The Epidemic of Unhappy People

The Epidemic of Unhappy People

In today's world, stress has led many Americans to depression and a constant state of unhappiness. Over the years, scientists have studied and identified the neurotransmitters of happiness and found exactly where it is located in our brain. We now know that happiness is not an abstract emotion; it is a literal psychological state that can be measured. It is very common these days to find seminars on how to be happy and change the way you think. It is not necessary to be depressed in order to attend these, but many experts recommend it.

•   Less than 30 percent of people report being deeply happy.

•   Twenty-five percent of Americans and 27 percent of Europeans claim they are depressed.

•   The World Health Organization predicts that by 2010, depression will be second only to heart disease in terms of the global burden of illness.

These facts are the real deal; people are struggling to find their inner peace and well-being.

We each have a happiness set point and no matter if the circumstances we encounter are negative or positive, we tend to hover over the same set range. For instance, a study on lottery winners was done and was noted that after a year of enjoying the new lifestyle, they returned to their normal happiness set point. The only way to change that is by making a serious effort to change it. The following are stages that we can categorize ourselves in:

•   Unhappy= depressed

•   Happy for a bad reason= high from unhealthy reasons/addictions

•   Happy for good reasons= being satisfied from healthy experiences

•   Happy for no reason= inner state of peace (where we want to be)

In order to be happy for no reason at all, you must be able to bring happiness into situations versus having to extract something out of situations. It is the art of NOT needing postive things to happen to you because you can MAKE positive things happen. A good quote that we can relate to comes from Thoreau: "Things do not change; we change." It is not as easy as saying, "O.K. today I am going to be happy from here on out." No. We have to look at our habitual habits (which make up 90 percent of all habits) and figure out what it is in life that makes us happy such as: exercising, taking up sports, learning how to play an instrument or any new skill for that matter.

All of our habitual thoughts and behaviors have created certain neural pathways in our brain. They can be described as grooves (imagine a record) and the more we think and do these things, the deeper the grooves become. This is exactly why it is impossible for us to wake up one day and decide to be happy. We literally have to create new pathways in our brain to outweigh these negative ones. I will cover how to do so in future entries.

There are ways to become happy, happier, and stay happy. We just have to look at the science of it and understand what happiness truly is. I am excited to share all this great information I have been studying over the past two years with you and hope I can give some insight to anyone who may need to hear this!