5 Ways to Stay Happy Day Four

To continue with the happiness theme here are five more tips on how to stay happy.  Yellow is actually my favourite colour and I love anything yellow.

Feel the flower power.

Apart from brightening up a room, flowers can also brighten up your mood. A floral fixture may reduce feelings of pain and anxiety while boosting positive emotions. One study also shows that looking at flowers first thing in the morning leads to increased happiness and energy and decreased anxiety. Not only that, but being surrounded by blooms can also positively affect your 9-to-5—it’s been shown to boost creativity and make workspaces feel more pleasant.

Go easy on yourself.

Too often, we’re our own worst enemies. While it’s good to be aware of mistakes you’ve made and improvements you can make, beating yourself up on the regular is a surefire way to wind up singing the blues. In fact, experts believe that self-criticism can just make us more miserable. So instead of dwelling on your every failing, focus on how and why you value yourself. This shift will help make you stronger, more productive, less stressed, and, yes, happier.

Grab a yellow shirt.

The next time you’re feeling down, try harnessing the power of a yellow hue. Research shows happy people tend to associate their mood with the cheerful colour, and folks also tend to think of yellow as the colour of optimism (possibly because we associate it with the sun). To incorporate the power of yellow into your life, try adding a bit of yellow to your outfit or painting your walls the cheerful hue.

Minimize stress.

When it’s a chronic problem, the big bad stress monster is responsible for tons of health problems—including anxiety, sleep issues, depression, and more—and these can all put a damper on your mood. 

See the glass as half-full.

If there’s one trait that goes hand-in-hand with happiness, it’s optimism. People who think positively are less likely to feel depressed, more productive at work, and generally healthier than their doom-and-gloom counterparts. That said, it’s important to be both optimistic and realistic instead of just blindly positive. (In fact, forcing ourselves to feel over-the-top positive may do more harm than good, especially for those of us more prone to cynical thinking.) People with a healthy combination of optimism and realism don’t let unhappy thoughts bring them down, but they use their realistic outlook to make smart decisions and actions. Talk about the best of both worlds.

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