to complete every day and goals for personal happiness is the best place to start.
Personal happiness, like anything else, can improve.
Here are 15 simple steps you can take to improve your personal happiness.
Meditate
Meditation calms your mind from the stress of life. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, anxious or stressed, spending five to ten minutes of meditation a day will help.
Spending time in meditation causes your brain to change. Not only do you feel a physical calming over your body, your body composition alters.
At Harvard, a neuroscientist found after doing tests with brain scans that meditating actually changes your brain.
They found that people who have practiced meditation for long periods of time have heightened senses and the ability to remember and make quicker decisions.
Mental exercises are beneficial to your body, like regular exercise.
Exercise
Physical exercise is a great way to find personal happiness. When your blood gets pumping, your body releases a chemical called Dopamine.
This chemical gives you the ability to experience happiness and pleasure. The best way to promote its growth is physical activity!
Working out also helps boost your energy levels and confidence. When you exercise, you see noticeable changes in your body. When your jeans starting fitting better or you start noticing other non-scale victories, your confidence level rises.
Weight loss isn’t the only thing associated with exercise, but also strength. Becoming stronger can increase personal happiness by making you feel powerful and ready to take on anything.
Confide in Someone
Getting something off your chest can be one of the best ways to help boost happiness. If you’ve been feeling down about something, bouncing ideas off of a friend can help.
Most likely, that person is on the outside of the situation and can offer a fresh perspective to help pull you out of the rut. You’ll feel better once it’s not a secret to yourself anymore!
Clean
There’s something therapeutic about cleaning. Getting rid of old things helps you get rid of negative feelings.
Your dirty dishes, piles of laundry and unwanted clutter could be making you anxious. Simply tidying up around the house can help make you feel calm and relaxed.
Another way cleaning helps you improve your personal happiness is feelings of control. You may feel like there are other areas of your life where you have no say. Organizing your closet or conquering a drawer can help you feel in control of your environment.
Read
Reading helps you create an imaginative world and develops the ability to be empathetic towards other people’s lives. Reading can also help you understand difficult and complex personal relationships.
Knowing how to navigate those complex relationships and understand where others are coming from can lead to a higher level of personal happiness. Having compassion for other people gives you a sense that you’re a part of something bigger than yourself.
Relax
There is little that is better than sitting in a nice, bubbly bathtub after a long day of work. Laying back, closing your eyes, and letting the water cleanse you can have positive effects on your mood.
You can also light candles, put on some soothing music, use bath salts and essential oils to help calm you further. Close your eyes and try to relax your mind along with your body.
Help Others
Giving is better than receiving is a well-known phrase for a reason. You feel better after you’ve given to others in need. Whether it be volunteering at a homeless shelter or buying someone a cup of coffee, you’re guaranteed to feel happier when you’re done.
Taking the focus off of yourself and your problems, and bettering someone else’s day helps to relieve tension and put your life into perspective.
Learn New Things
Struggling to find your sense of worth? Learning a new skill will give you purpose and raise your self-confidence levels.
Not only will learning something new within your workflow help you keep up with industry trends, it will allow you to be more indispensable to your company. You can learn from other people in your workspace and find more personal happiness with personal growth.
Journal
Journaling can be a therapeutic way to get rid of negative emotions. The act of writing something down can help release tension.
Journaling is also a form of meditation. Thinking about your day and summarizing it’s failures and accomplishments help you grow. Dwell on the positive points in your day.
Experience a New Place
Experiencing a brand new place will make you feel happier. You get to experience new cultures and ideas about the world.
You can discover that the world is a beautiful place as it helps you to broaden your horizons. You may find a new restaurant that becomes your favorite or a new place to take a walk.
Big or small, finding a new place gives you a sense of adventure, accomplishment, and satisfaction.
Take A Nap
Sometimes we struggle with personal happiness when our basic needs are not met. One of these things you need in order to survive is sleep.
Our bodies desperately need sleep. In a day and age where people are getting less and less sleep, are overworked and overtired, it’s more important than ever. Find the time to take a 30-minute nap.
Maybe it’s in your car over your lunch break or perhaps your work has a lounge. It’s possible you work from home. Whatever your situation may be, make the best of it by finding the time to rest and recover.
Listen to Music
Find music that makes you happy. There was a study done where houseplants listened to heavy rock and over time, they died. Similar houseplants listened to classical music and they thrived.
The same is with your chemical composition. Listen to music that encourages growth and positivity. You will find it brings you happiness.
Make Your Bed
Something as simple as making your bed can bring you satisfaction. When you wake up and spend the first few minutes of your day organizing, you will thank yourself later.
You come home from a long day at work or play and find your bed made, ready to hop in! Making your bed every day is actually shown to boost happiness and productivity.
Garden
Gardening could help reduce the risk of disease. Being in the sunlight helps to boost your overall mood because of Vitamin D.
Studies have shown that gardening reduces the risk of dementia. You get to get down and dirty, working in the primal state you were created for. Gardening can also ease stress and help to keep you flexible and limber.
Aromatherapy
Essential oils are known to promote stress relief. Scents like lavender and eucalyptus have calming agents when breathed in.
Oils like these can help you gain inner peace and overall sense of tranquility. There are many different scents for different goals, but for personal happiness, lavender is the recommended scent.
In conclusion, there are many different ways you can practice improving personal happiness. The 15 listed above are just a short list you can follow to get started on this journey.
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