The Science of Happiness: Actionable Tips for Daily Joy & Serenity

Hey there, everybody. Doc Snipes here. Today we're going to talk about the science of happiness. Actionable tips for daily joy, tips one through seven. The first thing for daily joy is to know what makes you happy, which starts out by defining your rich and meaningful life. And I have other videos on the YouTube channel about creating a vision board for your rich and meaningful life. But it's important to really take a minute to think about what people, what things, what experiences are important for me to either have consistently in my rich and meaningful life or for me to accomplish, for me to feel like it's been a rich and meaningful life. The next tip is to mindfully savor the moment. Whatever moment you're in, take a moment to stop and savor what's going on. The smells, the sounds, the sights. For me, the temperature. When it gets cool outside, I love that change in temperature because I can start wearing sweaters, and I love sweaters. I think part of that comes from growing up in Florida when we could never wear them. But I digress. Being mindful of the moment can help you get out of your own head, so to speak. So you're not worried about things that may or may not happen in the future, and you're not resenting or dwelling on things that happened in the past, even if it was 30 minutes ago or 30 months ago. Dwelling and worrying uses up a lot of energy on things that we can't control. If you focus your attention to the moment, to the present, and to using your energy in the present to move toward your rich and meaningful life, you'll experience so much more abundance and so much more joy. Going along with that is a concept called hardiness. And hardiness is viewing life, and in terms of commitment, control and challenge, you're viewing your rich and meaningful life as a whole. And there are a lot of people, things and experiences on your vision board that make your life rich and meaningful at any one time. There may be a few of those things that are going crappy, but generally I hope the preponderance of them are going to be going well. And our brain is hardwired to focus on the threats, to focus on the negative and not pay attention to the present and not pay attention to what's going well. And it's important for us to turn our attention to what's going well and say, all right, yeah, this over here sucks right now, but all these other things are going okay, you know, compared to where I was yesterday, compared to where I could be, compared to where some other people are however you want to look at it. I have a fair number of things going well in my life and I am going to be grateful for that in the moment. Doesn't mean you ignore the bad stuff you're but you're acknowledging that there's good and bad in life. Control is the next aspect. Once you've recognized all the things you're committed to, then you recognize that you have the power to control what you spend your energy on. Are you going to spend your energy moving toward the things that are important in your rich and meaningful life? Or are you going to spend your energy worrying or resenting or dwelling on things that either happened in the in the past or may or may not happen in the future? Are you going to use your energy to try to get back at somebody who you feel wronged you or are you going to say, you know what? That person's not worth my energy and I am going to use my energy instead of trying to get back at them to nurture a positive relationship. And then challenge. Once you realize what you can control, that's great, but it ain't easy. And actively choosing to turn away from sort of your knee jerk reaction is challenging. And recognizing we have a saying in in recovery circles, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And for a lot of us, accepting that there are things that we can't control is maddening. That can be perceived as a challenge. Teaching ourselves to recognize the things we can't control and stop trying to control them and then step back and recognize that the world will not fall apart if we don't control absolutely everything. Practice gratitude daily going back to that rich and meaningful life. Vision board. I encourage my clients, and I do it myself, to look at their vision board every morning and remember, remind themselves what they're going to focus on, what's important in their rich and meaningful life and what they have in their rich and meaningful life. And that can help them practice that gratitude, recognize what they already have. And at the end of the day, I encourage them to think back over what went well or what didn't go poorly. You know, I drove to work today and I came home and I made it without incident. I didn't get into a car wreck. You know, there was no problems. I did it safely, my family did it safely. I'm grateful for that. Too often we're looking for these huge things to be grateful for when in reality there's a lot of stuff that happens every single day that we can be grateful for. I know I live on a farm and I am grateful when it rains because then I don't have to water my garden and pay to water my garden. Not everybody likes rain, but I like it and I'm grateful when it does rain. I'm also grateful when it's sunny because then that helps the the crops grow. Trying to focus on those things that, hey, I can be grateful for this today because makes it so much nicer and joyful in in your own head than focusing all on all the things that are going wrong and all the injustices in the world because there's a lot of them, but a lot of those things you cannot control. Nurture secure attachment with yourself. And I know you're kind of scratching your head. With myself? Yes. No get to know yourself. Be mindful. The mnemonic for secure attachment is cares, consistency, attention, responsiveness, encouragement, and safety. Be consistent with yourself. Be mindful in the morning, at least in the morning. In the evening, be mindful of your thoughts, wants and needs. Pay attention to yourself. The A the attention means spend some time getting to know yourself. Not just doing the things you got to do, like brush your teeth, but doing hobbies, trying new things to see what you like because you are worth spending time with. R is responsiveness. And that kind of goes along with consistency and mindfulness. But when you notice that you've got a problem, when you noticed you're exhausted or getting burned out or stressed or overworked, instead of saying, well, that is what it is, and pushing through, being responsive to that need and saying, okay, what can I do to improve this situation? Encouragement is the next step, and that is getting, having the motivation and the courage to change the things you can. And recognizing safety is the last one. Recognizing that if you try to change it and it fails, or if you can't be there for everybody all the time and you have to put set limits, that that's okay, it's safe and you're lovable and paying attention to your own needs, being safe in your own head, not criticizing yourself, not being ugly to yourself is so important. The next one is do the same thing. Nurture these secure attachments with others, being consistent with them. If you've got a friend that you care about a lot, check in with. Check in with them periodically. Be consistent in your presence with them if they need you. You know, be willing to be there. Now, if they're always needing something, that's a different story. You may need to set some Limits. But nurturing those secure attachments, being responsive with them, actively trying to spend positive attention time with them instead of just being reactive and paying attention when they call and need something, calling them up and saying, hey, let's go out to coffee or let's go rock climbing or whatever they like to do and you like to do as well, the same thing can be true. Not everybody likes people. It can be too people out there. For a lot of people, that's fine. Nurture your attachments with your pets, being consistent, doing things with them, going out and playing ball, or if you've got a cat playing with one of those little laser pointers. Be responsive to their needs if they're feeling lonely, if they're feeling anxious, if they're feeling depressed for some reason. And yes, I truly believe animals have emotions and make sure it's a safe environment where they feel loved and accepted. They don't cower every time you walk in the room because they're afraid you're going to scream at them. Develop serenity by recognizing those things you cannot change. This can be a goal for an entire week to, to really start developing that serenity and recognizing the things you cannot change. The next step is having the courage to let go of those things that you cannot change. You know you can. You can know things but not act on them. So knowing and then acting are two important aspects. Engage in random acts of kindness. This increases your oxytocin levels. And oxytocin helps with inflammation, it helps with bonding, it helps with mood, it alters the balance of your neurotransmitters. There's a lot of benefits to oxytocin. It's one of the new wonder neurochemicals that they're just finally starting to do some research on. In any event, random acts of kindness can help with that. You can start the day, or maybe at lunchtime, practice the loving kindness medication meditation in which you think to yourself, first, may I feel safe, loved and content. And what I try to do is envisioning, when I say this to myself, envisioning this warm golden orb enveloping me. And that is the, the, the envelope of safety and love. And then you say, think about one of your friends, somebody that you really love, somebody that's important to you. They don't have to be there, just wherever they are. Just think about them in your mind and envision that orb passing to them where they feel safe, loved and content. Now the harder one is for somebody you don't like or somebody who's getting on your very last nerve right now, thinking about that and sending them energies, if you will, so they feel safe, loved and content. When people are acting nasty, angry, irritable, withdrawn, however they're acting, it often indicates that they're feeling vulnerable, hopeless, helpless, overwhelmed. And so they're not feeling safe, loved and content. If we have compassion for them and wish for them that things could change, maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't, but it helps us a lot of times really get perspective and recognize, hey, this person is not feeling safe, loved and content. So instead of taking it personally and getting all defensive, maybe I will just take a breath and recognize they're doing the best they can right now. Another thing you can do for random acts of kindness is pick up trash. Go out there and pick up stuff so the little wild creatures don't eat it and get poisoned or get their head caught in one of those plastic six pack thingies. You want to cut those so little squirrels don't get their heads caught in them. That's something that you can do that you know is good. It's good for the universe. And even though you're not directly impacting someone or something at that very moment, you know that you're preventing it. And just the fact that you know that you're doing that, oxytocin increases. It's wonderful. So introverts really can do a lot to increase their oxytocin. A lot of times I've heard, well, I'm an introvert and to increase oxytocin I've got to go hang around with people. And that's just. No, no, you don't actually. You don't help a friend or nurture a friendship. Obviously that's a little bit more extroverted. Feeding the birds, this is another one. You can watch the cute little birds come and eat at your bird feeder. Or if you go to the park and you're feeding the birds or the ducks or whatever, you're doing something nice for them. You're helping them out, you're helping them feel happier and fuller, which is wonderful because as we build more, we're taking more of their habitat away and it's harder for them to find food. So it makes you feel better about what's going on. It's a way you're empowering yourself to make your corner of the world just a little bit brighter. Spend time outside. Yes, actually outside. And one of the reasons for this isn't just vitamin D. You can spend time outside in the dark if you want, but there are things called terpenes, and those are odors. They're. They're, well, odors that are emitted by the soil, by the plants, that actually improve mood. And I, again, I have a video on terpenes on the YouTube channel. But it's really fascinating to recognize that people's mood greatly improves when they spend time out in nature. Preferably out in nature where you're not like in the middle of Central park and you're hearing all the sirens and everything, in addition to trying to hear a bird somewhere. But anytime you get out in nature, you start to smell those terpenes, and they do have healing impacts. Create a daily routine for better sleep. I sound like a broken record on this, but it's so important. When we don't get adequate sleep, it increases our stress. When our stress is increased, it increases inflammation, it increases intrusive thoughts, it increases ruminations about negative things. All of these things take away our joy and add stress. So get some sleep. And. And quite honestly, I don't know about you, but getting a really good night's sleep makes me happy. That's one of the best ways to start my day. Happy. And finally engage in play or hobbies. Things that, oh my gosh, actually make you happy. 10, 15 minutes. You don't have to set aside two hours. A lot of people say, well, I don't have time. Yeah, you do. It doesn't have to be something huge. I mentioned that I live on a farm and it's wonderful, but I don't have the time every day to go out and weed the entire garden or to go out and do a bunch of stuff. Maybe I'll just walk down to the barn and feed the ducks. Ducks. Check on the chickens. Or maybe I'll just go down to the little garden and work on one row for 15 minutes, pulling up some of the weeds and making it look tidy. That's one of my things with my gardens. I like them to look tidy, but it makes me happy. And that 15 minutes of me time that I take out, guess what increases oxytocin? Because it's not only me doing something that I like, but I am connecting with myself and I am doing something that's positive for me. What things do you, or could you do that bring happiness out of this list? There's got to be something in the comments below. Tell me one thing that you're going to do today, maybe right now, to bring happiness and contentment into your life.