 At the health Expo last week I presented on a topic very close to my heart. The link between happiness and health. As you can imagine the topic drew a crowd, and I found people were really intrigued with what I had to say, but also found it very logical and made sense. So I thought that today I’d give you some of that information, and some of the astounding research that I’ve found.
  Cortisal is released into the blood by the body during times of stress. It blocks the immune system from healing and also prevents weight loss! This is massive indicator that we MUST control our stress levels, and have plans in place to cope with both our every day challenges, and also the big up’s and down’s life has to offer. It also may demystify why some people simply can’t loose weight no matter how hard they are trying… If stress is a factor, remove it and see what happens!
Unhappiness leads to stress, and stress leads to a reduced immune system and a reduced immune system can lead to health issues! Pretty simple when it’s put like that isn’t it! Every journal and research paper that I looked up came to this same conclusion.
Happiness prevents illness & promotes healthy lifestyles! Doesn’t it make perfect sense that happy people are generally more active and choose to make healthier choices in their lives.
 People with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations compared to people of the same age without heart disease. This study indicates that the ability to take both ones self and their environment and situation lightly reduces stress and thus reduces our susceptibility to heart disease!
Laughter exercises your body, and releases stress & tension! In fact, 100 laughs raise your heart rate as much as doing 10 minutes on a rowing machine! – So grab out that funny movie, or play a game that sends you into hysterics and get your daily workout! (See, those people sending you funny emails all day are just thinking about your health!)
Resistance to infectious illness, and the strengthening of our immune system, may also be due to positive emotions such as:
 Optimism
Extraversion
Feelings of purpose in life &
Self-esteem.
 Negative moods are physically just as bad for you as smoking two packets of cigarettes a day! I love this statistic, imagine being sad for two days… What have you just put your body through without even realising it! For all us non smokers, just think about having to smoke two packets of cigarettes in one day, just the thought of it makes me ill, and that’s what negative emotions are doing to our bodies!
Martin Seligman is the God Father of positive psychology and has spent much of his life studying happy people and trying to determine the factors behind it, a psychologist by trade, he’s determined to move forward towards helping clients get what they want rather than dwell in the past and negative emotions and experiences they have had. Seligman’s research states the only common factor in ‘very happy people’ is rich social relationships. It excites me so much to think that money, status, lifestyle and so many other factors simply didn’t have any influence on our happiness. (The threshold for money having an impact on our happiness is the equivalent of $100, 000 / year as a household income. Below that point, money may impact on our happiness.) So what relationships are you currently fostering, and really working on?
 If it really is true that rich social relationships lead to happiness, and happiness leads to health, isn’t it critical that we all work of both the relationships that we have currently and also building more relationships into the future! I hope that today I’ve inspired you to improve your relationships, your happiness levels and as an outcome, also your health!
"Happiness comes from spiritual wealth, not material wealth... Happiness comes from giving, not getting.
If we try hard to bring happiness to others,
we cannot stop it from coming to us also.
To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it.”
- John Templeton
This audio CD is available on ‘Discovering Happiness’ & is for sale for $22.
Contents include:
- What is Happiness?
- The Facts on Happiness
- Effects on our Happiness
- Practicing Happiness &
- The Happiness Revolution
Just send me an email if you’d like to purchase a copy. What a great Christmas Gift, The gift of Happiness! jodie@advancedcoachingsolutions.com.au
If you’re really ready to step up and start living life and need a little assistance to get started, please give me a call on 4296 9331 or email me and we can work on it together. If you like what I’m writing or would like to give me some feedback, I’d love to hear from you. Shoot me an email at jodie@advancedcoachingsolutions.com.au | 
