I choose to be Happy

Research reveals that being happy, staying happy and flashing that million dollar smile more often, may help to keep our heart in good health. A research led by Dr. Karina Davidson, Herbert Irving Associate Professor of Medicine & Psychiatry and Director of the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health at Columbia University Medical Center, New York showed that being a happy person and adopting the attitude of being happy can provide powerful protection against coronary heart disease.



Hmmm, very interesting! Not really because I want to live a longer life; but because I want to live a quality life regardless of its length. Today, January 1, 2011, as this year begins, I’m treating all my disappointments, frustrations and pains as things in the past already and choose to be happy throughout the year... and beyond. To share the findings of that research, here’s a re-post from http://www.suite101.com/content/being-happy-can-prevent-coronary-artery-disease-a206869.

Positive Affect Can Protect you from Coronary Heart Disease

In her study, Dr. Davidson and her team examined 1739 healthy adults (862 men and 877 women) who were randomly selected to participate in the 1995 Canadian Nova Scotia Health Survey. The investigators reported that, “Positive affect was associated with a reduced risk of 10-year incident coronary heart disease.” Wow! That's amazing is it not? So, there's a lot to be understood then about the healing power of a smile and experiencing the joy of living and loving life in working as a powerful preventive measure against coronary heart disease.

It appears that positive affect contributes to having better moods, staying more relaxed and less affected by stressful conditions. Staying happy and being happy can work as a powerful stress buster. So, it's important to cultivate the attitude of being happy.

The simplest way to get into a positive mood and begin being a happy person and experiencing positive emotions would be to interact with positive people, look for positive influences and positive effects, watch positive TV that has a positive impact and adopt positive management styles at your workplace.

Practice Being Happy Right Now!

Of course, it is important that you don't wait for events to happen and things in your life to fall in place before you decide to be happy. You can experience those positive emotions right now. Be happy now.
You don't have to wait till your favorite sports hero wins gold at the winter Olympics or until your favorite film star wins an Oscar or your favorite singer wins a Grammy to be happy. And certainly you don't have to wait for the roses in your garden to bloom or wait for that year end dream holiday in the Alps mountains or in Switzerland to materialize to be happy. The time to be happy is now and the place and space to be happy is here, right where you are.

How You React Can Affect Your Heart

Remember, angina – the choking chest pain that happens when a blood vessel in the heart gets partially blocked and which can send you rushing to the nearest medical center can be prevented, if you take care to listen to your heart and spend time cultivating joyful emotions. There's strong medical evidence to support this statement.

Dr. Davidson and her team found that after taking into account age, sex, other cardiovascular risk factors and negative emotions, “over the 10-year period of observation, increased positive affect was associated with less risk of coronary heart disease by 22 percent per point, on a five-point scale measuring levels of positive affect expression (ranging from none to extreme).”
Dr. Davidson's study published in the current issue of the European Society of Cardiology’s European Heart Journal, is the first to show a relationship between positive emotions and coronary heart disease.

Always have it in mind that some of the risk factors for coronary heart disease, besides a high fat, meat and dairy rich diet and sedentary lifestyle include leading a very hectic and stressful life and experiencing a lot of negative emotions like anger, hurt and grief.

You can choose to be happy even if you are in a tough spot and facing a challenging situation. It doesn't matter whether you are stuck in a traffic jam, caught in a hectic work schedule, firefighting a critical, on the edge 11th hour work project or playing conflict resolver for an out of the blue marathon family feud. That's because happiness is a state of the mind over which you can exert control.

Celebrate Many, Small Happy Moments Everyday

There are good scientific reasons for spending small periods of time everyday cultivating, warm, sunny thoughts and doing the things that make you happy. A month long study on 86 people asked to maintain daily reports of their emotions, that was carried out by Professor Barbara Fredrickson, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at UNC's College of Arts and Sciences and Principal Investigator of the Positive Emotions & Pscychophysiology Laboratory has had very positive outcomes.
In their study, the researchers tested the hypothesis - that positive emotions help people to build lasting resources. They tested this hypothesis by measuring emotions daily for one month and assessing life satisfaction and trait resilience at the beginning and end of the month.

The investigators found that the daily expression of positive emotions can contribute greatly to building resilience and can act as a powerful emotional lifebuoy for those caught in the storms of disturbing events and negative emotions. The investigators also observed that, “it is in-the-moment positive emotions, and not more general positive evaluations of one’s life, that form the link between happiness and desirable life outcomes.”

Talking about the impact of experiencing positive emotions, the investigators report in their paper that, “Induced positive emotions produce wider visual search patterns, novel and creative thoughts and actions, more inclusive social groups, and more flexible goals and mindsets.”

Stay Happy and Gift Your Heart a Natural Heart Tonic

What Professor Fredrickson's research findings imply is that you can stay protected from hypertension, stroke, fatal heart conditions like coronary heart disease along with the choking symptoms of angina, heart attack and emergency cardiovascular surgery simply by taking time off to participate in and celebrating simple, small acts of happiness everyday.

Small happy moments experienced throughout the day can help you to build emotional resilience and stamina which can act like a reserve source of positive energy that you can draw upon when conditions get tough. So, starting now, take time off everyday, to indulge in your hobby or to do the things that make you happy...because that's going to work as a great tonic for your heart.
If you are already suffering from coronary heart disease, following Dr. Dean Ornish's method of adopting a fat, free, dairy free, vegetarian diet along with time spent in yoga and meditation and staying happy, positive and relaxed may even help to reverse heart disease. Do check out Dr Dean Ornish's Programme for reversing heart disease. It's a beautifully designed and remarkably effective programme for helping you stay healthy and your heart functioning well.

Worldwide, 17 million people die each year of cardiovascular illnesses. One simple step you can take to help your friends, relatives and colleagues stay protected from coronary heart disease would be to share this article and spend some happy moments with them.

LET’S ALL CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY!