How to be happy in life? How to train your brain for happiness?
If you think that you are genetically programmed to be unhappy then we have some important news for you. Although genes do play an important part in defining who we are, they don’t call all the shots. You do have it within you to change the person you are and to change the way you think. If you are a person whose unhappy thoughts seem to crowd out the happy ones, read these ten amazing tips that will show you how to train your brain to be happier.
1. Call a halt to the negative thoughts
Thoughts are running through your head, all day long. You are making judgments about people, situations, and about yourself. Although those thoughts may sometimes seem involuntary, you can control them. When negative thoughts come into your mind, acknowledge them and then replace them with a positive thought. With practice, you can make yourself look far more positively on things.
2. Change your thought vocabulary
Here is another good tip on how to be happy in life: just as you can change the meaning of a sentence by changing one word, you can change the way you think by changing the word that you use in your head. Instead of saying ‘I could never do that”, if you took about the word ‘never’, you’d have a far more positive, and probably more realistic, sentence. Banish words like never, can’t, and impossible, from your thoughts and you will start to think more positively.
3. Refuse to compare yourself to other people
Training your brain to be happy is all about getting yourself out of negative thought habits and one of those could be that you are always comparing yourself to other people. It’s a habit that might be hard to break, but whenever you do find yourself making those comparisons, remind yourself that the other person has faults that you don’t know when know about and that your own individuality is far more important than your being like anyone else.
4. Surround yourself with happy people
Next tip on how to be happy in life is to surround yourself with happy people. Sitting in a room full of pessimists would bring the happiest person in the world down, so try and mix more with the happiest and most positive of the people you know. Happiness can be quite infectious. If you spend enough time with happy people, some of their happiness is bound to rub off on you.
5. Rewrite the story of your life
How you see your own past will affect how happy you are today. Instead of looking at a breakup as being a defining part of your life, make the wonderful times you had with that person the thing that you remember about that relationship. Most clouds do have a silver lining; all you’ve got to do is learn to focus on the light, instead of the dark.
6. How to be happy in life? Stop watching sad movies!
You can also train your mind to be happy by watching happy and inspiration movies and reading uplifting books. If everything you watch and read ends in an unhappy way, that’s what your brain will start to expect in real life too.
7. Open your eyes to happiness
Look around you and you will see things to be happy about. Be more mindful about what is going on around you and you will appreciate the world a whole a lot more. From how wonderful a cup of coffee tastes, to how great the sun feels on your skin. There’s always something to be happy about, if you take the time to look for it.
8. Savour the happy moments
Make the most of every happy moment that comes your way and really savour it. The more your brain learns how wonderful a happy moment can be, the more it will be on the look out for the next one. If you notice what a lovely day it is, don’t just notice it in passing, take a break and go and it in the sun for half an hour and really enjoy it.
9. Try using the word ‘but’ in a positive way
Instead of saying “I hate this flat I live in, add a ‘but’ to your negative thoughts and say, ‘I hate this flat I live in, but, I’ll soon have saved enough money to move’. It’s so easy to take the negative out of a statement by just adding a ‘but’.
10. Don’t be afraid to be happy
Our final tip on how to be happy in life is to simple stop being afraid to be happy. Even in the direst of circumstances, people still find things to laugh about. Just because one thing isn’t going well, don’t let that stop you being happy about something else. Happiness is a habit that anyone can get into, and all it takes to train your brain to be happy, is practice.
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