Yesterday was International Day of Happiness – established by the United Nations in 2012.
It was also the Spring Equinox – when the hours of daylight and night are equal – what a wonderful day to have for a focus on Happiness. We only need to go out in nature and see the activity going on around us – early springtime flowers – bright daffodils, crocuses – and lots of buds growing on branches – waiting to start to unfurl their leaves and flowers.This day aims to create a focus on the importance of happiness in all our lives – as if we didn’t know this. Yet it can be so hard to achieve and so hard to keep this focus.
Going out in nature and connecting with this energy – in East Asian medicine – the emerging of Yang activity from the darkness of the dormant Yin of winter.In a recent interview I listened to about Awe by Dr Dacher Keltner – on Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s Feel Better, Live More podcast, the speaker talking about how we can see awe in everything, if we only take a moment to look/listen. It doesn’t have to be something life shatteringly huge – but the simple things around us that we often don’t even see or that we take for granted. During my morning swim at the ponds, it might be a brief glimpse of the kingfisher (last week, spotted sitting on a branch), or watching the ducks being particularly frisky and energetic early in the morning at this time of year.
It was also the Spring Equinox – when the hours of daylight and night are equal – what a wonderful day to have for a focus on Happiness. We only need to go out in nature and see the activity going on around us – early springtime flowers – bright daffodils, crocuses – and lots of buds growing on branches – waiting to start to unfurl their leaves and flowers.This day aims to create a focus on the importance of happiness in all our lives – as if we didn’t know this. Yet it can be so hard to achieve and so hard to keep this focus.
Going out in nature and connecting with this energy – in East Asian medicine – the emerging of Yang activity from the darkness of the dormant Yin of winter.In a recent interview I listened to about Awe by Dr Dacher Keltner – on Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s Feel Better, Live More podcast, the speaker talking about how we can see awe in everything, if we only take a moment to look/listen. It doesn’t have to be something life shatteringly huge – but the simple things around us that we often don’t even see or that we take for granted. During my morning swim at the ponds, it might be a brief glimpse of the kingfisher (last week, spotted sitting on a branch), or watching the ducks being particularly frisky and energetic early in the morning at this time of year.
Happiness is often talked about in relation to other qualities and mindsets, such as Gratitude and Flow.
There are many definitions of FLOW – and of course in acupuncture and tapping, we are aiming to get the energy – both physical and mental/emotional to flow – the opposite of stagnation, blockage, stuckness and all that that brings with it, both in terms of adverse affects on our physical and mental health.
We all know what it feels like to be so engrossed in an activity or an experience that we lose track of time or experience it passing really quickly. When we are aligned both in terms of activities, relationships, communication, projects etc – things just move and we experience the satisfaction of being more productive and moving forward in our lives.
According to one of the scientific pioneers of flow, Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, also one of the founders of positive psychology there are six distinguishable factors of flow. Csikszentmihalyi began his research on flow by studying artists and creative types (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). He noted that the act of creating seemed at times more important than the finished work itself and he was fascinated by what he called the “flow” state, in which the person is completely immersed in an activity with intense focus and creative engagement. He set his life’s work to scientifically identify the different elements involved in achieving such a state.
Csikszentmihalyi’s six factors of flow:
- Intense and focused concentration on the present moment.
- Merging of action and awareness.
- A loss of reflective self-consciousness.
- A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity.
- A distortion of temporal experience.
- Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, also referred to as an autotelic experience.
A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that flow is highly correlated with happiness, both SWB (Subjective well-being) and PWB (Psychological well-being). Furthermore, it has been found that people who experience a lot of flow regularly also develop other positive traits, such as increased concentration, self-esteem, and performance.
I have taken the above from the website on the Pursuit of Happiness; take a look for more valuable information about research in this area:
https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/science-of-happiness/getting-in-the-flow/
As a practitioner of EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) aka tapping and Intention tapping, I use this tool with my clients to help them become free from the limitations that they feel hold them back from experiencing true happiness and satisfaction in their lives.
There is increasing research in the area of tapping and the measurable impact it has on our well being, nervous system and emotional states.
Take a look at some of the links below, Dr Dawson Church and Dr Peta Stapleton, are two leading lights who have made it their focus, to research the effects of tapping in many different areas:
Dr Dawson Church PhD, on the Neurochemistry of Happiness and how to achieve the Bliss Brain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdB5oFeCHc8
Peta Stapleton PhD
https://www.petastapleton.com/science-of-tapping-2022
The other area that is often linked to the pursuit of Happiness and mental well being is the practice of GRATITUDE.
I often encourage my clients to do simple exercises, like starting and finishing the end of each day by thinking about – or even writing down in a little notebook by your bed, three things from the day, that you are grateful for. It is a wonderful way to focus the mind at the start of the day and also as a way of preparing for sleep.
Even in the middle of difficult and challenging times in our life, there is always something we can be grateful for.
And of course, there’s even been research in this area too:
How Gratitude changes you and your brain:
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_changes_you_and_your_brain
The Science and Research on Gratitude and happiness:
https://positivepsychology.com/gratitude-happiness-research/
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