Are You Happy...Finding Your Happiness

Of course I'm happy what kind of question is that, or am I?

 My husband was briefing me about a conversation he had with a Freind about finding happiness, and what truly makes us happy when I started to wonder about my own happiness, was I happy? I've always been a positive, upbeat person that saw the best in people and life. I have noticed in the past few years that my view of seeing the best in people has changed somewhat, it's skewed from being disappointed in people and situations over the years but I still have faith, now I listen to my instinct and try not to sway from initial feelings. 

So am I happy?? Lets see I find funny things to laugh at on a daily basis, ok thats a start, I do have moments of uncertainty and doubt about everything and anything, wether I'm a good enough mother, or freind, or wether I'll have enough hours in the day to do what I need with our business. I fall into the trap of working too much and not taking care of myself, its been years since I stepped into a gym of any kind, I am two years over due for a physical, rarely have lunch with my girlfriends.

So what makes me happy these days, I had to make a list of ten things since I needed to get to the bottom of this question, and I felt it wasn't looking too good.

 10 Things That Make Me Happy

1. Waking my son up in the morning and cuddling with him

2. My morning cup of coffee in the company of our dog

3. Taking pictures of our beautiful jewelry designs

4. Making a dinner my husband raves about

5. Redecorating

6. Mani's & Pedi's

7. Small amounts of alone time

8. Talking to my mom and dad

9.Writing

10. Having my own family

Wow, that was important to do, I could have gone on and on and never realizing beforehand how many things make me happy. Looking at my list I am obviously aware that this is a very different list than it would have been five, ten or even fifteen years ago, but isn't that how life goes, it changes and we flow (hopefully) with the changing tides of our life.

Yes I am happy, my "happy" priorities have changed for sure and that was confusing me, I wasn't unhappy it's just that the things that make me happy these days are very different than what I remember about what made me happy ten years ago; when I look at my list it makes me happy and what more can I ask for!

if you're unsure about your own happiness why don't you make a list of ten things that make you happy and see if that helps, it did for me and I am so grateful and thankful I did!

Botox As Antidepressant, Smiling for Peace

Does smiling makes us Happy? Well that makes sense, in general if we're smiling we must be responding to something positive, right, unless of course were smiling for the camera, or smiling when a passerby says hi, when we answer the phone, to a co worker, and so on and so forth, so do those "fake" smiles trigger a happiness button, some researchers would say yes!

In 1989, a psychologist named Robert Zajonc published one of the most significant studies on the emotional effect of producing a smile.

His subjects repeated vowel sounds that forced their faces into various expressions. To mimic some of the characteristics of a smile, they made the long "e" sound, which stretches the corners of the mouth outward. Other vowel sounds were also tested, including the long "u," which forces the mouth into a pouty expression.

Subjects reported feeling good after making the long "e" sound, and feeling bad after the long "u."

Other studies reported similar results. One had subjects make the positive and negative expressions by holding a pen in their mouths, either protruding outward for a pout or held lengthwise in the teeth to make a smile. In another, researchers had subjects mimic each physiological trait of a smile until their faces were in a full Duchenne expression.

Charles Darwin first posed the idea that emotional responses influence our feelings in 1872. “The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it,” he wrote. The esteemed 19th-century psychologist William James went so far as to assert that if a person does not express an emotion, he has not felt it at all. Although few scientists would agree with such a statement today, there is evidence that emotions involve more than just the brain. The face, in particular, appears to play a big role.

We smile because we are happy, and we frown because we are sad. But does the causal arrow ( cause and effect) point in the other direction, too? A bunch of recent studies of Botox recipients suggests that our emotions are reinforced—perhaps even driven—by their corresponding facial expressions, hmm so how does freezing expressions with Botox injections work into these studies I'm wondering?

This past February psychologists at the University of Cardiff in Wales found that people whose ability to frown is compromised by cosmetic botox injections are happier, on average, than people who can frown, is this good news? The researchers administered an anxiety and depression questionnaire to 25 females, half of whom had received frown-inhibiting botox injections. The botox recipients reported feeling happier and less anxious in general; more important, they did not report feeling any more attractive, which suggests that the emotional effects were not driven by a psychological boost that could come from the treatment’s cosmetic nature.

“It would appear that the way we feel emotions isn’t just restricted to our brain—there are parts of our bodies that help and reinforce the feelings we’re having,” says Michael Lewis, a co-author of the study. “It’s like a feedback loop.” In a related study from March, scientists at the Technical University of Munich in Germany scanned botox recipients with MRI machines while asking them to mimic angry faces. They found that the botox subjects had much lower activity in the brain circuits involved in emotional processing and responses—in the amygdala, hypothalamus and parts of the brain stem—as compared with controls who had not received treatment.

The concept works the opposite way, too—enhancing emotions rather than suppressing them. People who frown during an unpleasant procedure report feeling more pain than those who do not, according to a study published in May 2008 in the Journal of Pain. Researchers applied heat to the forearms of 29 participants, who were asked to either make unhappy, neutral or relaxed faces during the procedure. Those who exhibited negative expressions reported being in more pain than the other two groups. Lewis, who was not involved in that study, says he plans to study the effect that botox injections have on pain perception. “It’s possible that people may feel less pain if they’re unable to express it,” he says.

I've always believed in the power of a smile to make me feel better and make someone else feel better, I've done my own research in our jewelry store in Miami (www.turchinjewelry.com) when an unusually grumpy person comes in I've gone out of my way to smile consistently at them as hard as it might be and at times it's been a real challenge, but I have seen very negative people turn around in from of my face, it astounds me every time!! So let all try and smile more maybe if we play this forward we'll be a world of smiling faces, even peace could be possible!