Happiness: You know it when you feel it, and you definitely know it when you lot don't. While few of us walk around grinning in a constant land of bliss, frequent feelings of sadness are a reason to interruption and take stock of why that might be. The opposite of happiness isn't ever unhappiness, either; if you're no longer getting a kick out of things that once brought you joy, that'south another major sign that something'southward amiss.

Co-ordinate to Acacia Parks, the chief scientist at Happify, a site that offers "emotional health solutions" crafted with the aid of experts in the field, "research suggests that happiness is a combination of how satisfied you are with your life (for example, finding meaning in your work) and how skillful you feel on a day-to-solar day basis."

Accept you felt like your inner world's a bit drearier lately, even when you're in good health, employed, and on financially-solid basis? If and then, these research-backed strategies can assistance you answer the question, "why can't I be happy?"

Get-go, know the deviation betwixt "the dejection" and depression.

We've all had our "off" days, but a longer stretch of unhappiness can mean information technology'due south time to seek professional aid.

"Unhappiness, can be a guide and friend, helping us to know ourselves ameliorate and become more than fully enlightened of what makes us feel alive and passionate almost our lives," says Laura Petiford, a licensed marriage and family unit therapist based in Connecticut. Merely if you experience what the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) identifies as symptoms of low for at least two weeks, most of the time and on most days, Petiford says information technology may exist something more than serious.

Meanwhile, "'the blues' are another normal experience of life, and can accompany a memory, transition, or other loss," according to Petiford. Either way, trying therapy—fifty-fifty if it'southward an online platform—can assist uncover what you demand to motility forwards, and if y'all're having thoughts of cocky-harm, phone call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24/7 at i-800-273-8255.

And then, cease comparing your life to others.

Equally life jitney and Fix My Life host Iyanla once said, "Comparing yourself to others is an act of violence against your accurate self." Information technology's tough to enjoy what you've got when your mind is glutted with thoughts like why don't I have what that person has? That said, the impulse is perfectly natural, if often unhealthy.

"We're social creatures, profoundly impacted past the presence and influence of the people around us," says life coach Dr. Susan Biali Haas. "It's fundamentally human to closely observe what others are doing and compare that to ourselves."

Trouble is, Haas points out, nosotros're more than likely to zero in on whatever professional milestone/diamond band/happier spousal relationship a peer is boasting well-nigh on Instagram, wherein it suddenly becomes a bummer if nosotros don't accept the aforementioned affair. And speaking of Instagram (and Facebook, and LinkedIn)...

"We've all had the experience of being in a perfectly good mood, feeling reasonably content virtually ourselves and our lives, until we scroll through a social media feed," Haas points out. "Suddenly, we see something that makes us feel inadequate or envious. Though your life is however the same good life you had a moment ago, the comparison robs you of your peace and contentment, blotting out your adept feelings well-nigh your life."

Quitting social media birthday isn't realistic. But Haas suggests revamping your Facebook feed settings and then you tin can just run into a select group of people'south posts (i.e., the people who make you feel like your best self). As for Instagram, "pay attending to what types of posts, or people, tip y'all into the comparison trap, and curate your feed accordingly if you tin." Read: Delete the accounts that are slowly poisoning your cocky-esteem.

Nature will nurture you.

Spending fourth dimension in nature tin can relax you, reduce stress, and articulate your mind, according to John Zelenski, a psychology professor who'south studied the connection betwixt happiness and nature. "Short walks are great, but fifty-fifty sitting all the same boosts your mood."

Exercise gratitude (then keep practicing).

Positive psychology inquiry findings have extolled the benefits of gratitude again and again, but amid life'due south very real disappointments, it can exist tough to stay grateful. Think of gratitude every bit a musculus y'all've got to work to maintain.

"Whether yous go on a gratitude journal or say a thank you' prayer at bedtime, this focus volition help you stay centered in all the goodness that fills your life," Haas says.

This content is imported from youTube. You may be able to find the same content in some other format, or you lot may be able to discover more than data, at their web site.

Oprah Reads Entries from Her Get-go Gratitude Journal | The Oprah Winfrey Show | Ain

Watch on

This is an image

Oprah's been singing the praises of a gratitude journal—in which you jot down minor things you're grateful for, at least several times a week—since the 1990s. In this 1997 clip from The Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah celebrates the avocados she had a spiritual (yet hilarious) connection with on a vacation; now she's got her own avocado orchard.

Intermission free of thinking, "I'll be happy when..."

"I recollect the nigh mutual myth nearly happiness is the idea that 'I will be happy when," says Sonja Lyubomirsky, psychology professor and author of The Myths of Happiness: What Should Brand You Happy, but Doesn't, What Shouldn't Make Yous Happy, but Does. "And then, I'm not happy now, but I'll be happy when I have a baby, or when I finally get married, or move to California, or get that promotion and enhance that I've e'er wanted, or move into a real house, or lose xx pounds."

Achieving those goals will bring happiness, Lyubomirsky explains, simply people oftentimes expect that feeling to last forever when it'south typically fleeting: "Somewhen, research shows, most people return to their previous happiness baseline."

"People are prone to over-emphasizing how much major life events will alter their overall happiness," Zelenski confirms. So if your postal service-hymeneals life isn't the paradise you'd imagined, that's completely normal.

Exercise your fashion to better moods.

"Do increases a protein in the brain called encephalon-derived neurotropic cistron, or BDNF, that'southward been shown to enhance mental abilities while acting confronting anxiety and depression, says Petiford. She suggests moderate-level intensity workouts similar walking, biking and rowing, which take been shown to boost BDNF.

You lot might've been born with a base happiness level, only you can raise it.

"People are not blank slates when it comes to happiness," Zelenski says, explaining that genes and early life experience can inform a person'south sense of well being over the form of their life.

I'due south personality, economic circumstances and habits tin can contribute to a fixed level of happiness that spans decades: "the happiest 20 twelvemonth olds are, on average, the happiest 40, 50, and 60 yr olds," he continues.

That said, you lot can work your way to a somewhat sunnier demeanor ("work" being the operative word). "This might involve little daily exercises, efforts to change habits, or counseling."

Commit acts of kindness on a regular footing.

"Have you noticed how good you lot experience when you hold the door for someone, or grinning and say cheers? Those feelings come from biochemical changes in the brain," Petiford says.

Performing an act of kindness can boost oxytocin, aka "the dear hormone," and euphoria-inducing dopamine—and then much then that researchers have dubbed it the helper's high.

Petiford puts it all-time: "It makes you feel better and the ripple furnishings benefit those effectually us. And can't we all utilize a little more of that these days?"

For more ways to alive your best life plus all things Oprah, Sign up for our newsletter!

This content is imported from OpenWeb. You lot may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more than data, at their spider web site.