Good morning everyone!
Just a quick one today, and more of a preface than anything else. Psychology is something that we're pretty interested in, especially as it relates to the more practical aspects of our existence, including happiness, perception, persuasion, body language and so on.
Happiness in particular is something some of us have studied for a long time, simply because it seems to us to be pretty much at the top of the list of things that bring meaning to our lives. Happiness is incredibly important from virtually any perspective, be it our mental well being, our relationships, our productivity, our creativity, our capacity to push ourselves and our physical health.
We'll be touching on all of these topics from time to time, as well as lots of tips to be happy and stay happy, but just to start us off today, we'd like to talk briefly about the last of those items - physical health.
Its pretty near indisputable at this point that, all things being equal, being happy and having the will to live has tremendous benefits for your health. Two people in the exact same situation, physically and environmentally will enjoy different levels of health, purely based on their mindsets. Happiness helps people be positive, and positivity affects both your mental attitude and your body's attitude to life.
The happiness we talk about here isn't the temporary burst of joy you might feel at buying a new car or handbag, but rather the general emotional well being that comes from relationships, meaning in life and fulfillment.
This is so important, and the evidence so compelling, that the US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, has begun prescribing happiness to everyone, as you can see in this speech.
All in all, it seems like a pretty win-win scenario. By being happy, you get to improve your chances of losing weight, decrease your chances of cardiovascular diseases, live longer, suffer less stress, and of course, by definition - be happier!
Of course this generally isn't just a switch that you can flip (unfortunately), so in future posts on this topic we'll delve more deeply into the science of happiness and what we can do on a daily basis to make ourselves, and the people around us, more happy (and healthy).
We'll try and focus this especially on the local context in Malaysia, Singapore and the South East Asian region in particular, as there are many unique factors here that influence people's happiness as well as their approaches to being happy. For example, cultural differences play a big role, such as the stereotypical Asian emphasis on status and wealth, which may not be too healthy for happiness in general. Or the emphasis on achieving certain goals (like a university degree or 10A's in your SPM examinations) rather than how you achieve it, or what you learn along the way. Or even the political climate which can bring down the general mood of the entire population, as many are experiencing as we speak!)
In the meantime, try and do one thing today to make someone else happy (it'll make you happy too!).
Till next time!
