THE ENDURING HAPPINESS SYSTEM
ALL INTERRELATED AND CONNECTED
This is how the system works and the route through which we can make many, many alterations to dramatically affect enduring happiness and satisfaction. The pieces are explained below the "diagram".
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Psycho
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Bio ↔ Social
We have multiple ways to affect any piece of the puzzle, often with simple tweaks that are not difficults, but together are powerful. We can solve virtually any solvable problem in any of these areas, as we have many tools to do so.
All of these factors have multiple effects and are either in a virtuous (upward) cycle or a vicious (downward) cycle, where each part reinforces and adds speed to the movement. What is important here is to notice the basic effects that each has on the other, as each one of those provide the means to alter the others. In other words, we have many, many reinforcing positive alternatives we can use to ensure that we attain enduring happiness and satisfaction - not just for the moment.
Physical: We can engage in physiological psychology, where we can use movement and physical strategies to influence our chemicals and our brain functions. The physical can even cure most depression and tendencies to "bad moods". We can act or ingest in ways that will affect our serotonin and other chemicals, which will affect how well we think and concentrate and our state of mind - that will in turn affect our decisions, our confidence, and our actions - and our state of mind.
Our state of mind: Our state of mind will affect our chemicals (such as stress chemicals) and even beget "calm" chemicals and dopamine. Our state of mind will affect how we interpret things (negatively, positively, as a threat or...) - and ultimately affect our thinking ability and the quality of our decisions.
Genes: Genes can influence how chemicals are processed (and vice versa) and how we function, often determining 25% or even up to 50% of our health and behaviors. However, what we do, our health, our beliefs, views, and attitudes, even our upbringing will change the expression of our genes (turning a bad behavior of the gene "off") - this is called epigenetics, where we can strategically change the expression of our genes in a substantial way. It not only affects our personalities but our physical condition, including turning off cancer genes, etc. Inputs like TV, for instance, can affect our genes negatively, as can input of bad foods. Stress has a super-effect on our genes, to the negative!
Support & reinforcement: This is far more important than people realize. Yes, being around supportive, positive people has a person feel good, but it will also impact one's beliefs, one's genes, and certainly one's experience. But there is also a seldom understood "nurture" effect, as talked about in behavioral science as in "nature or nurture". (Nature is basically inborn, mostly from your genes. Nurture refers to one's upbringing, but also includes the rest of one's life. It can and will even affect the wiring in one's brain. It can lessen the fear response in many ways, some of which actually shrink the amygdala (fear system) and enlarge the "rational thinking, the calmness, and the happiness" centers (to where it can be seen by imaging devices!). Who one is around has a very, very dramatic affect on all the parts of the system - we cannot afford to be around stressful people or bad influences - it is super, super significant!
And the effect of one's self support, self reinforcement, self-compassion, and self nurturing is immense - that can be trained and the belief systems changes made - without that, one cannot be truly happy.
I repeat: it is vital that you insure that this is at the highest level and that you rid yourself of all the negative people, influences, and ongoing situations that beget stress.
Experiences: Obviously, we learn from experiences, but a belief system can change the interpretation so much that the experiencer may even have the opposite reaction from another person. And, of course, a negative experience or lots of negative experiences can cause stress which will in turn cause amygdala responses, which in turn might cause someone to experience life as if it had more threats in it than in reality. Having low energy affects self effectiveness and then self concept. Most of the components operate to affect the other ones, often in a virtuous or vicious cycle/spiral. Drugs, hyping oneself up all the time, listening to loud music, etc. - all of those have lots of side effects besides the obvious effects.
Importance of staying in the high functioning zones: Any extremes or prolonged times of being out of a healthy functioning zone will cause reactions throughout the system. So, while many people would sluff off, say, prolonged overbusyness and its stress, they may be incurring more damage than they believe by an order of magnitude! This is why both physical and psychological homeostasis are critical to living a good or great life. Know it, honor it ("balance" in each area) as one of the biggest factors in your happiness. See Homeostasis (Staying In High Functioning Balance) - Absolutely Essential To Living A Great Life!!!.
Note that we evolved in circumstances that were much different than today, so our bodies/minds "know" how to respond to those and to the levels of variation that occurred. Rare threats caused huge reactions to save our lives, but they were not constant, so we have no established means of dealing with chronic (ongoing, frequent) stress - we may get lucky, but it is doubtful and, in fact, has been proven that we cannot escape paying a price from being so far out of balanced functioning. Your #1 job is to stay in the balance zones so that you can better do all else that you want to do.
The effect of "practices" and "positions". The practice of meditation can shrink the amydala (fear center) and increase the size of the prefrontal cortex's thought screening system and the "happiness center". Learning the why and the how of practicing self compassion, when implemented will help one be calmer, more confident, and far less fearful. Developing a sense of self-efficacy can increase our confidence and even lead us up to being fearless. And, of course, those practices will dramatically our happiness and even improve our ability to think and be healthier!
