The Key to Happiness: or why so many on ATS are so unhappy

newyork.cbslocal.com...

After decades of studying and working with tens of thousands of patients, researchers at the Mayo Clinic say they’ve cracked the code to being happy. The Mayo Clinic is one of the most prestigious health organizations in the world with as many as 8,000 ongoing studies exploring every imaginable condition — including unhappiness.
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But if we learn to command our thoughts, shifting perspective away from the negative, and embrace the positive, we will be happier, experts say. “Resiliency has everything to do with happiness,” Dr. Sood said. The Mayo Clinic’s research also shows the degree of happiness people enjoy has to do with how resilient they are to life’s many curve balls. Happy people are very good at compartmentalizing and creating boundaries.

Quick addition to OP:
They basically said:
focus on the positives in your life
think of others before you think of yourself
Kinda sounds like: Love the people around you as much as you love yourself!


Guess I'm basically happy because I definitely compartmentalize.

I get my grumpies out on ATS and focus on the positive in my real life.

I vent my negative on ATS, and set it all aside and forget it,
and live my life in positivity. Hard to believe I know!



How about you?

You vent your negative on ATS, and we mop up the negative that you vent.

I can live with that, glad to be of service.

You are welcome.

a reply to: grandmakdw

It's a funny study, it's a simple thing that's not so simple for a lot of people.

My one time struggle with depression years ago showed me this, but it's hard for a lot of folks to live in the here and now constantly to break a pattern learned and followed after many years. And it takes being present and aware to find happiness that lasts.

Myself you asked? I continue to seek out looking at the bright side of life....as per Monty pythons song lol.

Always looking at a longer view, keeping in mind the best possible viewpoint ( and vantage point) makes for seeing happiness in everyday real things....at times abundantly.

I am abundantly happy, life is more than I ever needed


Cheers

why so many on ATS are so unhappy

How do you know that?
From what I see most here are reasonably happy.

I get my grumpies out on ATS and focus on the positive in my real life.

I come here for info and fun, and so do many others!

originally posted by: Treespeaker
a reply to: grandmakdw

It's a funny study, it's a simple thing that's not so simple for a lot of people.

My one time struggle with depression years ago showed me this, but it's hard for a lot of folks to live in the here and now constantly to break a pattern learned and followed after many years. And it takes being present and aware to find happiness that lasts.

Myself you asked? I continue to seek out looking at the bright side of life....as per Monty pythons song lol.

Always looking at a longer view, keeping in mind the best possible viewpoint ( and vantage point) makes for seeing happiness in everyday real things....at times abundantly.

I am abundantly happy, life is more than I ever needed

Cheers

You are so right about it being so simple, yet so very very hard.

Real clinical depression is very hard to climb out of. Medication really helps regardless of naysayers about medication. Once out, changing ones focus in life really makes a difference and life changing.

We have been teaching our grandchildren to say 10 things they are thankful for every night.
But did I used to do it? No.
But I try now to everyday make of point of looking at what I am grateful for, even if it's not a "list".

I don´t ask my child things he is thankful, i ask him how his day has been what was good in it and if something wasn´t not so good and discuss about it. He is a happy child and we hug a lot and he hugs a lot ( he has never been in a fight either ). He knows we love him and we love each other ( hubby and i )
Not sure if teaching things to be thankful is a good idea or at least depends on the case. It can bring out negative.. the guilt feeling.
You can teach love by showing unselfish love, showing the example, you can´t never force anyone to love, it comes always from within. We adults are those from who children learn from, in good and in bad.

a reply to: grandmakdw

I think teaching the grand kids that is awesome.

Years latter speaking with a very good councillor after feeling the itch that made me worry depression was knocking we discussed happiness.

He related to me that a vast majority of at least North Americans suffered from a form of depression unknowingly, simply by being complacent and fine with it as long as medicated.

Being fine and being happy are not the same thing. Which brings the question of how much happiness is enough?.

Once I found a reason to move past the complacency the joy part was as easy as making it happen, it was the reason that was difficult all along.

Recently my boys friend killed himself from hanging.we know his mother well. It was a treated disorder of depression.and his choice, I'm sure with reason.This is still something I struggle with when it happens to folks I call mine. And I hope that someday transmitting the reason to someone in need will be something possible for everyone.


Ranting here is cool, a safe place among many peers....what better place?

Must admit I'm happy as a monkey in a barrel of boobies at the moment.
Works good, got a bird half my age and I feel really great because I have started swimming.
ATS can be a bit doom and gloom sometimes and it may appear because of the topics people are down in mood but I bet most are ok.
Remember as the OP suggests.




Just listening to this song brightens even the darkest mood .

Also I think my job really makes me happy, helping people makes you happy.
Everyone should try a random act of kindness tmr, try it you will feel great.

a reply to: grandmakdw

The Mayo Clinic made me unhappy. I have a complex health issue that has puzzled both Stanford and UCLA. In contacting the Mayo Clinic for help, the woman actually said " well, if both UCLA and Stanford has done all the testing, what do you expect us to do?"

Maybe I should have enrolled in their " happy " clinical trial.

I am left thinking this has to be a fluff piece - as "the power of positive thinking" is something that has been around since before I was born - and I'm getting OLD.

Whenever things like this get published or become social memes it kind of eats at me because there is a world of difference between depression the emotion and Depression the disease. The first is a natural reaction to disappointment, loss, or violation of expectation sets. The second, the disease, is much more complicated, and people who don't have it will never really get it.

With the disease your world can be perfect and everything can be going way better than expected and *bam*, brain chemistry goes awry and one finds themselves despondent and feeling like death warmed over... and they are fully and well aware that they should NOT feel that way and that there is no reason for it. And, yet, all of the positivity in the world doesn't change things.

It's analogous to a study saying that eating sugar, in moderation, is fine - as written by a guy addressing general health or weight issues. For most people this is true. But for diabetics? Not even remotely accurate.

a reply to: grandmakdw

The happiest people I know are naive and gullible. They move about with this aura of innocence surrounding them. Many of those around them sense this aura of eternal optimism and find themselves reinforcing that condition in those afflicted folks, helping to hiding the truth from the those poor souls. The worse thing about it is that you can never have a decent conversation about a topic with these people. For example, just try to point out the shortfalls of our President and see what you get.

a reply to: grandmakdw

I'm 99.9% happy most the time and I take ATS with a grain of salt!

My husband holds the theory that thinking too much causes depression and mood swings. He points out that intellectuals and people with higher IQ's tend to have more problems with depression and alcohol and drug abuse.

He is more of a instinct- following, reactionary, social, sensual type (as is our daughter), and I try not to take that as a poke to me and my sons, who are more intellectually focused, like discussion and examination of abstract concepts, more individualist.

In family discussions on the correlation, we are forced to agree that there seems to be some. Which would indicate- better not to think!

I am not convinced though. For one, I often percieve that the excessive thinking seems to be born from the darker moods- not the contrary.
The general sense of things not being "right" puts my brain into action on trying to figure out what isn't good, what might be, and all the different ways they could become.

But I can and do choose sometimes to just not go into thinking mode, and let the mood be - as formless and meaningless experience. So I know that the mood doesn't go away or cease to happen because of thinking.

Plus, I watch that my daughter and husband will deal with their moods differently- not acknowledge it, just eat, for example, or turn to group activities with others. - and this is more what I suspect to be the real game changer!

People who follow their feelings, senses, and physical drives more than intellectual guidance, often understand how to use the company of others, socialization, as a mood regulator, better than the more individualist thinkers.

They understand that emotions being "contagious" can be a beneficial thing, rather than dangerous. They are better at group interaction, creating a positive energy within them, and letting that infuse each member.

Where I might hole up on a depressive day with a glass of wine and my keyboard, my daughter will invite over a group of friends for an impromptu party, complete with games and lots of food.

Having this sort of split in our own family has really helped us appreciate both ways of being, in their difference, and see how we basically need each other.

Being on ATS, though we all might consider that a social action (I do) of minds exchanging, it might also be an activity that leaves the body and it's need for emotional, non-verbal exchange, hungry.

What do you expect with so much negativity and hate. I used to spend a lot of time on ATS and found it made me unhappy. Doom porn, political racist diatribes and being called names, school boy bravado talking tough like Rush Limbaugh. Adults living in a www. fantasy world from mommys basement.
ATS has the propensity to make you physically sick and plenty of members are. I wonder if they see the connection?

Early morning for a little ATS stimulation then in the evening for the boredom all the while eating pills like not tomorrow.

I'm happier hanging around people I don't like in the bars and beer joints, then home and ATS is a lot easier to take with a little buzz happening.

I haven't felt part of the ATS "community" since I was ostracized and marginalized as a "people like you" I can count my true friends on one hand.

a reply to: Bluesma

I have the same sort of situation in my home.

My husband, just feels,
and everyone knows his emotional state,
generally happy,
but when he gets angry it is loud but blows over uber quickly.

I need intellectual exercise, and a lot of it.
So I come to ATS.
Get my brain exercised and yes vent my negative emotions.

I was surprised that it upset one of the posters
that I vent my negative emotions here,
he said that other have to mop them up; no they don't;
we don't know each other
and should take all comments we feel
might be directed at ourselves with the tiniest grain of salt possible.
Soaking up other people's feelings on a web site
is definitely a choice and not a responsibility.
There is way too much negativity on ATS
to try and mop up anyone's negativity, one would drown;
just let it air dry and forget it I say.

My hubby supports my intellectual exercises at ATS
because then I can just be happy with him,
having expressed my brooding concerns
about the news of the day at ATS
to people who want to discuss the topics; and brood with me.

As an old lady: (love the thread about us oldsters yesterday btw)
I have come to realize that happiness
for the most part is a choice we make.
We can focus on the good in our lives
if we choose to
and change our brain pattern to one of happiness
(by which I mean contentment, not smiling and chipper all the time which is annoying)

I have had clinical depression in the past
brought on by circumstances
and it is quite different from
everyday brooding and sadness.
So I'm not speaking here about thinking your way
out of clinical depression, nor do I think the article is either.

My life experience has shown me that looking at the glass as half full
looking for the silver lining in every cloud
(when I have been hospitalized for major illnesses, the silver lining
is always a nice weight loss!)
when I start to envy or want something "better"
that's when I start to list everything that is good in my life.
I have come to realize that being content when you have
all of life's basic necessities and not yearning for what
you can't have, leads to real contentment which some
call happiness.

My opinion. So many on here are unhappy because they distrust EVERYTHING, cant see past the negative things man does and like to moan. Very simple diagnosis. And its all self inflicted.