Should i do what makes me happy

While I'm definitely into finding ways to improve personal productivity whether a one-day burst of output, or a lifetime of increased effectiveness, or things you should not do every day , probably the best way to be more productive is to just be happier. Actually, many changes are easy. Here are 11 science-based ways to be happier from Belle Beth Cooper , co-founder of Hello Code, which makes Exist , a cool app that connects all of your services to turn that data into insights about your life.

Smiling can make us feel better, but it's more effective when we back it up with positive thoughts, according to this study :. But workers who smile as a result of cultivating positive thoughts--such as a tropical vacation or a child's recital--improve their mood and withdraw less.

Of course, it's important to practice "real smiles" where you use your eye sockets. You've seen fake smiles that don't reach the person's eyes. Try it. Smile with just your mouth. Then smile naturally; your eyes narrow.

There's a huge difference between a fake smile and a genuine smile. According to PsyBlog , smiling can improve our attention and help us perform better on cognitive tasks:. When this idea was tested by Johnson et al , the results showed that participants who smiled performed better on attentional tasks which required seeing the whole forest rather than just the trees.

Psychologists call this the facial feedback hypothesis. Even forcing a smile when we don't feel like it is enough to lift our mood slightly this is one example of embodied cognition. Think exercise is something you don't have time for? Think again. Check out this seven-minute workout from The New York Times.

That's a workout any of us can fit into our schedules. Exercise has such a profound effect on our happiness and well-being that it is an effective strategy for overcoming depression.

In a study cited in Shawn Achor's book The Happiness Advantage , three groups of patients treated their depression with medication, exercise, or a combination of the two. The results of this study are surprising: Although all three groups experienced similar improvements in their happiness levels early on, the follow-up assessments proved to be radically different:. Of those who had taken the medication alone, 38 percent had slipped back into depression.

Those in the combination group were doing only slightly better, with a 31 percent relapse rate. The biggest shock, though, came from the exercise group: Their relapse rate was only 9 percent. You don't have to be depressed to benefit from exercise, though. Exercise can help you relax, increase your brainpower, and even improve your body image, even if you don't lose any weight.

We've explored exercise in depth before , and looked at what it does to our brains, such as releasing proteins and endorphins that make us feel happier. A study in the Journal of Health Psychology found that people who exercised felt better about their bodies even when they saw no physical changes:. Over both conditions, body weight and shape did not change. Various aspects of body image, however, improved after exercise compared to before.

Yep: Even if your actual appearance doesn't change, how you feel about your body does change. We know that sleep helps our body recover from the day and repair itself and that it helps us focus and be more productive.

It turns out sleep is also important for happiness. Sleep deprivation hits the hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories yet recall gloomy memories just fine. They could remember 81 percent of the words with a negative connotation, like cancer. But they could remember only 31 percent of the words with a positive or neutral connotation, like sunshine or basket. The BPS Research Digest explores another study that proves sleep affects our sensitivity to negative emotions.

Podcast: Play in new window. Life is never going to be easy, so you might as well make the decisions that support you in the longterm. Starting with your mindset and how you feel about yourself gives you the foundation to view everything else with a clear lens.

When you change the way you think about who you are, it changes the way you think about everything else, too. Get started on this by working with Rebekah for a VIP day here!

Rebekah Buege is a body confidence coach helping strong women process critical thoughts and heal insecurities. Confidence mini-series library. Playing in the sand? Write these things down to reveal a beautiful matrix of all the things that made you happy. Chances are, most of them can also be the answer you need. When searching for your true calling, it may be a good idea to follow people who have already found it!

Most of us chase money all of our lives, and all our life decisions are based on this factor. However, sit down and visualize your life as if you had all the money in the world. And that is the perfect place and time to create a change in your life, and take that first step towards your dreams. If you are striving to find happiness, it may be closer than you think. You may not even need to find that mystical purpose everyone keeps talking about.

Have a look at your life and think about what you are doing right. What makes me happy in day to day life?

Once you have figured out these factors, you can strive to eliminate them from your life and replace them with something that is giving you good emotions. Not only will you immediately feel more positive, but it will open up your schedule for things that actually give you joy. And hey, once all the dirt, and sadness, and bad things are removed from your life… Nothing is clouding your sight anymore and it gets so much easier to see what excites you! Writing things down helps to clear your mind, and allows you to reach the deepest caverns of your soul.