International Day of Happiness

This year, the theme is ‘Build Back Happier’, which will focus on the global recovery from the Covid pandemic. A must for us all? But how can you play a part of why do we celebrate the International Day of Happiness? How does positivity and happiness impact our emotional resilience and mental wellbeing?

International Day of Happiness is a chance to celebrate the role happiness plays in our lives and consider ways that we can spread happiness among others. Although we all strive to be happy, negative emotions like anger and sadness can often become our default setting. The International Day of Happiness is a day to cheer up and appreciate the good things in life.

Facts about happiness:

• Spending 6-7 hours socialising daily results in the highest levels of happiness
• Wearing bright colours can increase our happiness by up to 37%
• Scientists have identified 18 different types of smile
• Happiness has power over your immune system
• Happiness is contagious

How to Choose Happy…

People often say to me – are you happy all of the time? How are you so cheerful? Well, yes I am a happy and positive person – I just am. But did you know that cheerfulness is strongly genetically based? See this amazing video by Seligman. And also check back to our positivity and wellbeing BLOG written by friend of Tonic, Alan Bradshaw. Focus on PERMA and the ‘Positivity Ratio’. If you want to boost your happiness, and positivity. I always try to get this ratio right:

WE NEED A RATIO OF APPROXIMATELY 3 : 1 (POSITIVE TO NEGATIVE EXPERIENCES) TO BE THRIVING IN TERMS OF OUR MENTAL WELLBEING.

I always focus on this!

Yes, I also feel sadness too of course I do, and other feelings too that can inhibit feelings of happiness like anger, fear, and disappointment. They key is accepting, allowing and understanding them.

Understanding your emotions can a difficult task, especially when you have so much to think about. As an adult, you have an endless list of responsibilities, so you tend to get lost when it comes to dealing with your feelings. Moreover, you often end up beating yourself up for not knowing what to do and how to react whenever you become emotional. You know that something needs to be done, but you can’t pinpoint what it is because you can’t understand your own feelings.

Fret not—we’ve got you covered…

The Feelings Thermometer

Have a look at this feelings chart to help you increase your emotional awareness and understand yourself better.

It is quite useful to normalise our emotions!

The Feelings Thermometer

Then this is another we quite like – the feelings thermometer. So, a how you feel and what you can do about it…

And lastly, our final take home – some tips for happier living – YES PLEASE do I hear you say?

Ten Keys to Happier Living

Our final take-home is to encourage you to LIVE THE GREAT DREAM! A life hack to a happier & more positive life. Similar to PERMA but we especially love this one. It advocates:

• Giving – do things for others
• Relating – connect with people
• Exercising – taking care of your body
• Appreciating – awareness of what you do and the world around you
• Trying Out – doing new things

• Direction – doing things towards a goal
• Resilience – bouncing back after something negative
• Emotion – being positive about what you do
• Acceptance – that we all have faults and that things go wrong
• Meaning – being part of something bigger

Conclusions

So, a positive outlook and the “feeling” of happiness can come from “doing”. That means doing more of the things known to make people feel happy will make YOU feel happier! It means training yourself to be happy with new behaviours, with changes in what you do.

By aligning our habits and behaviours with the GREAT DREAM or PERMA factors we can all boost our happiness levels. Give it a go and let us know how you get on. We’d love to hear!