Dibawah extrak Paul Makena mengenai sesuatu yang boleh kita pelajari pada diri kita...
::In his new book I Can Make You Happy, international best-selling author PAUL McKENNA — whose techniques have helped millions to change their lives for the better — reveals his unique formula for making you feel good. In the second part of our exclusive series, he shows you how you can make happiness a habit.::
::Paul McKenna says that by making yourself smile or laugh every day you can become happier:
:You may not feel like smiling or laughing right now. But if you make a point of regularly turning the corners of your mouth upwards, you’re soon going to feel happier. You don’t even need to have anything to laugh about. Just pretend — and you’ll still get the same effect.
So, as I explain in my new book I Can Make You Happy, this very effective exercise is ridiculously simple: just laugh 20 times a day and smile 20 times a day.
Whenever you smile, you release serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter that makes you feel good. People who are smiled at also report that they feel happier — and the more you smile at others, the more they’ll smile at you.
Once it becomes a habit to be smiley, you’ll add a steady stream of happy moments to your life and permanently raise your overall level of happiness.
And that’s not all. Research has shown that laughter also boosts the immune system and helps the body clear out toxins. Which means that by laughing a lot, you’ll have better digestion, fewer colds and fewer bouts of flu.
HABITS OF HAPPINESS
We all have habits — like smiling or frowning — that we create by repetition. Each of these corresponds to a neural pathway in the brain.
The more we repeat a thought or action, the stronger that pathway becomes, just as a footpath across a field becomes clearer and firmer the more people walk along it.
Once we form a habit, it’s regulated directly by the unconscious mind. So it won’t be a surprise to learn that unhappy people have habits that maintain their unhappiness, and happy people have habits that sustain their contentment.
Once it becomes a habit to be smiley, you'll add a steady stream of happy moments to your life and permanently raise your overall level of happiness
The good news is that creating small new habits can produce great results.
Of course, some of us have significant issues that lie beneath our unhappiness that we need to address.
But even before we do that, we can use the exercises I’m giving you to change our everyday habits and bring about a measurable improvement in our lives.
And if you practise every day, your happiness will increase.
My friend Dr Robert Holden, who is often referred to as the ‘happiness psychologist’, has conducted an amazing experiment which proves that we can completely alter levels of happiness by changing our habits.
Rather than trying to break bad habits, he replaced the old ones with new ones.
For his experiment, which was the subject of a BBC documentary, he gathered a group of depressed people and started by giving each an MRI scan. This focused on activity in the left prefrontal lobe of the brain — an area that corresponds with happy thoughts and feelings.
As expected the scan revealed that each person had the neurological signs associated with depression. Then Robert asked them all to do just three things over and over for a month.
Laugh and smile for 20 minutes a day.
Take at least 20 minutes exercise a day.
Focus on happy thoughts and memories with the ‘spot the dots’ technique (see below).
At the end of the month, every one of them reported that they felt happier.
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Afterwards they were given another MRI scan, which showed that they’d significantly increased activity in the left prefrontal lobe area.
In just one month, they’d changed the physical activity of their neural networks and brain chemistry simply by changing their habits of thinking and behaviour. In other words, they’d moved from being depressed to extremely optimistic.
These findings were so remarkable that an independent psychologist monitoring the experiment insisted that the MRI machine be checked for faults. The machine was working perfectly.
But the BBC bosses were still wary, so they delayed transmitting the programme for six months because they couldn’t believe the change would last.
Six months later, the subjects agreed to have another MRI scan. Their brains still showed increased activity in the left prefrontal lobe, and each person reported that he still felt significantly happier.
So how can you follow Robert’s remarkable formula for increasing happiness?
The first thing couldn’t be simpler: just laugh or smile — whether you feel like it or not — for 20 minutes a day. Now, I’m going to show you how to do the other two techniques.
Whenever you smile, you release serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter that makes you feel good
THE INSTANT MOOD CHANGER
As well as laughing and smiling more, you need to take at least 20 minutes’ exercise a day. The scientific evidence for this is overwhelming: happy people are more active than unhappy ones. And active people are happier than those who take no exercise.
Why? Because exercise stimulates your body to produce two chemicals that change how you feel.
As you start to use your muscles, adrenaline is released, which increases your alertness and triggers the release of energy. Then when you finish exercising, endorphins are released which give you a sweet, soft feeling in your muscles and a sensation of satisfaction and relaxation.
Exercise clears out all the stress chemicals from your body and rebalances your neurology and body chemistry. It even makes you sleep better. And it has been proved to be the single most effective treatment for depression.
But you don’t have to go to the gym, run on a track or pump iron. Walking is one of the best forms of exercise — and don’t forget
that you’re already exercising with every movement you make during the day.
When I was developing my Weight Loss programme, I asked researchers to check on the precise amount of exercise people were taking. They found that the difference between an overweight person and a naturally thin person was just 2,000 steps a day.
That’s a 15-minute walk.
So going to the gym is fine, but I think it’s far better just to build a bit of exercise into your life. Anything that warms you up, gets you breathing deeply and makes your heart beat faster will definitely change your mood. And a by-product is that you’ll also be fitter, which is good for your health.
If you can exercise in a park or the countryside, that’s another bonus. Recent research has shown that people who take exercise outdoors in a natural environment experience a rapid boost in mood and self-esteem.
BEATING THE BURN-OUT
I’ve worked with a number of high achievers recently who had everything in a material sense. Their happiness levels, however, were like a roller-coaster ride.
I know what that’s like, because I’ve experienced it myself.
These high achievers work until they burn themselves out, and then they feel down because they’ve depleted their vital neurotransmitters (the brain chemicals which help send messages around the brain). Often, their bodies force them to take a break by making them unwell.
They’re treating life like a series of sprints rather than a marathon. I’ve found that two straightforward principles made a huge difference to their lives:
Listen to your body. When it tells you to slow down, take a rest. Resting just before you’re totally exhausted means your overall stamina will be stronger.
When you have a lot to do, create an A, B, C list. A is essential and must be done today. B is important but can wait. C is everything else. Just focus on A, then tackle as much of B and C as you feel like doing.
SPOT THE DOTS
This third exercise has a very powerful effect because you are repeatedly adding into your life a strongly positive experience.
Stick at least a dozen little coloured dots around your home, where you’ll see them as you go about your daily life. You could place them, for example, on the mirror, on the fridge, on the bathroom door and in the hall.
Make a list of three happy memories, three people you love or who love you, and three things that could make you happy in the future. If you find it difficult to find or remember three things for each category, make up some situations or possibilities that would make you happy.
Imagine or remember each item as vividly as possible. For each memory, see it in your mind’s eye as if you’re experiencing it again — hear what you heard and feel what you felt then. For each person, imagine being with them, hearing them and experiencing how good they make you feel. For each situation in the future, imagine it happening — see it, hear it and feel it as though it’s taking place now.
Take as much time as you need to work through your list. Notice how good you feel at the end. As you do this more and more, it will have a cumulative effect.
Whenever you see a coloured dot, think of one of the items on your list.
ADDING THE POSITIVE
Robert's three exercises produce a physically measurable effect in one month. But we can make that change faster and more powerful by working on other habits as well.
By that, I mean habits that actually maintain unhappy feelings. For example, many depressed
people often say or think negative things, such as: ‘Oh God, I’ve got another day to get through,’ or ‘I’m going to be on my own again.’
The effect of this thinking, I’ve found, can be dramatically altered when we simply add a positive thought on to the end of a negative one.
Use the same vivid positive memories that you use when you see a coloured dot.
Try to single out any statements or judgments that you say or think which make you feel sad, hopeless or unhappy.
Whenever you think one of those negative statements, add on to it, ‘And now I remember. . .’ or ‘And now I love . . .’ or ‘And in the future . . .’, and then bring to mind one of the items on your list.
For example, you might have a negative thought such as: ‘I’ve got another day to get through.’ And you might want to add on: ‘And now I’m thinking about how much fun I have with my best friend.’
When you use this exercise repeatedly, you’ll discover that your brain begins to streamline the process — so that as soon as you have a negative thought, your brain fast-forwards to the positive idea and feeling.
In the end, that makes the negative thought just like a coloured dot: it becomes a signal to have a positive thought.
THINKING IN BLACK & WHITE
The language we habitually use is like a stream of hypnotic suggestions that strongly affect our experience.
Some people think it doesn’t matter if we exaggerate with negative language, but black-and-white thinking is limiting — even in jest. Negative thinking effectively shuts the door on positive possibilities.
For example, it’s not unusual to hear someone say: ‘Everything always goes wrong for me!’
Clearly, that person is having a bad day — but what he’s saying isn’t literally true. He doesn’t drop everything he holds, he doesn’t fall over every time he tries to walk and he doesn’t lose his wallet every time he goes outdoors. Some things work and some things don’t.
But if this person keeps uttering negative phrases like, ‘Nothing works for me’ and ‘I never have any luck’, he paints all the world black and won’t notice hundreds of possible happy moments.
Here’s how to change black-and-white thinking and make room for happiness in your language.
Pay attention to the voice inside your head.
Look out for words like ‘can’t’, ‘nothing’, ‘always’, ‘only’, ‘every’, ‘no one’ and ‘never’.
If you hear any of these words, repeat the sentence in your head and notice if that thought makes you feel bad or limited.
If so, change it from a general statement to a particular one. For example, you might turn ‘No one understands me’ into ‘Bill did not understand what I said this morning’.
Now, check that there’s room for a positive outcome in what you’ve just said. For example: ‘I’ll talk to Bill later, and this time I’ll check that he’s understood what I said.’
TAKING A LIBERTY
Sometimes, just one problem feels overwhelming. This amazing technique, created by my friend Kevin Laye, will instantly help you to cope. It will recode the way the brain processes information so that you can handle the problem from a more resourceful position.
Think of the problem or issue that’s bothering you. Make a picture in your imagination that represents it.
Imagine holding that picture in front of
you in your right hand. Look at it and notice how you feel.
Now, still holding that picture, raise your right hand up so that you’re standing like the Statue of Liberty and holding that problem high up in
the air.
Look at the picture up there and notice how different you feel. The problem is the same, but the feeling of panic is reduced because you’re stimulating the brainwaves associated with peace and comfort. As I explained yesterday, when people look upwards they generate the alpha waves which make us feel good.
HIGHER LEVEL
This next technique will reinforce your new brain chemistry. Each time you do it, you’ll reset your base of happiness to a higher level.
Indeed, people I’ve taken through this exercise often report that it produces a feeling of euphoria and gives them a better insight into themselves.
Afterwards, you’ll find that other people are more lovable, and the world looks somehow brighter, more friendly and full of exciting possibilities.
Choose somewhere to sit quietly for five minutes. Gently relax for a minute or so. Pay attention to your breathing. Imagine there’s a silver thread coming down from the sky that’s gently pulling you up from the very top of your head. Imagine letting that thread hold your head upright, allow your shoulders to drop and then imagine that you’re supported by the thread.
Now, let your imagination explore how you’d be if you were fulfilling your highest potential. Imagine there’s a screen in front of you, on which you’re watching a super-realistic movie of yourself
in the best possible state, going about your everyday life. Watch yourself being capable, kind,
generous, balanced and in control.
As you watch that movie, ask yourself: ‘If I were being loved unconditionally right now, how would that feel? How good can I feel if I’m full of energy? If I were loved so much that I could love in return as much as I can? If I had overcome the obstacles I face? If I’d received so much that I could be as generous as I wanted?’
If you were the best version of yourself, at your highest potential, how would you move, breathe, smile, think, act, deal with people and difficult situations? How much joy would you feel in your body? What kinds of positive thoughts would fill your head?
Now, float over into yourself in that movie — so that you’re seeing, hearing and feeling everything from within your higher self. Notice how good you can feel at your most loving, most confident, most generous and most kind. Be relaxed and comfortable in yourself.
Enjoy exploring how good this feels. Now, spread this feeling through the whole of your body and heart and mind. Notice which factors let you truly enjoy being totally at ease and free to love and appreciate your life completely. Notice the balance of peacefulness and energy.
Now, look ahead and imagine what it will be like to keep this feeling within you as you go about your daily life. What is your home life like, with all the love and generosity and wisdom of your highest potential? How do you feel as you wake up in the morning, as you meet
people and go about your daily tasks? How will your work be different when you feel so comfortable, balanced and capable? How will your evenings be different with this internal peace, love and energy?
Now, look ahead to at least three ordinary situations from your daily life over the coming week. Vividly imagine how they’ll be when you’re transformed by this inner connection to energy, balance and happiness.
Keep this feeling with you throughout your day.
Extracted from I CAN MAKE YOU HAPPY by Paul McKenna, published by Bantam at £10.99.
© 2011 Paul McKenna::
Prioritise:
BEATING THE BURN-OUT
I’ve worked with a number of high achievers recently who had everything in a material sense. Their happiness levels, however, were like a roller-coaster ride.
I know what that’s like, because I’ve experienced it myself.
These high achievers work until they burn themselves out, and then they feel down because they’ve depleted their vital neurotransmitters (the brain chemicals which help send messages around the brain). Often, their bodies force them to take a break by making them unwell.
They’re treating life like a series of sprints rather than a marathon. I’ve found that two straightforward principles made a huge difference to their lives:
Listen to your body. When it tells you to slow down, take a rest. Resting just before you’re totally exhausted means your overall stamina will be stronger.
When you have a lot to do, create an A, B, C list. A is essential and must be done today. B is important but can wait. C is everything else. Just focus on A, then tackle as much of B and C as you feel like doing.
Taking A liberty:
Sometimes, just one problem feels overwhelming. This amazing technique, created by my friend Kevin Laye, will instantly help you to cope. It will recode the way the brain processes information so that you can handle the problem from a more resourceful position.
Think of the problem or issue that’s bothering you. Make a picture in your imagination that represents it.
you in your right hand. Look at it and notice how you feel.
Now, still holding that picture, raise your right hand up so that you’re standing like the Statue of Liberty and holding that problem high up in
the air.
Look at the picture up there and notice how different you feel. The problem is the same, but the feeling of panic is reduced because you’re stimulating the brainwaves associated with peace and comfort. As I explained yesterday, when people look upwards they generate the alpha waves which make us feel good
::Article was taken from Dma1l extract of Paul Mckenna with thanks::
