MIND AND BODY WITH LEANNE HALL

Transcription

1 MIND AND BODY WITH LEANNE HALL TOP 5 WAYS TO GET HAPPY There s been plenty of research on the negative effects of stress and anger on your health. But there is also a growing body of information on how being happy can make you healthier even improving immune function and lowering stress-related hormones. Yet some days you just get out of bed on the wrong side, but that s no excuse to walk around in a dark cloud all day. Here are Leanne s Top 5 ways to put that spring back in your step.

2 #1. SUNSHINE AND EXERCISE Get outside into the sunshine and move! Sunlight and exercise increase those feel good and happy hormones, endorphins and serotonin.* Sun exposure is good for you. After decades of avoiding it, researchers are finding that we may have been doing more harm than good. It's a shock to the system, for sure, but the evidence is substantial. A chronic lack of sun exposure has been linked to fertility problems, several forms of cancer, general poor health and varying degrees of depression. People actually get depressed, with symptoms like sadness, fatigue and hopelessness - from a lack of sunlight. The form of depression most often associated with variations in sunlight is seasonal affective disorder (SAD). The disorder runs in cycles of depression and wellness that follow the seasons more specifically, the availability of sunlight. Someone with SAD might feel perfectly fine in spring and summer, and then experience a severe downturn in mood when fall hits. They'll stay that way through the winter, until the sun comes out again in full force. SAD is particularly prevalent in parts of the world with little winter daylight and/or extended overcast periods, like Alaska or the U.S. Northwest. In this article, we'll find out why sunlight exposure can affect your emotional wellbeing and how you can safely use the sun to benefit your mood.* In a study at Ghent University, the longer participants sat around doing nothing, the more their moods tended to become negative and self-judgmental. Why? Because during periods of rest, people spend more time thinking (and analyzing) themselves, which is a recipe for depression flare-ups, says study co-author Igor Marchetti. But exercise may fend off depression by balancing the transfer of hormones between the endocrine and nervous systems, Marchetti says. Additionally, studies have found regular physical activity seems to improve self-esteem, self-confidence, and mood all conditions that are protective factors for depression." And it doesn't take much time to see the effects. In a study at the University of Texas, 28 percent of depressed people who worked out on a treadmill or stationary bike for 30 to 45

3 minutes, 3 to 4 times a week eliminated their symptoms. When another group exercised 2 to 3 times a week for just 20 to 30 minutes, 16 percent saw symptoms disappear. * Source: Baker Institute for Heart and Diabetes, Australia #2. EAT SOMETHING SPICY Tuck into something hot and spicy! Spicy food stimulates our happy hormones - Endorphins and in turn lifts your mood. Scientific research suggests that some vegetables, fruits and spices can affect the chemistry of the brain and act as mood enhancers, promoting calmness and a sense of well-being, while vitamin and mineral deficiencies can lead to mood swings, insomnia and depression.* "The food that we eat every day has a massive influence on the functioning of the brain," says Tanushree Podder, author of You Are What You Eat. * Source: #3. PAT A PUPPY Patting a puppy actually lowers blood pressure and your heart rate, helping take away those stress levels. According to positive psychology, pet-owners are generally happier and less lonely. Support from a pet is equivalent to support you get from parents and siblings. The one-year mortality rate following a heart attack is 1 per cent with a pet, and 7 per cent with no pet. * In an article from mid 2010 in Psychology Today The organizers of the 12th International

4 Conference of Human-Animal Interactions have announced that at their meeting this July, scientists will be presenting their latest findings confirming that friendly human-dog interaction releases oxytocin in both human and dog.** The experiment found that women and their dogs experienced similar increases in oxytocin levels after ten minutes of friendly contact. Also the women's oxytocin response was significantly correlated to the quality of the bond they reported in a survey taken prior to the interacting with their pets. Source: * Uppsala University, Sweden Dr. Kerstin Uvnas-Moberg ** #4. RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS Be nice to someone. Making someone else feel better in turn makes ourselves feel better. Researchers have found a positive correlation between happiness and kindness. And it s not just that. Happier people are kinder, or kinder people are happier, one study showed that engaging in a random act of kindness improves your happiness level.* In one of the studies, published last year in the Journal of Social Psychology, researchers in Great Britain had participants take a survey measuring life satisfaction, then they assigned all 86 participants to one of three groups. One group was instructed to perform a daily act of kindness for the next 10 days. Another group was also told to do something new each day over those 10 days. A third group received no instructions. After the 10 days were up, the researchers asked the participants to complete the life satisfaction survey again. The groups that practiced kindness and engaged in novel acts both experienced a significant and roughly equal boost in happiness; the third group didn t get any happier. The findings suggest that good deeds do in fact make people feel good even when performed over as little as 10 days and there may be particular benefits to varying our acts of kindness, as novelty seems linked to happiness as well. So what are you waiting for? Get out and perform some acts of kindness!

5 Source: * akes_you_kind/ #5. SMILE! Smile! Research shows that smiling is contagious, boosts your immune system and is proven to lift your mood.* It sounds like the most useless advice imaginable: Just put on a happy face. Conventional wisdom is that smiling is an effect of feeling happy, rather than the other way around. Simply smiling in stressful situations can t possibly make you feel any better, right? Wrong. A fascinating new study by University of Kansas psychologists indicat es that, in some circumstances, smiling can actually reduce stress and help us feel better. After putting 169 participants through various testing- the results proved the connection between facial expressions and underlying mental states is still largely unexplored, but some have suggested that smiling could reduce levels of cortisol, a stress-related hormone. This study flips our traditional understanding of emotion and appearance on its head: Feeling good could sometimes be a consequence of smiling, not just the other way around. What does this mean for your daily life? When feeling stressed, try forcing a smile on your face. If you can manage a genuine, Duchenne smile what people often refer to as smiling with your eyes, not just your mouth that s even better. For whatever reason, forcing yourself to look happier could actually end up helping you feel happier. Source: *

6 ** WEBLINKS Joining Leanne on her quest to get HAPPY was a cast of thousands including: Puppies from the Animal Welfare League of NSW or Ph: 02) Bollywood dancers from Australian Performing Arts College or ph: 02)