When we think of becoming healthy and taking care of ourselves, a lot of things come to mind such as dieting, exercising, drinking more water and the list continues. Yet rarely do we associate happiness with health; more and more studies are being carried out to understand this fascinating relationship. But what exactly is happiness and how can we learn to be happier to improve our health?

Achieving happiness
The first step to achieving happiness is realizing that it cannot be bought and neither can it be given to us by other individuals, a high paying job or even a great promotion. If these things really did make a person happy then depression and suicide wouldn’t be this common. Take Kate Spade for example, it is widely believed that depression was the reason behind her suicide. If being rich meant being happy then how can we justify her death and the deaths of countless others? The road to happiness begins with yourself and mastering self-love and self-compassion is a great way to start to start the journey!

What is self-love?

The concept is largely commercialized and everything from taking a hot shower to going for manicures and pedicures to eating desserts is advertised as loving yourself. I sincerely believe in #treatyourself so I’m not going to ask you to stop doing the things that you love but it’s important to know what self-love really means and it’s not as complicated as you may think! For one, you have to be willing to put in work: we’re all humans who are bound to err hence part of loving yourself is acknowledging and accepting your faults and then working towards a better version of YOURSELF. Don’t give up on things that you might be able to achieve with a little bit of determination and hard work by claiming to love yourself as you are, this will only make you miserable in the long run. To practice self-love is to become the best version of yourself and to treat your faults in the same way that you would treat someone else’s: with compassion and kindness. 

The science behind it 

In general, happy people worry less, sleep better, are more productive and have a positive outlook on life.  But in addition to these, being happy also positively affects your health in a number of ways and listed below are just a few of those:

Reduced stress levels – this one is quite obvious, when people are happier cortisol levels in the body are lower. Cortisol is a steroid hormone and when a person’s cortisol level is high, he/she may suffer from a number of negative side effects: sleep apnea, weight gain, high blood pressure, migraine and even diabetes.

Reduced risk of heart disease – When you’re happy your blood pressure is lower and this lowers the chances of you getting a heart disease.

Stronger immune system – Displaying highly positive emotions will lead to your antibodies producing high responses against bacteria and viruses.

Longer lifespan – Being satisfied with your life might just be the thing that will make you live longer than your unhappy counterparts.