"If things are handled in the right way, through a conscious and deliberate adjustment of the mind, phenomena can be used for one's progress along the path. A knife, for instance, is neither true nor false, yet someone who grasps it by the blade is surely in error. When we relate to phenomena in terms of craving, ill-will, and ignorance, this results in suffering. When we take them otherwise, this results in happiness." abhidham buddhism on happiness

Psychology for the large part of the last century has focused on how to fix problem thinking and behaviour. I am depressed because of how I view the world and can't do anything about it, is how many people see it. There are individuals that really don't see it that way. One set of scientists started to think - let's look at happiness and what it is to be happy, and how we get there and maintain it. One such scientist is Martin Seligman, who started professional life looking at learned helplessness, he turned that around and started to look at optimism and what makes the optimist different to the pessimist. What he discovered was that it wasn't necessarily the situation that made us happy or sad, but how we viewed it, whether we felt it was our doing, if it was a one off or felt it was going to last forever. Permanence, Pervasiveness and Personalisation.

Another - Richard J Davidson started to look at the happiest people on the planet, which turned out to be Buddhist monks - and no it wasn't because they spend their time free of stress meditating on top of a mountain, but the kind of meditation they were doing - namely positive meditation on love and compassion. He found that these monks were expanding the part of the brain - the left hand pre frontal cortex - and this is the part of the brain where we come up with solutions to problems. So by staying relaxed and focused, thinking good positive thoughts we can lower our anxiety, stay out of a depressed state and do the things we enjoy doing so we increase our production of the neurotransmitters that make us feel good - Serotonin and dopamine.

But it doesn't mean we have to become Buddhist monks, it's been found that any relaxed focused attention, like prayer or hypnosis can operate in the same way.

also see: Prayer May Reshape Your Brain ... And Your Reality
by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

The reason that depression has increased so much over the last century has to do with many factors - one being that we lead much more sedentary lives now and because we produce dopamine from exercise then we could be missing out here. Another is that our view of the world and ourselves in it has changed considerably as well. My grandparents were born into their class system and never expected to change it. They could hope that their children would be better educated and get better paid jobs and they had more opportunities, in turn our parents felt the same way about us and so on. Before this though everyone knew where their place was and that was it. We were told what to believe and we all got on with trying to survive - the women particularly - past childbirth.

Today it's changed, education is available to most, much of what happens to us is a bit luck, a bit our own making, a bit of who you know, and we've been told we deserve the best, only the best will do, we've got to succeed or we're failures - who's said this? Well of course the advertisers and marketing departments. The truth is it's our perception of the world and what we tell ourselves that makes us feel a particular way. If we think we're going to be happy if we're rich, evidence shows us that it's all relative. A person who wins the lottery only feels happier for a short lived time, then they're back down to where they were before. Going out and spending money on something that we don't need, makes us feel good - and what gives us that feeling? The dopamine hit when we've done it. Shortly after we feel the same again or depressed that we've just spent the money we needed for something else. What to do? Find something else that makes us feel the same but does not involve money.

So what 10 tips can I suggest for creating more happiness in our lives.

1) happiness is not our natural state - we are bred to be restless otherwise we'd miss opportunities. Cultivating happiness takes practice. Buddhist monks meditate every day on positive ideas, compassion, love - it takes repeated practice - and they are known as the most happy positive people. Take just 10 minutes of each day and find the time just for you. It's not being selfish. If you need to be 100% to help others, you need to look after yourself first. If you're unwell then you're not much help to anyone.

2) Be thankful for what you have. Look at what you've achieved and feel proud. When we start thinking in what ifs we make ourselves feel miserable. If someone else announces they have a new car or are going on holiday how are they going to pay - likelihood is with credit cards, so it's not really theirs. You have the satisfaction of knowing you don't have to fork out extra. Remember adverts telling you you'll have a better lifestyle ONLY want you to buy their product, it won't change you life significantly.

3) Learn to be mindful in everything that we do. We go about our lives on automatic pilot. If we just take time to notice what we're doing. We can start that by slowing down when we eat and notice every bite. When we walk we can observe much more around us instead of just thinking about our problems. Put all our problems in a mental box and allocate a certain time each day just to go over them and sort them out. Don't do this before bed, find some other time of day to do it - the time we feel our best or have some time to ourselves.

4) When thoughts float in, don't be judgemental, allow the thought to just pass without feeling any particular emotion. When you find yourself thinking negative thoughts either about yourself or about others, realise this, snap out of it and focus on something else. One method of distraction is to sing a song to yourself.

5) Try not to work more than 40 hours a week and when you can take time off work then do.

6) Learn what makes you feel good and do more of it if it doesn't cost anything and doesn't effect anyone else. Do less of what makes you feel bad.

7) Organise yourself, when you're living in clutter you will find it difficult to deal with other situations, make and keep life simple. If you're doing too much, then think of what you can be doing less of to make it easier on yourself.

8) Seek help when you feel overwhelmed, seek company when you feel lonely, seek an answer to a question that's bugging you, make sure in your mind you've got things straight and learn from your mistakes, don't beat yourself up with guilt or pity. They happened in the past, let it remain in the past and try to find another approach.

9) Change your mind about someone, or an event. If we find ourselves making the same mistake again and again, look at what you can change. Holding resentment towards an individual, wanting to get revenge is only your ego talking and it won't resolve anything. If you have a boss who is giving you a hard time, think how am I thinking about this situation, how would I like it and look at the boss in a different light, perhaps feel sorry for the fact they can't see a bigger picture or are working themselves into the ground. By thinking from the other person's perspective we often gain a better perspective ourselves.

10) Cultivate friends but accept them as they are because if you want them to be a certain way they will only disappoint when they don't behave that way. Life is like that, just become accepting. Don't be so hard on yourself either or critical.