Acting Like a Happy Person

Hi, this is Brian with another mini chapter from A Philosopher's Notes. This one's called Acting Like a Happy Person. You might have noticed from the last mini chapter that the 12th how of happiness included acting like a happy person. Really? That's a scientifically proven way to increase our happiness? Yep. Simply acting like a happy person is enough to boost your well being. As David Reynolds puts it, behavior wags the tail of feelings. We do. Then we feel. In other words, feelings follow behavior. Too often when we feel like crapola, we just want to curl up in bed and ignore the world, hygiene habits and everything else. Tragically, that's the worst thing we can do in those moments. The reality is that if we simply acted like a happy person would act, we're likely to feel like a happy person would feel. So if you find yourself feeling funky, quit slouching over, breathing shallowly and repeating to yourself how much your life sick. Although it might sound cheesy, there's science and common sense that tells us that those moments are exactly when we need to stand up straight, shake ourselves out, put our shoulders back, breathe deeply and walk with a confident smile as we remind ourselves we got it going on. P.S. you might have also noticed the number one happiness practice expressing gratitude, which is the easiest way to boost our mood. Research has shown that simply keeping a weekly gratitude journal with where you capture stuff you're grateful for, from the mundane to the sublime, significantly boosts your happiness levels compared to those who don't. So what are you grateful for today? Get on that acting like a happy person. Get out there and simply act like a happy version of you would act and you will be surprised. Your feelings will often follow that behavior. This is tied to the now what needs to be done idea as well. And remember the gratitude. Gratitude is a huge way for us to connect to our happiness and highly recommend it. Well, there you go. Hope you enjoyed. Have an awesome day. Look forward to sharing more with you soon.