Laughter is like internal jogging

The greatest of all miracles is health. Every day our bodies are attacked by millions of microbes, viruses and bacteria.  The body is able to repulse these invaders and protect itself.  This mechanism is called the immune response.  The body’s immune response is enhanced by laughter.

Laughter is like internal jogging.  It fills your mindspace with positive emotions.  Emotionally it is relaxing, reducing harmful muscle tension.  Endorphins and serotonin flow into the blood, resulting in a peaceful happy state of mind.  A good bout of laughter also reduces the levels of stress hormones epinephrine and cortisol.

Love and Kindness to all living beings

When you give compassionately, you receive the gift of happiness.  The Buddhists believe in metta bhavana, a feeling of immeasurable loving-kindness towards all living beings. Like colour dropped into a glass of clear water, metta bhavana colours and permeates your whole life with the joy of all beings. In systems like pranic healing or reiki or even in organised religions, one prays for the peace and happiness of all beings in the universe. This can be an unending source of joy.

Sharing, helping each other and cultivating strong social relationships keep us healthy and contribute to a peaceful life. The rasa of compassion is a great source of creating a positive mental state and fortifying the body’s immune system as it taps into the feel-good chemicals in the body.

Studies have shown that those with eight to six close relationships were healthier than those with less than four. It is this feeling that promotes altruism and the many service clubs in the world. We need social relationships to truly thrive. Social networks can help us change our health activities. We need social relationships to be methodically developed to promote compassion and mutual empathy.

Positive Emotions for Health Heart

Emotions, and the way you deal with them can affect your health. This guide will help you understand the impact of nine primary emotions in maintaining health. The positive emotions create a positive field which fills your blood with the chemicals of happiness and wellbeing. They are conducive to the building or rebuilding of the healthy heart.  The negative emotions create a negative field which fills your blood with the chemicals of unrest and unhappiness.

Navarasas are a two-thousand-year-old Indian concept of emotions which see the mind as a space filled with positive and negative emotions. These emotions are: love, laughter, compassion, chivalry, anger, fear, abhorrence and wonder. Shantha or peace is the result of handling all these emotions correctly.

Obviously, the positive emotions or states like love, humour, compassion, chivalry and wonder put the mind in a happy and enthusiastic state, thereby fostering health. On the other hand, the negative rasas like anger, fear and abhorrence produce a state of mind which creates, as described in Daniel Goleman’s book, an ‘emotional hijack’.

The Big Five negative emotions are Lust, Anger, Arrogance, Greed and Jealousy. They are listed both in Hinduism and Buddhism as generating an atmosphere of unrest in the mind.  In this state, the fog of negative emotions slows and confuses the mind. During meditative practices, the chemicals of peace and tranquillity flow into the blood.  Breathing, heart rate and pulse rate stabilise.  The mind is able to function calmly and freely. An alert and relaxed attitude is required for the teamwork involved in building ideas and analysing them.  Self-awareness of your state of mind can help you get the most out of life and lead to a healthy heart.

Be in Supportive Nurturing Group

Belonging to a supportive nurturing group, is the best protection you can have against disease and unhappiness. Being loved can prevent you from the flood of negative emotions that have the capacity to destroy you.

With the breakdown of the joint family in India, the shock absorber of family ties is threatened. Nuclear families are creating explosive situations, which are lethal.

Invest in your family. Keep in touch with your extended family. Join supportive groups.

Being ‘included’ in a group is very healing. Study the group to which you belong and see whether you share:

common goals

a common language

shared jokes

your pet-name

personal successes and failures

time together

a common shorthand of thinking and speaking

compliments

comfort and support

affirmations and help

Build A Happy Workplace

·         Create meaningful personal relationship with co-workers.

·         Take short relaxation breaks, at least thrice a day.

·         Eat fresh, energy giving foods.

·         Take a walk outdoors during lunch break.

·         Stay away from politics and back-biting.

·         Bring your family to the office during lunch break or on a Saturday.

·         Cultivate a hobby.

·         If you have a toxic workplace, look for another job.

·         Celebrate achievements, even small ones.

·         Make your workspace clean and comfortable. Surround it with happy pictures.

·         Listen to music with headphones.

Interpersonal Intelligence

Interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand other people.  It is to be able to see what motivates them, how they work and how to work cooperatively with them.  Interpersonal intelligence is the inward sense of being able to understand oneself, to form an accurate model of oneself and to operate that model effectively to live life.  Professor Howard Gardner of the Harvard School of Psychology tells that the two aspects of personal intelligence, interpersonal and intrapersonal, form the most important foundation for a happy, fulfilling life.  To those who define success as happiness, these two elements can be the bedrock of a happy life.

Sensitive people can empathize with others.  They can understand the feelings of others as though they were feeling it themselves.  This skill involves being able to pick up subtle verbal, tonal and non–verbal signals from others.  Charismatic leaders are able to reach others by breaking the barrier that exists between people.  A charismatic speaker can make thousands of people react like one mind.

The Upanishads say that the divine spark or life force exists in all—the leader, the leper, the judge and the criminal. 

Empathy

Empathy is the capacity to feel my pain in your heart.’ Develop the capacity to pick up subtle verbal, tonal and non-verbal signals from others. Learn also the ability to send out soothing, nurturing signals to others, thus creating a positive interpersonal field.

‘Practice working with people and listening to them with the same attitude as you would to a beloved child, or respected parent. Your word, tone, your very glance should be completely focused on the person. When you are with someone, pay complete attention. Anything less will only elicit a lukewarm response. Those who can create positive fields around themselves attract and build lifetime relationships.’