Happiness is more than chasing pleasure

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A look at the ways stress can affect your health - both good and bad

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Stress leading to 'desk rage'
Aug. 19: When workplace pressure builds too much, some corporate workers are resorting to "desk rage"- screaming, cursing and violence while at their desk. WNBC's Ida Siegal reports.

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Q. Can scientists develop strategies to help people be more positive?
A. There is a study looking at the health effects of gratitude journals that help a person identify the events or experiences in their day that they are grateful for and write them down. If you do it in a systemized way, it prevents the [good feelings] from being thrown out from the gestalt of the day.

Q. So that would train people to think about the positive things that have happened to them instead of fixating on the negative?
A. Right. One of the things that religions share is reflection — whether they call it prayer or meditation. They focus on being internally more attuned and to be grateful and appreciative for what you do have and remorseful about the things you wish you wouldn’t have done.

Another researcher is looking at exercises in altruism or kindness that are reflective of a person’s individual values. There are people who feel quite invigorated when they do altruistic things, but they need a nudge or some support or encouragement.

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To paraphrase Gandhi, happiness is when what you think, you say and what you do are consistent with each other and are consistent with your values. Science is beginning to more precisely measure, understand and construct mechanisms for attaining a frame of mind that potentially can have as significant an impact on health as diet, exercise or not smoking.

Q. What are scientists hoping to find from the research on emotional states?
A. What we’re hoping to find is that health and lifestyle is not only tending to one’s ... emotional well-being, [but] also tending to one’s physiologic well-being. It’s more than reducing stress. It’s tending to what is important to your life — not what’s important to life — but what’s important to you.

Some of these self-help books will tell you what to do, but they fall flat because they’re not for everybody. For example, jogging or gardening aren’t for everyone.

The things that people choose to do that are reflective of their values — that’s what is healthy for them. That’s what helps them be healthier, live longer and feel more contented. That’s the “wow” of this.

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