Happiness Strategies | How to be Happy

Are your chocolate indulgences tarnished by fears of cholesterol, cavities, pimples and fat?

Well fret no more, chocoholic chums - a recent SparkPeople article has set about busting these and other chocolate-coated myths.

Now before you install chocolate at the base of your personal food pyramid, take note: the quantities you can savor before the guilt-free swing-tag falls off are not large. The article quotes 1.4 ounces or about 40 grams - somewhere between a fun size and regular size chocolate bar.

Here’s a paraphrased summary of the article:

Myth: Chocolate puts you in caffeine overdrive.
Busted! A 4-ounce chocolate bar and 8-ounce chocolate-milk drink each contain 6 mg of caffeine,  versus 65-135mg in a regular coffee.

Myth: Chocolate kicks up your cholesterol.
Busted! The saturated fat in milk chocolate doesn’t raise cholesterol the same way other fats do. Eating a 1.4 ounce chocolate bar can raise HDL (good) cholesterol levels.

Myth: Chocolate is nutritionally bankrupt.
Busted! Chocolate yields magnesium, copper, iron and zinc and has the same amount of antioxidants as a 5-ounce glass of red wine. A daily dose of the dark stuff can help lower blood pressure and improve insulin resistance (but don’t abandon medication!).

Myth: Chocolate rots your teeth.
Busted! Milk chocolate’s mouth-clearing fat content shortens sugar-tooth contact time and its protein, calcium and phosphate may actually protect tooth enamel.

Myth: Chocolate gives you migraines.
Busted!  Research findings say nope.

Myth: Chocolate causes zits.
Busted! Twenty years worth of studies say nuh-uh.

Myth: Chocolate makes you a fatty boombah.
Busted! The average chocolate bar contains 220 calories, not so high that you can’t enjoy it now and then.

With Cupid just behind us and the Easter Bunny hippity-hoppitying his way over, it’s good to know we can indulge ourselves, moderately, in the pleasures of chocolate.

Be wise and be happy.

Technorati Tags: Happiness life strategy,happiness,research,chocolate,myth busting

Image: Scyza

A new study, reported last month in the media and about to appear in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, looked at the way our bodies produce antibodies in response to infection.

(Flu vaccines were used as a proxy for pathogens because the body’s response is similar for the purposes of the study.)

Not everybody has fun flu fighting

In the first experiment, Two groups of women were given flu vaccines. The high self-discrepant group - women who were displeased with themselves and their progress toward goals - produced fewer antibodies in response to the vaccine than a second group of women who were satisfied with their lives and goal progress. The levels stayed low for more than a month post-vaccination.

In a second experiment high self-discrepant women were asked to write - one group wrote about goal-related concerns, a second wrote about daily activities. The first group reported fewer flu symptoms and showed higher antibody levels.

Happiness life strategy

To have a strong immune system it helps to be on track with our life goals, or at least to be at peace with our progress.

But if we can’t, there’s still hope for fighting the flu.

By getting our disappointments out of our head and onto the page, we can be more rational in examining our expectations, more clearheaded in questioning our approaches and more constructive in coming up with alternative ideas.

If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, maybe we should eat it while writing.

Image: ppreacher

Last week I mentioned a study pointing to the psychological benefits of creative pursuits.

Now, for the readers among us, there’s more good news. This month The Guardian reported the use of experimental reading groups as a form of therapy. ‘Bibliotherapy’ is being tried across a range of problems - including anxiety and depressive disorders, Alzheimer’s, learning disabilities,  motor-neurone disease and neurological and psychiatric disorders. The idea is to see if reading helps reduce pain and mental distress.

So far, the anecdotal results are heartening - but the scientific jury on bibliotherapy is still out.

Still, even an emeritus professor  like Raymond Tallis of Manchester University is open to the possibilities. He concedes in the article that reading could be therapeutic, especially in easing depression:

“…The pleasure of escape into a parallel world; the sense of control one has as a reader; and the ability to distance one’s self from one’s own circumstances by seeing them from without, suffered by someone else and gathered up into a nicely worked-out plot - somewhere around here is the notion of the Aristotelian purgation and Sartre’s idea of ‘the purifying reflection’.”

Purgation and purifying reflection notwithstanding, reading might offer respite from your daily ills. Whether you join a reading group, discuss books with friends or just lose yourself between the covers, why not add a little bibliotherapy to your repertoire of happiness strategies.

Textual healing

Here are a few books that have lifted my spirits. Feel free to share your own in the comments.

• Great Expectations by Charles DIckens
• Atonement by Ian McEwan
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

With thanks to my friend Kathy for letting me know about this interesting therapy.

Technorati Tags: Happiness,happiness strategies,reading,books,bibliotherapy,reading groups,books groups

If you need a little refresher on technique, Mary Poppins and friends have some notes

We all love to laugh (er, don’t we?). But ever since Norman Cousins extolled the therapeutic benefits of Marx Brothers-induced giggles, laughter has been lauded for its healthful effects as well as its pleasurable sensations.

According to the latest Fitness First magazine, laughter:

• transforms negative stress into wellbeing
• strengthens the immune system
• is anti-ageing
• reduces depression and anxiety
• develops confidence
• improves our sense of humour
• encourages creativity, imagination and problem-solving
• is an aerobic exercise, equivalent to cardiovascular exercise
• increases the body’s natural painkillers
• reduces stress-related hormones

(Fitness First, January/February 2008, page 42. Research sources not provided) .

Happiness life strategy

So it feels good to laugh and there are many great reasons to do it. The trick is to get those laughs happening more often.

Here are some ideas for raising your daily laughter load:

• Swap the tear jerker for some movie tomfoolery.
  Try Ground Hog Day, American Pie, Clueless - or ask like-minded friends for recommendations.
• Watch funny TV shows.
  Modern classics include Friends and Seinfeld.  My personal faves are Arrested Development, The Office (US version), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Get the DVDs and have them on hand for a regular dose of diversion.
• Lower your laughter threshold.
  Some people are determined not to laugh unless the joke is extremely worthy and all the stars are aligned. Be an easy laugher - have your funny bone exposed and ready for tickling.
• Avoid gloomy or overly serious people.
  It’s their choice to refuse to partake in silliness, but they’ll take the fun out of it for you. Instead…
• Spend time with laughers.
  Ever noticed how watching actors laugh on blooper reels makes you laugh too? Laughter is infectious - so hang out with easily amused friends and soon chortling will become second nature for you, too.
• Smile more.
  It looks good, it feels good, it makes others feel good - and it’ll help train those cheek muscles for all that laughter you’ll be doing.

If you think alcohol is a good way to feel good when things go bad, think again. A recent SMH article shed light on liquor’s little secret - it can lead to depression.

‘Compared to people who drink because they’re depressed, there are more people who get depressed because they regularly drink too much’, says Professor Sitharthan Thiagarajan of the Australian Centre for Addiction Research.

Why this is so is not clear. It may be that excessive alcohol affects mood centres in the brain. Or perhaps drinking too much causes distressing work or family problems.

The good news is that drinking less can reverse the problem.

‘We know that when people drink a lot over a long period, their mood goes down - yet when they start to drink less, their mood goes up’, says Thiagarajan.

In fact, a 2,500-person study of the Centre’s Controlled Drinking by Correspondence Program found that learning to drink less improved people’s mood. And we’re not talking intractable alcoholics, here - the participants were generally people with education, employment and relationships for whom alcohol had simply become a 6+ drinks-a-day habit.

Happiness life strategy

If you turn to booze as a daily staple, think about other ways to relax or feel good. I like watching comedies and reading fiction, and I have friends who enjoy a dip in the pool, walking, playing drums, cooking, dancing, chatting to friends on the phone or listening to music.

Opt for a little less hootch in your life and you just might find yourself with a little more happiness.

Technorati Tags: happiness,happines life strategy,alcohol,depression

Image: antoinedemorris under the terms of a Creative Commons Licence.