Happiness Starts in the Morning

This morning I awakened just before my alarm went off. I set an alarm for 6:00 a.m. Monday through Friday so I can join a Shut Up and Write Group that meets 6:45-8:30.  We check in, say where we’re calling from, then write for 90 minutes and check in again.  It’s such a simple process, yet many of the participants say that they feel more accountable when they write along with the other members. Others say they wouldn’t write at all if this virtual space were not available.

I don’t necessarily feel more accountable, but I do feel less alone when I see all those faces and hear their plans for the session. Writing is normally a solitary endeavor and for me at least it is good to occasionally write in the company of others.

Today, however, I decide to give myself the day off from writing. After two months of being ill from two different flu viruses and pneumonia, my cough is finally clearing up, and I feel so good I want to celebrate. Kismet, my Border collie, can no longer jump up on my bed, so she sleeps on the floor beside me on a soft pillow. When she hears me moving around in bed, she stretches her arthritic joints (something we have in common) and struggles over to me. She caresses my hand with her nose and encourages me to scratch behind her ears. This is our morning ritual, leading to me finally leaving my own warm bed to feed her, then heading out for a morning walk.

After we return, I putter about the house for an hour, emptying and filling the dishwasher, making my bed, and tidying the coffee table.  I like the feel of an organized space, and my one-bedroom apartment is pretty easy to whip into shape. We’re expecting a storm for the next few days, so I make a list of things I need to do and stock up on before it hits. I put on my coat and hat against the 40-degree wind.  I love that the places I plan to go are close together – the library to pick up a book on hold, the post office to mail a birthday gift to a grandchild, and the bank to deposit my refund from Road Scholar’s Christmas in Sorrento trip I had to cancel yet again. Trader Joe’s for groceries. Before I leave home I tune my car radio to a classical station and enjoy Mozart as a backdrop to my journey. The sun is out, the hills lovely and green from all the rain we’ve had this year, and I finish my errands in short order.

Back at home, I ask Alexa to play the same classical station while I put groceries away and then heat some soup for lunch. I notice as I put the last item in the cupboard that I am humming along with Edvard Grieg’s March of the Trolls.  I realize that I am content. Happy, even.

Happiness is Good For Your Health

Did you know that happiness is good for you? According to the American Medical Association, happiness lowers your risk for cardiovascular disease, lowers your blood pressure, enables better sleep, improves your diet, allows you to maintain a normal body weight through regular exercise, and reduces stress.

I feel happy most of the time these days.  It wasn’t always this way, but I discovered that a state of happiness is not actually difficult to achieve.  There are several things we can do to encourage a state of happiness.

How to Be Happy

1. Reduce the effects of stress in your life.  We can’t eliminate stress, but we can learn how to manage it. Take control of your time – for example, I realize that even writing, something I enjoy doing, can feel stressful if I let it take over my time. So occasionally I take a break from it. By the same token, those bills need paying, but perhaps not today.
2. Avoid spending time with people who make you feel stressed. Examine how you feel and why after spending time with old friends and new ones. Make conscious decisions about who you want to be with, and who you need to spend less time with. Postpone that difficult discussion with your mother, daughter, or son until you feel more able to remain calm. Dispute that bill another day.
3. Go for a walk.  Kismet makes sure I do that several times a day. If you don’t have a dog, consider getting one. Or make a daily walking date with a friend. Or get some headphones and listen to a podcast or audiobook as you walk. Move your body – even at a walking pace, your body releases the same endorphins that lead to a runner’s high.
4. Do something you are good at or something that you enjoy.  Or both.  I enjoy cooking, and today I warmed up a delicious soup that I made the day before. I’m good at organizing things. Putting groceries away in my tiny kitchen cupboards gives me a sense of satisfaction. High self-esteem is made up of lots of different things, but doing something well and recognizing it is one of the most effective.
5. Something I learned when I was asked to teach Psychology 1A for a year was the discovery of mirror neurons. These brain cells fire when we experience an emotion or when we see others experiencing an emotion, such as fear, anger, sadness — or happiness. Being around happy people causes our mirror neurons to fire, and allow us to experience the same emotion. A similar process occurs when we smile at someone – even if we did not feel particularly happy when we smiled, we feel happy after we do so. You can encourage yourself to experience pleasant emotions, and you can also influence others around you to experience them.
6. Finally, develop a healthy lifestyle.  Get enough sleep, eat good food, and get regular exercise. It’s not hard, but it does take planning. Your reward is a feeling of well-being. Being happy.

What do you do that makes you happy?

Marlene Anne Bumgarner writes primarily about food, family, and traditions. Her 2020 memoir, Back to the Land in Silicon Valley, is about raising children, animals, and vegetables on a rural plot of land in the 1970s.   Organic Cooking for (not-so-organic ) Families will be out soon. Her next project is a book about Grandparenting, and in her spare time, she is plotting a cozy mystery.