Foreword
Happiness is a subject that occupies our thoughts most of our lives. We are frequently evaluating where we stand on the sliding happiness scale. We can have happiness everyday. We can learn to minimize stress.
Happiness and stress/worry are both the stimulation of neurotransmitters resulting from our thoughts, intentions, actions, and reflections. We could almost design our happiness mathematically. Do this and the result is that. Yes, we can learn the habits of happiness and avoid the triggers for stress.
Table of Contents
1 How Happiness Begins
2 What are 5 Positive Behaviors of Happiness
3 How Keystone Habits Build Happiness
4 What is Work Life Balance
5 What Are Some Obstacles to Work Life Balance?
6 The Positives of Living with Risk
7 The Effects of Health and Fitness on Work Life Balance
8 How Stress Destroys Flow and Focus
9 Mindfulness and Career Building
10 Happiness as a Lifestyle
How Happiness Begins
In this chapter we will explore how we can introduce happiness behaviors and relieve stress in our daily lives.
I started my writing about health and happiness after living a lifestyle that I felt was worth writing about. I was eating nutritiously, exercising daily, and writing in the mornings before I went on to other important work. I found that I was very happy with this lifestyle and wanted to share with others how key habits made me feel great, gave me gratitude, improved productivity, feel spiritually connected, and work to improve the lives of others.
When I began more research into behaviors, I discovered the secrets of the lifestyle I had adopted had scientific support for why I was feeling great. When we are engaged in what Nature considers “survival behaviors”, our brain is wired to stimulate hormones and neurotransmitters that we call happiness. These are dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin…
How Keystone Habits Build Happiness
This chapter explores how key habits can begin the change of all our habits to live more rewarding lives.
There have been a lot of studies on how changing one habit can lead to changing all our habits. In a study from the book The Power of Habits by Charles Duigg, a group of students were taught better learning practices. They became better learners and during the process they started smoking and drinking less, spending less, and reducing other negative behaviors even though they were not mentioned in the course.
In other studies included in the book, it was found that beginning an exercise program or better eating habits progressed to improving many other habits in people’s lives. In other examples, Mathew Kelly, an author who writes about company culture, suggests people start reading from great books just 5 minutes a day. It could be life changing. The High Brow program is about five-minute daily learning.
In my life, I started many years ago on improving my diet to lose 50 pounds. I wanted to return to my high school weight of 175 pounds. Over 4 years, I improved my diet and reached my goal. Along the way, I started exercising more intensely, found a great spiritual connection, started contributing what I was learning in blogs and books, and decided coaching gave my life meaning and purpose. All this began by improving my eating habits…
The Positives of Living with Risk
In this chapter we explore how risk which is often avoided is important for our growth and excitement about our lives.
We may spend our lives avoiding risk. We buy insurance to minimize risks. We drive carefully to minimize risk. We show up at work on time to minimize the risk of getting fired. We are careful in our relationship behaviors to avoid creating problems. Our lizard brain is always alert to risks.
On the other hand, risk is where life’s excitement is greatest. Adrenaline is a stress hormone to prepare us for life threatening events, but it also can enhance performance. The lizard brain is the king of adrenaline. Originally our brain, like the lizard’s, had only two modes, fight or flight. In the last 100,000 years we added two additional brains that help us analyze risk…