6 Illnesses That Happiness Can Decrease

Health Benefits of Happiness

Just as stress creates a negative impact on health so happiness creates a positive impact on health. This is not just the removal of the problems caused by stress but actual improvements in health due to happiness.

Some illnesses that happiness has the potential to either decrease the risk of or limit its severity include:

• Diabetes
• Hypertension
• Cardiovascular disease
• Pulmonary disease
• Colds
• Upper respiratory infections

With those sorts of benefits being happy is worthwhile, not that anyone really wants to be anything but happy. However, judging by the number of unhappy people around, being happy may not be that easy at times.

Even though your particular circumstances may be difficult, finding ways to create moments of happiness can pay big dividends.

Athletes have found that when they get fatigued and feel like they can't continue, if they smile it changes their body. They can have a 30% increase in their performance for the next several minutes. That tells us that even if we have to "act as if", even a pretend smile or laugh can bring some benefits to our health.

Things to do

• Laugh
• Smile
• Maintain relationships
• Make friends
• Do some fun activities
• Go for a walk
• Smell the roses, enjoy the scenery
• Think happy thoughts
• Get proper sleep
• Find ways to replace the worrying thoughts with happier ones

An article by the American Happiness Association says that neuroscience has discovered that optimism is important for the health of our brains. The brain has a center for optimism and if that center is not developed we get depressed. Food for thought anyway.

Be happy,

Jocelyn