Cultivate it!  According to the Mayo Clinic (How to be Happy) every person has the capacity to be happy, everyone can cultivate it by modifying some behaviors and attitudes, adopting some new behaviors and attitudes, and simply commit to practicing them.  It’s not about Oh I wish I were a positive person or being one of those happy-happy people who annoy people with overbearing sunshineyness.  Authentically, one can learn to enjoy their life, be happy, by paying attention to your thoughts and incorporating new behaviors that ensure the lasting type of happiness.

 Only 10 percent or so of the variation in people’s reports of happiness can be explained by differences in their circumstances. 

This is really surprising.  I mean, really??  A pile of money and living in Paris or being a supermodel are not huge factors? Everything in our lives, our culture, since we were children seems to reinforce this belief, yet it seems to be true.  There is a bunch of data to back that up too.  Harvard professor Dan Gilbert (Stumbling On Happiness) cites an unbelievable study in his TEDtalk–previous post– that found that after a year’s time, quadriplegics and jackpot winners experience the same level of happiness; in a mere 365 days, the extremes balanced out and both groups registered the same moderate amount of happiness in their lives.  If this data is true (which I believe it is), then   seems to me there is really no excuse for me to mope around, wishing things were different–no more daily pain in my shoulder, enough money to live comfortably with no worries about the future, no more stress or strife– because a full 90% of happiness seems to be determined by a realm of factors that are within my own control.  This is both comforting and troubling!

Happiness is the sum of your life’s choices.

We can all do this.  I can work to undo my habit of negative thoughts and fear.  I can turn it around.  Just reading their initial list of “pillars” of happiness is motivating:

• Devote time to family and friends
• Appreciate what I have
• Maintain an optimistic outlook
• Feel a sense of purpose
• Live in the moment

First, there’s your immediate environment.  Do you have happy people in your life?  Do you feel supported and nurtured when you are going through tough situations?

Second, think about all that sustains you in your life–without you even having to think about it, even.  Look around and find all the things that you are truly grateful for, and express that gratitude.  One doesn’t need a backdrop of darkness to see the light in your life.  Just taking a moment to find all the good that exists, the help and love you have, the wealth (not necessarily money) and good fortune you have…By focusing on this “good stuff,” your mind will have less room for negative or sabotaging thoughts.  And it’s a practice one can incorporate into one’s daily routine, one that can become your new “default setting” for your attitude.

The third tip is similar to the second: cultivating optimism.  The first step in this, is to be aware of your thoughts in the first place.  Do you gravitate toward the negative?  Toward self-pity?  Toward anger or bitterness?  By first becoming aware, you can stop yourself and turn it around.  “Spin” it, but not in a phony way.  Being realistic doesn’t mean being aware of the negative; your outlook can be balanced, with optimism giving you a healthy perspective on things.

The last two are challenging for me.  Finding my purpose seems daunting.  Prerequisites seem to be–confidence that I indeed have a purpose, and that I will be successful in discovering it.  I think the first step toward this is to sort of loosen my grip on what I feel is my personality, my strengths/weaknesses, etc., and embrace a new idea, that I’m in the process of change, that I am moving fast toward a life that really is aligned with what I truly feel is meaningful and important.  This to me seems the highest form of appreciation: to live –your daily life–in a way that acknowledges the value and meaning of my life, to consciously pay close attention to what is important to me, and live accordingly.

Living in the moment is similarly daunting.  It doesn’t really make logical (or any) sense, but I seem to be habituated to living in the future, or for the future.  As in: such-and-such is coming up in a couple of weeks; should I go to the grocery store after I write this?; SOMEDAY I will go to Paris; I will start being an adult TOMORROW, etc., etc., you know how it goes. Planning is important and necessary, but does that really acknowledge the life that you live at this very moment?  When does future become NOW?

If I pay attention to my breathing this very moment (the breath that roots me to the most current of current moments) there seems to be a world of opportunity there.  Typing on the computer, thinking about the present moment…(this is really quite meta, isn’t it?)  Embracing this wonder, this mystery of living– actually, this makes me happy.

Massage therapy is proven to be effective on neck pain.  The following linked study (NCCAM-funded, performed in Seattle, WA) compares general improvement, medication use,  and other functional and “bothersomeness” metrics among two groups–one group was given a book on self-care, the other group received therapeutic massage treatment.

The results are significant:

After 10 weeks, the massage group was more likely than the self-care-book group to have clinically significant improvement in function and symptoms. At 26 weeks, the massage group tended to be more likely to report improvement in function but not in specific symptoms. For both function and symptoms, mean differences between the two groups were strongest at 4 weeks and not evident by 26 weeks. At all followup points, the massage group was more likely than the self-care-book group to report global improvement ratings of “better” or “much better.” At 26 weeks, medication use had increased 14 percent for the self-care-book group but had not changed for the massage group.

read more at the National Institutes of Health:

http://nccam.nih.gov/research/results/spotlight/051809.htm

“Touch is often the most neglected or assaulted sense of the hospitalized patient”.

Integrating massage therapy into a hospital setting shows how effective it is for not only treating physical pain, but how– on deeper physical, mental, and emotional levels–it not only treats injury, but treats and respects the patient as a whole, complex human being.

From a marked improvement in the ability to rest (sleep) and thus promote speedy recovery, to much needed relief from acute physical pain, soreness–even to the extent that it is an effective replacement for pharmaceuticals– the impact of massage therapy is wide-ranging and profound.  Even more significantly, it treats the patient as a whole, relieving the discomforts of the environment (an unfamiliar, perhaps coldly clinical setting) as well as treating human conditions that are equally distressing as physical pain, such as anxiety, loneliness, depression–often overlooked in a clinical environment.

The findings of this study are fascinating, even surprising; the capacity of massage therapy to heal is much more comprehensive and profound than even previously thought.

For the full details of this study and the fascinating scope of the findings, read the study itself (originally linked from the Mayo Clinic):

The Effects of Massage Therapy on Pain Management in the Acute Setting

Rose Adams, MHA, BSW, LMT,1,2 Barb White, MS, LMT,1,3,5 and Cynthia Beckett, PhD, RNC-OB, LCCE4,6

1 Therapy Services, Massage Therapy;

2 Member, Evidence-Based Practice Research Committee;

3 Member, Ethics Committee and

4 Director, Pediatrics/Perinatal Services and Evidence-Based Practice, Flagstaff Medical Center, Flagstaff;

5 Adjunct Faculty, Women’s and Gender Studies, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff and

6 Faculty Associate, College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

Corresponding author: Rose Adams, Flagstaff Medical Center, Therapy Services, Massage Therapy, 1215 N. Beaver Street, Flagstaff, Arizona 86001 U.S.A. Email: rose.adams@nahealth.com

Published under the CreativeCommons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.

Sure, we need darkness for there to be light.  So then the contrasts continue: evil for good, cold for hot, tall for short, small for big… But then, what about Sadness for Happiness?  Do we really need a backdrop of despair and unhappiness for there to be joy, enjoyment, HAPPY?

In the world of our physical natures, one can definitely experience the great feelings of endorphin-land after a grueling run or painful workout.  In school, after cram-writing a huge paper the night before the deadline, there is a euphoria after turning it in to your professor– sometimes a euphoria so…euphoric, that it doesn’t even matter you haven’t slept in two days.

Here’s an article from the Washington Post (2 April 2012) with the compelling headline, “Too Much Happiness Can Make You Unhappy.”  The Australian psychology professor, Joe Forgas, from the University of New South Wales, has run experiments that seem to prove that “happy” people are less discriminating and more reliant on traditionally-accepted stereotypes.  If one is in a happy state, does that make you less observant, less perceptive, less….smart?  So then, does it follow that a happy person would proceed from poor judgment to poor life decisions, which then lead to UN-happiness?

It’s disturbing to think that–in the example the article cites–if you were on trial for a crime, you would most definitely benefit from a “happy” jury, because “cheerful people are easier to deceive, couldn’t detect lies as easily as those in negative moods and couldn’t tell a thief from an honest person.” Wow.  Our judgment in something as important as another human’s fate in a formal, serious atmosphere such as a courtroom really is susceptible to our whims, our moods? Can’t we somehow fight that off?  In another experiment, Professor Forgas found that “sad” people could detect the guilty better than the “happy”-induced subjects, as well as better than chance level (50%).

It seems that being excessively happy causes one to be less detail-oriented, less intellectual in processing thoughts.  Also, working to maintain this happiness unfortunately leads to more dissatisfaction, disappointment.  Of course, those with lowered expectations don’t experience as much of a let-down.

The answer of course is a happiness that is not scrutinized, not stared in the face, and definitely not tallied.  As in everything in our lives (it seems), the best we can do is strive for balance, which seems to involve accepting experiences as they are without examination or judgment of them.  Happiness seems to be this elusive thing that is there until we identify it and hold a microscope to it.  It refuses to be bottled up and stored for later use.

There is a magnet on our refrigerator that is placed strategically off-center (meant to be soaked into the brain by peripheral vision) that reads:

Happiness is like a butterfly;
the more you chase it,
the more it will elude you,
but if you turn your attention
to other things, it will
come and sit softly
on your shoulder…

Thoreau really describes it perfectly.  “Pursuit of happiness” is an unhelpful misnomer, as it connotes this “chase,” or striving, which seems to drive it away.  I don’t know about this formula for balance which the article cites–to aim for “experiencing three positive emotions for every one negative”–because it seems laughably mathematical, clinical…and draws the focus back to tabulating and keeping score.  From my experience it seems that “happiness” isn’t related to effort, work, or reverse-engineering.  The most we can do is to really be there fully for the happy moments in our lives, which means being there for our darker moments as well.

Massage therapy is commonly used to alleviate muscle pain, with or without muscle inflammation.  A study published in the Journal of Pain (done by researchers at University of Iowa), however, conclusively demonstrates that deep-tissue massage can reduce musculoskeletal pain associated with exercise, specifically pain experienced after unaccustomed exercise in otherwise healthy adults.
The double-blind, randomized controlled trial consisted of subjects divided into three groups–those who received no massage (the control group); those who had light-touch treatment; and those who received deep-tissue massage.  Pain was assessed by measuring soreness and sensitivity to stretch-pain.  Assessments were done at baseline, after exercise, then before and after massage treatment. Though there was no drastic difference between those who received light-touch massage and the control group, there was a significant improvement in those who received the deep-tissue massage treatment.  Compared to the no-treatment group, the deep-tissue group experienced a significant decrease in both their perception to pain (48.4%) as well as their sensitivity to pain (27.5%).

_______________________________________________________________________________

from Journal of Pain: Massage reduces the perception of pain and hyperalgesia.

Authors
Frey Law LA, et al.
J Pain. 2008 Aug;9(8):714-21. Epub 2008 May 2.

Affiliation
Program in Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA. USA. laura-freylaw@uiowa.edu

The objectives of this study is to examine the effects of neuromuscular therapy (NMT) on motor and nonmotor symptoms in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Thirty-six subjects with PD were randomly assigned to NMT or music relaxation (MR, or active control). Subjects received treatment twice a week for 4 weeks. Testing was conducted at baseline, after final treatment, and 8 days after final treatment. Primary outcome measures were the Motor subscale of the United Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) and the Clinical Global Impression scale (CGI-Change). Secondary outcome measures included a PD-specific quality of life scale (PDQ-39), quantitative measures of motor function, and severity scales for anxiety and depression symptoms. NMT resulted in a significant and sustained improvement in the Motor subscale of the UPDRS (P < or = 0.0001), most notable in the tremor scores. Also improved 1 week after the last treatment were the CGI scores (P = 0.007) and the finger-tapping speed (P = 0.001). The MR active control group had a slight improvement in tremor but evidenced no other change in motor function. Both groups exhibited a modest improvement in quality of life immediately after the last treatment. This effect was sustained for 8 days only in the MR group. In the nonmotor domains, the MR group evidenced improvements in mood (P = 0.001) and anxiety (P = 0.002), whereas NMT had no effect on mood (P = 0.09), and its initial effect on anxiety (P = 0.0009) dissipated after 8 days (P = 0.40). Group differences for UPDRS motor score and patient CGI-Change were superior in the NMT compared to the MR group. There was no group difference in PDQ-39 scores or in non-motor measures. The findings suggest that NMT can improve motor and selected non-motor symptoms in PD and that this effect is more durable for the motor symptoms. The results of this pilot study warrant larger controlled studies to examine dose range, durability, and mechanisms of NMT in PD function.Copyright 2006 Movement Disorder Society.

Source

The existing reviews of massage therapy (MT) research are either limited to infants, adults, or were conducted prior to the publication of the most recent studies using pediatric samples. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of pediatric MT are reviewed. A literature search yielded 24 RCTs of pediatric MT, defined as the manual manipulation of soft tissue intended to promote health and well-being in recipients between 2 and 19 years of age. Because RCTs of pediatric MT varied considerably in the amount and types of data reported, quantitative and narrative review methods were both used. Single-dose and multiple-dose effects were examined separately. Among single-dose effects, significant reductions of state anxiety were observed at the first session (g = 0.59, P < 0.05) and the last session (g = 1.10, P < 0.01) of a course of treatment. Effects for salivary cortisol (g = 0.28), negative mood (g = 0.52) and behavior (g = 0.37) were non-significant. Three of eleven multiple-dose effects were statistically significant. These were trait anxiety (g = 0.94, P < 0.05), muscle tone (g = 0.90, P < 0.01) and arthritis pain (g = 1.33, P < 0.01). Results of studies not permitting effect size calculation were judged to be generally consistent with quantitative results. MT benefits pediatric recipients, though not as universally as sometimes reported. Numerous weaknesses endemic to MT research (e.g. low statistical power, frequent failure to report basic descriptive statistics) are identified, and recommendations for future pediatric MT research are discussed.

Source

OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that massage applied after eccentric exercise would effectively alleviate DOMS without affecting muscle function.

DESIGN: We used an arm-to-arm comparison model with 2 independent variables (control and massage) and 6 dependent variables (maximal isometric and isokinetic voluntary strength, range of motion, upper arm circumference, plasma creatine kinase activity, and muscle soreness). A 2-way repeated-measures analysis of variance and paired t tests were used to examine differences in changes of the dependent variable over time (before, immediately and 30 minutes after exercise, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, and 14 days postexercise) between control and massage conditions.

SETTING: University laboratory.

PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Ten healthy subjects (5 men and 5 women) with no history of upper arm injury and no experience in resistance training.

INTERVENTION(S): Subjects performed 10 sets of 6 maximal isokinetic (90 degrees x s(-1)) eccentric actions of the elbow flexors with each arm on a dynamometer, separated by 2 weeks. One arm received 10 minutes of massage 3 hours after eccentric exercise; the contralateral arm received no treatment.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Maximal voluntary isometric and isokinetic elbow flexor strength, range of motion, upper arm circumference, plasma creatine kinase activity, and muscle soreness.

RESULTS: Delayed-onset muscle soreness was significantly less for the massage condition for peak soreness in extending the elbow joint and palpating the brachioradialis muscle (P < .05). Soreness while flexing the elbow joint (P = .07) and palpating the brachialis muscle (P = .06) was also less with massage. Massage treatment had significant effects on plasma creatine kinase activity, with a significantly lower peak value at 4 days postexercise (P < .05), and upper arm circumference, with a significantly smaller increase than the control at 3 and 4 days postexercise (P < .05). However, no significant effects of massage on recovery of muscle strength and ROM were evident.

CONCLUSIONS: Massage was effective in alleviating DOMS by approximately 30% and reducing swelling, but it had no effects on muscle function.

Authors
Zainuddin Z, et al. Show all Journal
J Athl Train. 2005 Jul-Sep;40(3):174-80.

Affiliation
Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Western Australia, Australia.

Comment in
J Athl Train. 2005 Jul-Sep;40(3):186-90.

Source