There is nothing more important to your happiness factor than taking proper care of your body.
There is nothing better than a good night’s sleep to make you feel better. Well, maybe a perfect diet, proportioned in fat, carbohydrates, proteins and calories. Oh, I almost forgot the benefit of a good exercise program will do wonders for your health and well-being.
Taking care of your health is an integral part of taking care of your mental well-being. It’s hard to feel happy if you don’t get proper nutrition, sleep or exercise, no matter how hard you try to keep a positive attitude. If you don’t feel rested or fueled, happiness is going to be just beyond your reach.
Take time to get the rest you need. Go to bed earlier than usual, but don’t disturb your natural rhythm too much. Eat smaller meals, but more frequently, to keep your blood sugar levels regular. Eat fresh foods; lots of fresh fruit and vegetables will help keep your energy levels up, and make sure to include some proteins for long-term energy.
Exercise tells your brain to release “happy hormones”, called endorphins. Regular exercise that makes you breathe just a little bit hard helps you to burn fat and to get the added benefit of the endorphins that give you a burst of energy and a sense of well-being.
Take control of your own body as a way of making yourself happier. By making better food choices, getting plenty of quality rest and getting more exercise is a sure-fire way of increasing you “happy factor”.
The answer to these questions define your perspective on life. Half-empty
or half-full
? Cannot be done or can be done - even if it means just trying? Don't have or have - even if it looks like you don't have? Rule No 1, when the "I cannot" comes calling, your response should be "Not available, go look elsewhere."
The choice is yours. The decision is wholly your responsibility. Both way are highways, only the lead in opposite directions. Both will surely take you to a destination. It remains weather the destination will be a pleasant one.
You miss so much if you look at life through the half-empty glass. Taking the negative slant on life leads to a life of negative thinking that never sees
the good things that life has to offer.
Take a moment and write down all the things that are wrong with your life. Then, on a different piece of paper, write down all of the blessings you have. For a negative person, this can be hard. Did you wake up in a warm bed this morning? Was your bed warm? Was there someone on the other side of the bed? Did you have breakfast? Did you go to a job? In a car? Did you have clean, decent clothes to put on?
Each any every one of these things are blessings and are a positive part of your life. It can be so easy to think about the negative things: I don’t get paid enough, my car is old, and the cereal wasn’t fresh - come on! Half the world would love to have the things you took for granted just this morning!
What do you ever get out of life by looking at the negative aspects
of your life? Are you a complainer? Are you a complainer because of your circumstances or do your circumstances make you complain? How much worse could things be? When you really think about your life, aren’t you truly blessed compared to others around the planet?
Try thinking positively as a way of finding happiness and satisfaction in your life. Complaining does nothing except make others around you feel bad, and if
that’s your intention, you need to re-think your relationship.
Sometimes, when all our doubts, fears and insecurities wrap ourselves up, we always come up with the idea of “I wish I was somebody else.” More often than not, we think and believe that someone or rather, most people are better than us.- when in reality, the fact is, most people are more scared than us.
You spot a totally eye-catching girl sitting by herself at a party, casually sipping on a glass of Asti Spumanti. You think to yourself, “she looks so perfectly calm and confident.” But if you could read thru her transparent mind, you would see a bunch of clouds of thoughts and you might just be amazed that she’s thinking “are people talking about why I am seated here alone?... Why don’t guys find me attractive? …I don’t like my ankles, they look too skinny… I wish I was as intelligent as my best friend.”
We look at a young business entrepreneur and say “Wooh… what else could he ask for?” He stares at himself at the mirror and murmur to himself, “I hate my big eyes… I wonder why my friends won’t talk to me… I hope mom and dad would still work things out.”
Isn’t it funny? We look at other people, envy them for looking so outrageously perfect and wish we could trade places with them, while they look at us and thinks of the same thing. We are insecure of other people who themselves are insecure of us. We suffer from low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence and lose hope in self improvement because we are enveloped in quiet desperation.
Sometimes, you notice that you have an irritating habit like biting off your finger nails, having a foul mouth, and you – of all people, is the last to know.
I have a friend who never gets tired of talking. And in most conversations, she is the only one who seems to be interested in the things she has to say. So all of our other friends tend to avoid the circles whenever she’s around, and she doesn’t notices how badly she became socially handicapped – gradually affecting the people in her environment.
One key to self improvement is to LISTEN and TALK to a trusted friend. Find someone who you find comfort in opening up with even the most gentle topics you want to discuss. Ask questions like “do you think I am ill-mannered?”, “Do I always sound so argumentative?”, “Do I talk too loud?”, “Does my breath smell?”, “Do I ever bore you when were together?”. In this way, the other person will obviously know that you are interested in the process of self improvement. Lend her your ears for comments and criticisms and don’t give her answers like “Don’t exaggerate! That’s just the way I am!” Open up your mind and heart as well. And in return, you may want to help your friend with constructive criticism that will also help her improve her self.
One of Whitney Houston’s songs says “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.” True enough. In order to love others, you must love yourself too. Remember, you cannot give what you do not have.
Before telling other people some ways on how to improve themselves, let them see that you yourself is a representation and a product of self improvement. Self improvement makes us better people, we then inspire other people, and then the rest of the world will follow.
Stop thinking of yourselves as second-rate beings. Forget the repetitive thought of “If only I was richer… if only I was thinner” and so on. Accepting your true self is the first step to self improvement. We need to stop comparing ourselves to others only to find out at the end that we’ve got 10 more reasons to envy them.
We all have our insecurities. Nobody is perfect. We always wish we had better things, better features, better body parts, etc. But life need not to be perfect for people to be happy about themselves.Self improvement and loving yourself is not a matter of shouting to the whole world that you are perfect and you are the best. It’s the virtue of acceptance and contentment. When we begin to improve ourselves, we then begin to feel contented and happy.
Success is more than economic gains, titles, and degrees. Planning for success is about mapping out all the aspects of your life. Similar to a map, you need to define the following details: origin, destination, vehicle, backpack, landmarks, and route.
Origin: Who you are
A map has a starting point. Your origin is who you are right now. Most people when asked to introduce themselves would say, “Hi, I’m Jean and I am a 17-year old, senior high school student.” It does not tell you about who Jean is; it only tells you her present preoccupation. To gain insights about yourself, you need to look closely at your beliefs, values, and principles aside from your economic, professional, cultural, and civil status. Moreover, you can also reflect on your experiences to give you insights on your good and not-so-good traits, skills, knowledge, strengths, and weaknesses. Upon introspection, Jean realized that she was highly motivated, generous, service-oriented, but impatient. Her inclination was in the biological-medical field. Furthermore, she believed that life must serve a purpose, and that wars were destructive to human dignity.
Destination: A vision 
of who you want to be
“Who do want to be?” this is your vision. Now it is important that you know yourself so that you would have a clearer idea of who you want to be; and the things you want to change whether they are attitudes, habits, or points of view. If you hardly know yourself, then your vision and targets for the future would also be unclear. Your destination should cover all the aspects of your being: the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Continuing Jean’s story, after she defined her beliefs, values, and principles in life, she decided that she wanted to have a life dedicated in serving her fellowmen.
Vehicle: Your Mission 
A vehicle is the means by which you can reach your destination. It can be analogized to your mission or vocation in life. To a great extent, your mission would depend on what you know about yourself. Bases on Jean’s self-assessment, she decided that she was suited to become a doctor, and that she wanted to become one. Her chosen vocation was a medical doctor. Describing her vision-mission fully: it was to live a life dedicated to serving her fellowmen as a doctor in conflict-areas.
Travel Bag: Your knowledge, skills, and attitude
Food, drinks, medicines, and other travelling necessities are contained in a bag. Applying this concept to your life map, you also bring with you certain knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These determine your competence and help you in attaining your vision. Given such, there is a need for you to assess what knowledge, skills, and attitudes you have at present and what you need to gain along the way. This two-fold assessment will give you insights on your landmarks or measures of success. Jean realized that she needed to gain professional knowledge and skills on medicine so that she could become a doctor. She knew that she was a bit impatient with people so she realized that this was something she wanted to change.
Landmarks and Route: S.M.A.R.T. objectives
Landmarks confirm if you are on the right track while the route determines the travel time. Thus, in planning out your life, you also need to have landmarks and a route. These landmarks are your measures of success. These measures must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. Thus you cannot set two major landmarks such as earning a master’s degree and a doctorate degree within a period of three years, since the minimum number of years to complete a master’s degree is two years. Going back to Jean as an example, she identified the following landmarks in her life map: completing a bachelor’s degree in biology by the age of 21; completing medicine by the age of 27; earning her specialization in infectious diseases by the age of 30; getting deployed in local public hospitals of their town by the age of 32; and serving as doctor in war-torn areas by the age of 35.
Anticipate Turns, Detours, and Potholes
The purpose of your life map is to minimize hasty and spur-of-the-moment decisions that can make you lose your way. But oftentimes our plans are modified along the way due to some inconveniences, delays, and other situations beyond our control. Like in any path, there are turns, detours, and potholes thus; we must anticipate them and adjust accordingly.
Is there anything that gives us more joy than giving
of ourselves? I’m not talking about giving gifts; I’m talking about giving time and effort to make a
difference in another person’s life. Putting some effort into giving is so much more rewarding than taking.
Time is the most wonderful gift you can give anyone. Anyone who has or had a great parent will tell you that the greatest gift 
their parent gave them was
time. Time to read, time to play, time to talk and time to listen is fantastic gifts to children and is never forgotten.
Do you give enough time to your loved ones now that you’re an adult? Knowing that it is a precious gift that costs nothing at all makes it so easy to give!
Now, make an actual effort to give someone your time
. For example, call a friend, or a Church member you know, or your sister-in-law and invite them to coffee; not someone you’ve invited before, but someone new.
Or go visit someone who is cooped up at home or in the nursing home. Bake someone cookies, or take a plant or a bouquet of flowers from your garden. Make a connection and make an effort to keep that connection.
Giving, in lieu of taking, is so much more rewarding and will be a huge source of inner happiness for you, not to mention those lives you will touch. Giving is a
true win-win gift!
Endorphins are natural hormones that your brain
releases when it senses happiness. These endorphins
give you a sense of happiness, satisfaction and
well-being; they tell you all is well with your body.
It’s that relaxed sense after a good meal, a good
workout, a good laugh or great sex.
Endorphins are produced in the pituitary gland and the
hypothalamus gland and release an opioid-like
secretion that masks pain with a natural analgesic and
tells the body that all is fine with the world.
Acupuncture has been found to have the ability to
release these compounds and relieve pain, at least for the short term, and to leave you with a wonderful sense of wellbeing.
Exercise, extreme happiness, good food and orgasm
releases natural endorphins, and endorphins make you feel happy and satisfied with life.
The more often you can stimulate your brain to release these natural hormones, the better you will feel, and the easier it will be to put yourself into this happy
state of being.
Endorphins cannot be bought; only through your own
effort can you bring them into being.
There is no downside to putting yourself into the position of happiness, either through laughter, sex, food or exercise.
Happy creates happy; it is a cycle that
you should never break and you should take every chance to spur these hormones on. Let them do what they do naturally; light their fire and reap the benefits!
. Not the 
. Do this when you 
that will forever change your life?
