I came across this wonderful and inspiring article on how a Yale University Professor is teaching a course on how to be happy and surprisingly, more than 1200 students have enrolled! Her focus is to help these young adults deal with stress, depression and other mental health challenges. This just goes to show that there is a need to find happiness and learn different strategies on how to bring it into our lives at any age.
One point made was how social media is actually making people unhappy. We log onto Facebook and we see how everyone is having fun, travelling, having the time of their lives while the reality is most of us are sitting home with the dog, working or just having nothing exciting happen in our day to day lives. This can be the onset to depression or anxiety for some; however, what we must realize is what we see is what others WANT us to see. My parents have always said, you never know what actually happens behind closed doors.
Something else that seems to be draining the happiness right out of us is that we now sit and converse through Facebook or Twitter and we are missing out on the face to face social interactions. We need to get out from behind our technology and go out and be social...just like in the old days ;) It is important to have live connections with people so we can experience true feelings and emotions. We have become prisoners of social media and in the end, it can actually be damaging our mental health.
We also must find time to sit back and be grateful. There is always something to be thankful for, food on the table, a roof over our heads, family, friends, pets and health or just waking up to another sunrise. When we are grateful for what we have in our lives, we let happiness find its way in.
Want to boost your mood? Incorporate random acts of kindness into your day! Do something nice for someone else, whether it is someone you know or a complete stranger. It is such a simple thing to do and can bring so much happiness into your heart.
Take a minute to read this article and learn how to incorporate her 6 lessons into your life right now. Feel free to reach out to me with your thoughts or let me know if you will be practicing any of the suggestions.
https://www.today.com/amp/health/yale-popular-happiness-class-6-lessons-you-can-practice-now-t123226?__twitter_impression=true