SUGGESTION 30: HAVE A GOOD CRY

Emotional crying can contribute to happiness because it affects the chemical balance. It might seem odd to suggest crying to help create the conditions for happiness. But if you have read the articles on this website about happiness, you may understand that happiness is having FULL access to ALL emotions, not just having good feelings all the time.

Emotional crying due to sadness, pain, or anger has a beneficial impact on our ability to cope with stressful situations in life. When a person is stressed there is a build-up of the stress hormone, cortisol. Although in small amounts, cortisol helps us to cope with stress, excessive amounts can create health problems and contribute to a negative emotional reaction. It is believed that emotional crying removes excess cortisol from the system.

In addition, crying can cause a release of endorphins for reasons similar to laughter, and thereby, reducing pain and increasing the sense of well-being.

A good cry doesn't even have to be about your own problems. Watching a sad movie that triggers emotional crying can have the same type of release. The bottom line is that a good emotional cry can release tension and help you feel better.

SUGGESTION 31: TREAT YOURSELF

Doing something kind for yourself can help you feel more positive towards yourself. Too often, people are too busy, overwhelmed, or stressed to focus on taking care of themselves. This can be an obstacle to creating the conditions for happiness.

If this is the case for you, it is important to try and break out of this cycle. One way of doing this is by being kind to yourself and giving yourself a treat. It is hard to be negative at the same time you are doing some positive.

Allow yourself to mindfully enjoy your treat. In other words allow yourself to fully focus on the experience. If you treat yourself to a piece of chocolate, for instance, purchase a high quality chocolate and then fully savor the smell, the taste, and the texture. Take your time and allow it to completely melt in your mouth. When you swallow it, notice the experience of swallowing and the lingering effects of the chocolate in your mouth.

With this exercise, obviously it is important to not treat yourself to something over which you don't have control. For example, don't treat yourself to a glass of wine if you are an alcoholic and can't stop with just one.

SUGGESTION 32: FEEL JOY FOR SOMEONE ELSE

Focusing on feeling joy for someone else can contribute to your own happiness. The interesting thing about fully feeling joy for someone else is that it usually triggers positive emotions within you.

Allow yourself to fully feel the joy of another person's good fortune without comparing your situation negatively. A more advanced technique is to focus on a stranger or even someone you don't like and allow yourself to feel joy for them without judging whether they deserve it or not.

This website includes a Loving Kindness Meditation which comes from the Buddhist psychology practice (not the religion) which helps you focus positively on others.

SUGGESTION 33: DO A MINDFULNESS EXERCISE

Mindfulness exercises can lead to greater contentment and inner peacefulness. Stress, agitation, and despair are the opposites of contentment and peacefulness. The more you cultivate mindfulness, the more you begin to replace negative emotions with more positive ones.

Mindfulness can be as simple as focusing on your present experience. You may say that your present experience isn't that pleasant and you don't want to fully focus on it. However, mindfulness focuses on your immediate sights, sounds, smells, and tactile experiences without critical evaluation or judgment which allows you to experience the moment in a different way.

To learn more about practicing mindfulness read the article "Why Are Meditative Relaxation and Mindfulness Important?" Then you can begin to practice mindfulness for a few moments here and there throughout your day. The nice thing about mindfulness is that it doesn't have to take any extra time--you can do it with any activity in which you are already engaged. READ MORE: page 10