Small steps to happiness

[lisaharrison]

Absolutely fantastic video from Action For Happiness... best one in a long time! Thank you Rachel for sharing your story!

[raggedbreath]

Thank you for this. So much rings true here.

[arnicepernice]

It’s amazing Garvey was on women’s hour for so long. Her saying um constantly. Her podcast is the same um, um

[debbiechandler]

Simplifying life helped me!! No more super women!! ❤

[ajmarr]

A Simple Recipe for Eudaemonia or Happiness from Affective Neuroscience
HYPOTHESIS: dopaminergic activity will stimulate endogenous opioid systems when the latter are in a non-suppressed state.
EXPLANATION AND ‘PROOF’: Activity that involves continuous positive act/outcome discrepancy or novelty (productive or meaningful behavior) while the covert musculature is inactive (a resting state) will result in a feeling of heightened sense of pleasure and arousal, or ‘eudaemonia’, ‘flow’, or ‘peak’ experience. This derives from the observation that neuro-muscular tension (or stress) inhibits endogenous opioid (pleasure) release, while relaxation accentuates it, the latter permitting opioid systems to be further stimulated by dopaminergic activity (arousal) elicited by meaningful behavior.
The reason this explanation does not appear evident from general observation is that its counterpart as ‘flow’ or ‘peak’ experience is described through literary metaphor and not scientific language and obscures the independent and dependent measures that accurately describe it. The virtue of this explanation is that it is easily testable by anyone. Just get into a relaxed state (mindfulness protocols are the best way to do this) and then exclusively pursue or anticipate pursuing productive activity for periods of a half hour or so, and voila, you will have a flow experience. It is that simple.
from ‘The Book of Rest, the Odd Psychology of doing Nothing’, available free at web sites scribd and doctormezmer