Happiness can have a huge impact to our overall being. When you’re happy, you tend to perform better at school or at work, you’ll probably have a good relationship with your significant other, and you’re more likely to live longer too. Of course, it’s not every day you’ll feel happy, but if you’ve experienced what it is like to be unhappy, then you’ll be leaning more towards staying in a state of bliss.

There are many situations when happiness becomes elusive to us such as when we lose someone we love, we suffer from heartbreak, or lost our job even. In these situations, it’s normal for us to experience sadness and loss, but if you find yourself lingering on sadness too much, you’ll need to find a way to break out of it or be at risk from depression.

The good news is that it appears that you can have time for happiness according to science. You see, our brain tends to linger on the negative happening in our lives rather than the good ones which is why we tend to stay in a depressed state at times. But you might be surprised to find that you can actually change your brain’s way of thinking to focus more on the positive state of things. Here are a few tips that you can start with if you want to be happier in the long run:

Are you thinking positively?

If you want to learn how to be happy, the first thing that you should do is to figure out whether you are a positive thinker or not. Ask yourself whether your thoughts are geared towards positive ideas or not. Constantly asking yourself what thoughts are running through your head will help you train it to zero on the positives rather the negatives.

Go out for a run

Working out can help release endorphins in your body which are these feel-good hormones that can boost your overall well-being. The next time you’re feeling down, or your when mood turns sour, go out and go for a run.

Meditate

Meditating has been found to be useful in correcting one’s state of mind especially when you’re feeling depressed. During meditation, you will be focusing on your breathing, while letting your mind run its course. This way, you will be emptying your mind of all the stress and worry that you are feeling and be able to feel better afterwards.

Learn to associate

Another thing that you can do to help you learn to be happy is by association. This can be something simple as having a song you like to listen to when you’re happy, an accessory that reminds you of something pleasant, or something similar. Associating happiness with these objects, situations, or songs may help remind you to be happy especially when you come across them.

Jot it down

What other steps can you take to learn how to be happy? Writing what makes you happy in the day in your journal can help reinforce this feeling. It would be a good idea to cultivate the practice of writing down what’s the happiest situation that happened to you on that day, so you will be able to focus on the good rather than the bad. 

Smile

Smiling is probably one of the best, if not the easiest way, for you to uplift your feelings. You see, when you smile, and genuinely at that, your overall bearing will become positive too. What’s more, those you smile at will feel positive too.