Sadly, the COVID-19 has caused the deaths of thousands of people worldwide and the loss of some of our loved ones and the lockdown are taking its toll on our mood and wellbeing. That's why it can be comforting to draw on the power of mindfulness and altruism to raise our spirits in these challenging times. These videos give us some tips on how they can help us overcome gloom.
How can mindfulness help us to be happier? Why does helping others make us feel better? Let us know what you think ...
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3 comments:
How important are the tips to get wellbeing and a balanced mood, although sometimes we ignore them. For me, what really works is focus on you current emotion, if it is positive take advance of it and if it is negative try to change it. Unfortunately, it is not an easy job, but nobody better than you to change your own feeling.
Somehow, being a moody person is not so bad since whether you don´t know unhappiness you couldn´t never be happy and the other way around.
Sometimes, to be under the weather is totally necessary, but be careful, you shouldn´t stick to this negative feeling. Better pick it up it and throw it away...and this is where mindfulness comes into play. As you know, it´s a meditation technique aimed at focusing on the present moment. Obviously it could relieve you stress and enhance quality of life. In this way we could get happiness. On the other hand, if you feel happy you want others to be happy too and at this point is when you could become an altruistic person, or what is the same, in someone who do something for other people good.
But, to be realistic, everyone is not able to be altruistic (although you are very happy). It seems that it depends on an amygdala that is in our brain, I mean, the bigger your amygdala is, the more altruistic you will be (according to psychologists).
Obviously, altruism and compassion are related. If we all did something for others it would be much better. For this reason, in this difficult days, take advantage of your virtues and try to help as much as possible. In other works, whatever you know to do, put it into practice. You will not regret.
Maggie
I think this is a very interesting video which gives you some ideas on how to keep happy. Here are the ideas that I got from the video which I think are quite useful at the moment, and I believe we can put them to practice during the day:
First of all, using music as a soundtrack - creating a happiness soundtrack, and promoting feelings that can help us, such as resilience, compassion, love, to feel good and feel calm, as this endows us with dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter.
Another idea is creating a happiness library that you can share with family, friends, etc. Laughter moves or expands our diaphragm, and that positively impacts our nervous system. Also, eating your favorite meal can make you feel happier, as does reminiscing about the happy moments you’ve had in your life. Our brain often cannot tell the difference between the now and the past, so remembering those kinds of moments where you felt good can be a good way of keeping happy. On the other hand, putting those negative feelings in perspective might help our immune system.
I think most of us can follow those tips during the days we are confined at home. It’s not difficult at all and it might help.
By the way it seems this is going to have an ending soon, which is such a relief for all of us. Just the option of going for a walk, for example, seems great!.
Thank you for this post! I think it’s a bit of fresh air for us.
Marta Bowen
This is an interesting topic that these days becomes even more important. We all have different emotions at different times of the day, in our lives. The problem comes when we let ourselves be carried away by these emotions, whether they are good (joy, love, euphoria, ...) or bad (sadness, anger, rage, ...). The trick is to take control of our emotions and give ourselves permission to feel them and let them pass. It's okay to feel in a certain way when faced with a certain stimulus, but we also have to take control of our feelings and our actions. Mindfulness is about that, it help us control our emotions so that it is our reason that controls our actions. When we help others, we feel useful. And we feel much better. This has to do with the release of certain substances in our brain that are involved with the feeling of happiness. And also it's nice to believe that the people we help can give us something back in the future.
María San José.
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