Happiness mindfulness and happiness therapy

Luck - lets it work out?
Luck has two meanings in German, namely to be lucky and to feel lucky. This article is about feeling and feeling and about being able to train happiness.

contents

• to be lucky
• Feeling happiness
• Be happy
• What does neurobiology say??
• The flow feeling
• Happiness in diversity
• Fortunately therapies
• attentiveness
• Make prosperity happy?
• Relationship and partnership
• Luck and comparison
• The tyranny of well-being
• Luck and luck
• literature

to be lucky

This happiness corresponds to a coincidence or a metaphysical force. This is an event that we do not deliberately influence: we are sitting in a café where a bomb hits, kills our table mate immediately, and we remain unharmed.

Can a feeling of happiness be trained? Picture: drubig-photo - fotolia

The origin of the word refers to the external character. Loss in Middle High German meant that an event went well. The affected did not make their own contribution.

Feeling happiness

"There is only one way to happiness and that means stopping worrying about things that are beyond the limits of our powers of influence." Epicurus of Samos

The feeling of happiness, however, refers to a state in which we feel comfortable. It is explicitly not about objective circumstances, but about our subjective perception. This feeling can be short-lived, for example, after passing a test, sitting with friends on the lake, or understanding well with our partner.

On the other hand, being happy corresponds to a permanent state in which we feel comfortable with our lives and experience many happy moments in particular.

The British distinguish between happiness and happiness. Luck corresponds to the luck, Happiness the subjective feeling.

Be happy

For lasting happiness, there is no magic formula. People who say they are happy are characterized by certain qualities: they find meaning in their lives, they feel well in their community; they have a strong sense of self-worth and live largely self-determined. They are more or less pure in themselves and find the balance between action and relaxation; They integrate past experiences with the desire for something new.

The sociologist Gerhard Schulze distinguished between happiness as the freedom from suffering and want and happiness as the beautiful life. The freedom from want is the prerequisite for coming to a beautiful life. The ancient philosopher Epicurus said: "If you want to make a man happy, do not add anything to his riches, but take some of his wishes."

The best way to experience the beautiful experience is when they are no longer chasing after things they can not reach.

What does neurobiology say??

On the one hand, happiness is considered metaphysical, on the other hand it deals with philosophy and pedagogy, sociology, psychology and politics. But neurobiology also contributes a lot to happiness research.

It may seem strange to explain such a "mystical feeling" as happiness through sober science, but by now we know something about how our brain controls emotions - both positive and negative.

The limbic system and the cerebral cortex behind the forehead are responsible for this. The switching points in the brain function as a "reward system".

They emit messengers, in the jargon of neurotransmitters, including those that cause happiness. This is especially true for the dopamine, endogenous opioids and cannabinoids. Our messenger metabolism produces exactly those drugs that consumers consume via the consumption of morphine, marijuana and hashish.

Happiness is also a biological effect. Image: Pixelrohkost - fotolia

However, neither endogenous drugs nor added substances have anything to do with long-term happiness. An "overdose" has similar consequences. Although the brain provides a short-term reward in the form of well-being, then the affected feel but rapidly bad.

The brain pathways get used to the substance, the well-being disappears, but the addiction to the substance remains. We know that from junkies, but less well known is that even extreme athletes have similar problems. If "sports addicts" can no longer complete their training, they also suffer from withdrawal symptoms.

We can activate canned messengers as we indulge in things that inspire us: painting, listening to beautiful music, hiking in nature or having good conversations with others.

Brain research regards endorphins, oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin as fortune-producing substances. The brain spills these substances, for example, during eating, during sex or sports, but also in phases of rest.

The philosopher Stefan Klein says: "We see ourselves as spiritual beings, feel inspired by hopes, thoughts, desires, not by chemistry. If we fall in love or proudly look at our children, can we really believe this joy in existence is nothing but the flow of some chemicals in our heads? "

But even the neurobiologists do not claim that we are merely slaves of our messengers. Social bonds, personal interests and the environment play a significant role, not least in which situations the brain produces these messenger substances.

Neurobiology, however, provides an explanation of why feelings of happiness seem so "mythical" to us, and why the conscious goal of feeling happiness does not work out in the vernacular. Thus, the body produces the emotions, and these precede the conscious feelings in the cerebral cortex. This means that we feel happy before we realize we are in luck. The nervous system works involuntarily, and that's why it does not work if we consciously force ourselves to be happy.

The flow feeling

All people know a feeling of flowing. Thoughts, feelings and ideas merge, we transform things that are sleeping in us and we feel very well. Everything seems right in these moments.

We feel that we are overcoming our everyday limits. Flow can be described as a feeling of happiness and can be deliberately brought about. It is also a result of hard work.

A scientist overwhelmed by a new discovery, an artist who paints nights on a picture that is getting better and better, a philosopher who penetrates into areas of knowledge that were previously unaware of him - all of them are in the state of happiness of flowing.

The happiness researcher Mihály Csíkszentmihályi coined the term flow for a work in which a person is completely absorbed. Flow is not a contentment that is sometimes confused with luck, but arises in the field of tension of overburdening and under-demanding.

Anyone who gets into this condition does something as much as it can in a specific field. He must challenge himself, the goal must not be easy to achieve, but at the same time not set so high that he can not achieve it.

In a state of total concentration, he enters the state of flow, which can enter into a trance, as experienced by shamans. Consciousness now translates information smoothly and breaks boundaries that previously paralyzed the creative flow.

This feeling of happiness does not dissolve from the act of the person concerned. Csíkszentmihályi writes: "Any loss of concentration erases the experience. But as it lasts, consciousness works supple; The activities seamlessly follow one another. "

Those affected grow beyond themselves: "When you are not dealing with yourself, you have the opportunity to expand the idea of ​​who you are. The loss of self-esteem can lead to self-transcendence, a feeling that the limits of being can be extended. "

Happiness in diversity

Satisfaction means not asking for more than you have. Such an attitude is the guarantee for experiencing little moments of happiness. If we always do the same, there is no reason for our brains to produce messengers.

Our senses react to contrasts. Surprises provide a feeling of happiness, but best when new experiences make the familiar: Experiencing the unknown triggers the contradiction between curiosity and fear in every human being.

Those who do not come out of everyday routine, may be described as satisfied, but the feeling of happiness remains on the track. Those who constantly jump into the cold water, while collecting exciting moments, which he also feels as a lucky state, but it also exposes itself to constant stress. The mixture probably ensures that the moments of happiness increase.

Fortunately therapies

Is it possible to train luck? In fact, there are several happiness therapies that are trying to do just that. They should strengthen and multiply the feelings of happiness.

Caution is advised: If such therapies as the popular "positive thinking" fade out the life contexts, the social conditions and the emotional spectrum, in which fear, anger and hate are not just misdemeanors, but just as elemental as feelings of happiness, then they hurt the affected.

Those who "train" their own subjective moments of happiness without changing their objective living conditions deny reality. In an emergency, he talks about a miserable job nicely, no longer cares about his rent "because everything will go well" and separates from critical people who could slow him down on his way into the biographical catastrophe.

Unhealthy "feelings of happiness" are well known to bipolars who spend days running euphorically around the area with the firm conviction to unleash the world and then land on the hard bottom of depression like a heroin addict when the intoxication abates.

Michael W. Fordyce founded a happiness therapy that has nothing to do with esoteric suppression of reality. Anyone looking for the "fast kick" will find Fordyce's program dry and set aside. Conversely, he shares with the gurus of positive thinking the idea that "negative feelings" should be eliminated.

But he developed very practical approaches, which can at least be a prerequisite for feeling more happy moments and becoming happier in the long run.

The cornerstones are:

1) Activity and employment

2) Deepen social relationships with other people

3) system in everyday life and planned action

4) Worrying about things that could happen

5) At the same time screwing back the claims and expectations

6) Orient yourself to the present, not to events that could only happen as a possibility and not to what can not be changed.

7) to accept oneself

8) Be as you are.

9) Establish close relationships, few close relationships are better than many acquaintances

A "lucky plan"

Happiness can not be planned, but we can create the conditions that make it possible

1) We introduce every day at least one activity in everyday life, which brings us friends

2) We invite guests and maintain old friendships.

3) We consider where we feel happy in our profession and what can be changed. We focus on the positive points and start the changes.

4) We keep a care diary and reflect on what might be justified. We exchange with others about these concerns.

5) We examine our goals, wishes and hopes, find out what can be realized and focus on it.

6) We are making plans for the coming weeks, months and years.

7) We think through events in our lives and find out what was positive about them.

8) We will make this week as positive as possible

9) We accept the sides of our personality that we consider negative.

10) We participate in associations and organizations that correspond to our interests. We meet new people and smile at those who meet us.

11) We express emotions openly.

12) For serious mental health problems, we seek professional help.

13) We spend more time with the people who are important to us. We address problems in relationships and try to solve them.

14) We think deeply about what happiness means to us and we aim at it as a goal to which we subordinate others. If we realize that more wealth does not make us happy, if we forget to live, then wealth is not the goal.

The New Zealand psychologists Lichter, Hay and Kamann distinguish between beliefs that hinder our happiness and those that promote it.

Luck hinders ideas like

1) The acceptance and rejection of others are responsible for my feelings.

2) My personality can not be changed.

3) I am guilty of whatever.

4) The future worries me (without an objective reason)

5) Other people are constantly doing everything wrong, so I have to get upset.

Happiness, on the other hand, encourages attitudes like

1) My feelings are a part of my life and only concern myself

2) I feel good in myself.

3) New experiences do not be afraid.

4) Failures do not mean to punish myself.

5) I decide what I like, not conventions.

6) I act on the basis of my feelings and attitudes.

7) I enjoy the present.

attentiveness

The presented happiness therapies are accompanied by a state of mindfulness. I look closely at the processes around me. Just letting oneself drift is not suitable for developing more happiness - this requires keener perception.

Build mindfulness into everyday life. Image: Trueffelpix - fotolia

First of all, it involves awareness: Not only do I make things simple, I focus on what I do.

I do not let myself be distracted by worries about whatever, feelings haunting my job, or thoughts spinning in circles.

Neutrality is important, because only it lets in new things. I perceive without automatically assessing it and putting it in the drawer of my "world order". I only look at events in the environment.

I change perspective and try to look at things from a different perspective than the one I see as my own.

Mindfulness is so closely related to happiness because it is not focused on the known. If we always search for the same solutions and follow the same habits, we will feel little happiness.

Psychologist Ellen Lange writes, "Mindfulness is best achieved by avoiding carelessness right from the start. To avoid carelessness, we must realize that the truth of any information depends on its context. So when we perceive something, we should be aware that it is never an absolute fact. "

It also means not putting our interpretations on the unknown in order to give us security. Langer continues, "To be mindful, we must cultivate a healthy respect for insecurity. To be mindful of one thing, we should actively and consciously look for differences. We do not do that as soon as we think we already know a thing, a place or a person inside out. The expectations of something new, on the other hand, keeps us alert and alert. "

Make prosperity happy?

Although the popular saying "money alone does not make happy," in the neoliberal propaganda material wealth has become the sole cipher for luck.

Empirical research shows, however, that the extent of wealth says little about the happiness of people. Thus, people in poor countries are not necessarily unhappy, and the inhabitants of rich industrialized countries are often unhappy.

Surveys show that money only raises well-being to a certain limit. People who suffer material hardship, do not know how to pay their rent, or feed their children, feel considerably better when they enjoy sufficient wealth to stop having these problems.

But when a certain level of prosperity is reached, people with more wealth will not become happier - on the contrary. Those who become accustomed to their status and increase their claims, enter a spiral of unhappiness.

He feels subjectively a shortage, because there is still more, what he could buy. The feeling of happiness disappears. Psychologists speak of the "hedonistic treadmill".

Relationship and partnership

Much more important to well-being is fulfilled relationships - not only in the family, but in society. Guests from traditional societies are often the first to notice the many people in German cities who obviously suffer from mental health problems.

More and more people in middle and older age are getting lonely. More and more work and constant availability with constantly decreasing wages for this work lead not only to constant stress, but also to the fact that close relations meanwhile as career obstacle apply.

The best chances in ever-changing demands on the job market has the single in the big city, which is not inhibited by ties to children, wife, social activity or grown friendships.

Most psychologists who deal with happiness are in agreement: the best basis for feeling happiness is firm partner relationships, at least if they remain intact.

Luck and comparison

According to Rainer Dolasse of the University of Bielefeld, happiness and unhappiness are strongly linked to comparison with others.

Relative deprivation refers to a state in which we compare ourselves with others who are better (real or supposed): we feel unhappy.

Adaptation means: We adapt to a state in which we feel better, like after a lottery win and everything is back to normal.

Goal achievement means: We set ourselves unrealistically high goals, can not achieve them and become unhappy.

Mastery means: We independently solve a problem and are happy.

Flow experiences go beyond that: We act and feel happy for a long time, and the judgment of others does not bother us.

The tyranny of well-being

There can be no lasting happiness as much as a life without death. Those who have suffered psychological crises, processed strokes of fate and survived struggles in life usually remember intense experiences of happiness.

The happiness of watching the tits build their nest after weeks in the clinic, getting the letter about the master's thesis, or moving into a beautiful apartment with a garden - people experience this intensely after periods of insecurity.

The "positive thinking", especially in the US, wants to throw negative emotions into the garbage. Not only does this lead to a completely false view of social violence, but it also ignores the fact that one can not exist without the other - neither philosophically nor psychologically, neither in sociology nor in biology.

The psychologist Rolf Degen writes: "The well-intentioned call to positive psychology can easily become a fatal conquest of fortune and lead to a tyranny of well-being. Ask yourself: Can it be good if we are not allowed to feel bad in situations where that would be appropriate? Hardly likely. Unpleasant feelings would only prove our personal failure. And then we feel really bad. "

If we feel bad, then we have the right to do so, as well as the right to be happy. If we are socially or psychologically stuck in a dark hole, then we do not have to produce pink soap bubbles to be happy.

Anger or fear are as meaningful as happiness. Anger, for example, gives us the feeling of controlling an unbearable situation; Fear gives us the opportunity to get out of this situation.

The supposedly negative emotions thus create the basis to be happy again.

Luck and luck

Psychologists distinguish the sense of well-being based on values. Consequently, people develop this long-term happiness when they lead a life that engages them in a larger sense and to which they mutually give that meaning.

This happiness is in contrast to a meaningless search for "lucky kicks" that leads those affected into drug addiction, inner emptiness and mental ruin.

The lasting happiness is based on warm-hearted relationships with other people and sustainable bonds, but also on philosophical and political worldviews with the aim of leaving this world a little better than we have entered. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)
Specialist supervision: Barbara Schindewolf-Lensch (doctor)

literature

• Peter Strasser: What is luck? About the feeling of being alive. Paderborn 2011.
• Wolf Schneider: luck. A slightly different user manual. Reinbek near Hamburg 2007.
• Mihály Csíkszentmihályi: Giving the meaning of life a future. A psychologist for the 3rd millennium. Stuttgart 2000.
• Stefan Klein: The formula of happiness or how the good feelings arise. Reinbek near Hamburg 2002.