by Aruna Amarasiri PhD

Being happy is good for you. Your happiness is also important in taking care of your loved ones and for making a positive contribution to the people around you. Following are my suggestions for happiness. I believe that a disciplined approach to wellness may help you live a long and healthy life and reduce need of medications and medical interventions. A happy community will reduce crime, gangsters, power hunger, bribery and corruption, sexual harassment, rape, alcoholism, gambling and ragging. Increased wellness will lead to better concentration, more energy, better understanding, better PR and higher earning capacity etc. and overall a much better life.

Wellness Tips (in no particular order)

. Sleep when you are sleepy. Wake up when you naturally awake.

. Eat when you are hungry. Stop eating when you are full. Drink when you are thirsty. Don’t let yourself get too hungry or thirsty.

. Keep well away from stressful people and circumstances. Keep away from those who upset you.

. Keep studying and learning every day. It decreases stress levels.

. Work mostly on your long-term goals whenever possible.

. Exercise: Both aerobic (eg. Jogging, walking, tread mill) and anaerobic (push ups, weights) should be present.

. Find truth in your life. Assume that everything that you say and do will be public knowledge one day.

. Keep a good balance between lying down, sitting, standing and walking. If you keep the balance it is difficult to feel grumpy. If you violate the balance it will be difficult to be happy.

. Work at your optimum pace wherever possible.

. Believe in the law of karma.

. Figure out the times of day that best suit you for the various tasks that have to be done.

. Limit exposure to radiation from mobile phones, computers and televisions to levels suitable to you.

. In general, if it is aching rub it, if it is itching, scratch it. Learn the rhythms of your body.

. Seek company and solitude as you desire.

. Learn what foods make you happy and healthy. Citrus fruits work great for me.

. Showers of the duration and temperature of your choice are great relaxers.

. Give freedom to others and take freedom.

. Relax those around you.

. First look after yourself. Let caring for other flow from that viewpoint.

. Use voice mail liberally when you don’t want to be disturbed.

. Do not pretend to be someone you are not. However, you must first elevate yourself to a position where this is practical. Then take it from there.

. Stop work every day by the time too tired to continue.

. Respect that a good mood is contagious and a bad mood is five times as contagious.

. A neat and clean home is a great happiness enhancer. But don’t work too hard to achieve this.

. There must be childhood, youth, middle age, and old age. One has to evolve with the person you are. Similarly, each day brings its ebb and flow of energies and moods. Follow these for peak performance.

. All work and no play is hell. All play and no work is also not good. If you can find your balance you will find happiness, and very probably optimum professional success.

. Once you have elevated your wellness sufficiently, let your emotions go wherever they want to. Giving up on struggling with emotions is a great stress release.

. Limit association with people whom you are negative about.

. Limit association with people who are negative about you.

. Limit association with people around when you cannot be your natural self. The very common scenario is that you will have seniors and superiors who expect you to be very respectful and are threatened by your communication skills, self-confidence and abilities.

. Limit association with those who don’t treat you right.

. Respect that not sticking to the top four tips will erode your self-worth and self-confidence. Then you will be really at the mercy of people who may want to manipulate you.

. Be comfortable with your limitations. Be the best you can be, by all means, but don’t try too hard. There will be those who mock your limitations or deliberately give you tasks which exceed your limitations. You will meet them in your personal and professional life. They are most probably trying to hide their own insecurities and inferiority complexes. Those who genuinely care about you will try and work with your limitations or try to improve you gently and respectfully.

. The temperature of your residence has a marked effect on your productivity and mood. Give some thought to this in the places you spend time in. However, dress appropriately first. Respect the environment and limit your energy consumption even if you are rich!

. Looking after yourself is one of the noblest tasks you can engage in.

. Reading is one of the best ways to get you sleepy and relaxed to increase the chance of a good night’s sleep. Experiment with different types of books to find the best.

. We lose a lot of water during sleep. Wake up to a glass of water first, not tea or coffee.

. Realize that you can improve your well being gradually over time. The flip side is that it can also deteriorate over time. Make good choices every day to improve yourself.

. Ventilation in your house and especially the room you sleep in may be important. However, this varies from person to person.

. Don’t pretend to be a nicer person that you are. Authenticity will help bring happiness and reduce stress in you and those around you.

. Keep a variety of foods available. Eating tasty food brings lots of joy, but definitely don’t overeat!

. Listen to music that fits your mood at the volume of your choice.

. Read according to your mood.

. Live within your means. Avoid financial stresses if possible.

. Don’t chase after people who are running away from you. Join a club, find new friends, or send a few e-mails or texts. There are so many ways out there to find the companionship you desire.

. Be as conservative or liberal as you truly are.

. Be true to your spiritual beliefs.

. Get a pet if the added responsibility is not going to be a problem.

. Think seriously about reducing the guilt that you bear. If you have treated people around you reasonably, you can probably sleep well at night and feel entitled to be happy.

. Leave plenty of time to reach your destination when driving. Take something to read if you arrive early.

. Stay in the zone where you are well rested and thinking clearly as much as possible.

. Move with the person you are. Don’t get stuck in yesterday’s you.

. A busy day is a happy one. Stay active throughout the day while respecting your energy levels. It is difficult (but not impossible!) to be doing something and thinking negative thoughts and entertaining negative emotions. Staying active is also a wonderful way to stay firmly in the present.

. Put an emphasis on quality rather than quantity in interactions with loved ones.

. Life often gives you difficult choices. One choice leads to your happiness and increases your self-esteem. However, this choice is not what the people in your life want, and it may make you look like an outlier from the norm. The other choice makes you unhappy and stressed, but makes other people happy and makes you fit in better with other people’s expectations. Almost always the first choice brings the best results for you and the other people in your life.

. Remember the KISS principle, (Keep It Simple, Stupid)

. Try not to make demands of your loved ones. Demands disrupt the timing and flow of their lives. Demands given it to lead to resentment and toxic relationships. Empower people around you, and then you will receive so much more.

. Start the day right. For many of us, early morning may be when we are most vulnerable. Take a while after you wake up to watch TV and find out all the bad news around the world overnight!

. Don’t get dehydrated, have water of temperature of your choice readily available throughout the day.

. You will have to compromise on wellness to take care of yourself and your loved ones. But keep these periods as short as possible.

. You don’t have to be everything to everybody. Just empower those around you and they will take the best care of themselves.

. Let those around you find happiness, that will help you too. We are all in this together!

. Downtime is as necessary as work and activity. Use relaxation time to recharge yourself for the next round of activity!

. Use physical pain as a wonderful means to protecting your body as you exercise and play sport, especially as you grow older.

. Move with your circumstances.

. Respect your feelings and desires, though they may seem irrational to the logical mind. If you have many millions in the bank, but want to drive an extra two km to save 5% on a coconut, just do it!

. Be as generous or stingy as you truly are.

. Be as forgiving or unforgiving as you truly are.

. Arrange your day so that you don’t have to rush through any part of it.

. Arrange your life so that you don’t have to rush though any part of it. Life is 99.9% journey and 0.1% destination.

. Take good care of your mind. Then health, many friends, professional success, a pleasant home and public victories will surely follow.

.Get the sunlight you crave. For those living in cold climates, exercising can be combined with skin exposure to avoid feeling cold. But don’t get arrested!

. If sleep can be a problem, try having a wind down period where you avoid taking phone calls or stressful conversations etc.

. Get the fibre intake your body needs. Make the meals simple or complex as you crave. Lunch may be the most complex meal that your body needs, and can carry a large load of the fibre intake.

. You may have very little direct access to your emotions. Your best try may be to do the right things and hope the emotions will be okay. Trying to directly access your emotions may be counterproductive. Indeed life would not be challenging enough if one could feel happy, relaxed or confident etc. on demand. Similarly it has been said about meditation that one should not think too much about the benefits, just do it.

. You may have very little direct access to the emotions of others. Overtly loving them and comforting them is good. However, if you know in your heart that you are there for them and things are going to be okay, that may be much better!

. You can change the humidity in your room by keeping a basin of water in it. See what this does to you.

. Raise your wellness levels. Then let meetings, lectures, parties etc. go wherever they want. It is a big stress release to not try to get stressed. If things don’t go the way you wanted, well you had your best shot.

. Most of us would not have had perfect childhoods. Believe that you can undo the damages done to you by attending to wellness . Think day by day in every way I am getting better and better!

. Don’t argue with your positive emotions. Let joy, compassion, love and peace etc. also go wherever they want.

. There is less chance of you being happy if you have unmet sexual needs.

. Follow your food cravings if not against medical advice.

. Spend time in the garden, parks, forests and beaches etc.

. Don’t let anything or anybody disturb you in the climb towards the best you can be.

. Concentrate on things you have control over.

. Happiness is a chemical in your mind; it is not the circumstances you are in. It may be possible to stay happy in very difficult circumstances.

. After you have elevated your mind enough let your temperament go whenever it wants; how flexible of inflexible, proud or humble, friendly or unfriendly, talkative or silent and caring or uncaring etc.

. Be wary of quick fixes to problems you have such as alcohol, smoking and recreational drugs. You may ruin your life by using them. Try to achieve a natural high.

. Protect your teeth. Brush and floss your teeth before you go to sleep.

. Build routines in to your life, so that a lot of your tasks will be done automatically.

. There may be many other wellness tips not included in this list.