For example, giving reasons for being chronically late to meetings or explaining your inability to spend more time with family as being too busy at work are indications that your priorities are out of whack, and realigning them will lead to greater happiness. “We use them to hide our shortcomings from ourselves.

When we stop using reasons to justify ourselves, we increase our chances of changing behavior, gaining a realistic self-image, and living a more satisfying and productive life.” . Start saying “want” instead of “should.” The positive language will help you clarify and prioritize what you really want to be doing at the moment — and it can help you see healthy behaviors you’re not psyched about (you really do want to be eating better) in a motivating way. “Guys especially get the formula for happiness wrong.

Instead, Science says, what is most important is to develop our own personality and have the desire to engage in deep relationships with other people.

In a 2014 study, researchers asked about 1,500 individuals (whose average age was 28) to rate the attractiveness of different composers according to the music they make.

) made my own life accomplishments (did my laundry for the first time in three weeks! Where I once daydreamed about seeing my byline on the cover of a bestselling novel, I now alternated between wedding-day fantasies and nightmares featuring lots of cats.

Suddenly it seemed as though the world had gotten smaller, and my sole occupation was searching for a suitable mate while trying to hold onto my dignity.

We do some talking first and the latter half is literal physical exercises that strengthen the body — as they are perfectly good exercises for working out — but they have practical applications for sexuality, and I explain why and in what ways, what positions this would be useful for, how this would strengthen the pelvic floor, how this would improve flexibility or balance or something like that.There’s a physical component (exerting yourself causes the brain to release dopamine) plus, “when you exercise, your brain records a victory. “Writing a two-minute positive email to somebody you know, praising them or thanking them for something, increases your social support dramatically,” says Achor.“And it makes you happier while you’re writing that note.” , says that’s about realizing that happiness is the goal to where everything else leads.“It’s about finding the overlap among the three questions, ‘What gives me meaning,’ ‘What gives me pleasure? '” Determining those things, and focusing on them even for a slice of your day, will boost your mood long term.“For sustained happiness, we need to change the expectations we have of our goals: rather than perceiving them as ends (expecting that their attainment will make us happy), we need to see them as means (recognizing they can enhance the pleasure we take in the journey),” says Ben-Shahar.