Ever wondered who’s the happiest man in the world?
Scientists have named Matthieu Ricard, 69, a Tibetan Buddhist monk, as “the world’s happiest man.”
Why? Because he took part in a 12-year brain study on meditation and compassion led by a neuroscientist from the University of Wisconsin, Richard Davidson. Davidson hooked up Ricard’s head to 256 sensors and found that when Ricard was meditating on compassion, his mind was unusually light.
Ricard, who sometimes meditates for entire days without getting bored, admits he’s a generally happy person.
Born in France, his father was a renowned philosopher and his mother a painter. Ricard, has served as the Dalai Lama’s French interpreter since 1989, went on to earn a Ph.D degree in molecular genetics, but left it all to become a monk in the Himalayas.
Ricard believes that anyone can become the happiest man or woman on Earth just by looking at the right place for that source of happiness. He also believes in the inherent goodness of human nature. He has written several books, including The Monk and the Philosopher, The Quantum and the Lotus, as well as The Art of Meditation.
Here are some tips shared by him:
Tip 1: Stop thinking “me, me, me”
Thinking about yourself, and how to make things better for yourself all the time, is stressful, exhausting, and ultimately leads to unhappiness.
Matthieu Ricard today
How it will bring happiness
If your mind is filled with benevolence – the passion and solidarity, then it is a very healthy state of mind that is conducive to flourishing. “So you, yourself, are in a much better mental state. Your body will be healthier, so [it] has been shown. And also, people will perceive it as something nice,” he said.
Tip 2: Do a 10 second kindness exercise every hour
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Do a stretching exercise with your hands raised in the air and think of any of your social achievement.
TED
How it will bring happiness
With arms in the air, your body goes into a relaxation mode. When you think of any social achievement then body releases chemicals that brings happiness.
Tip 3: See the smiling picture of the person you love the most (wife, children or parents) for 1 minute
Do place a smiling picture of your dear ones in home or office. When you feel tensed and your energy level goes down, then see that image for one minute. Focus only on the image and forget everything.
humli
How it will bring happiness
By seeing such image, the mind goes into flash back mode. Research shows this brings up all the good memories of that person. This releases the stress and activates chemicals that bring happiness.
Tip 4: Eat Chocolate or Walnut
Cocoa is rich in polyphenols particularly in catechins (flavan-3-ols) and procyanidins. Recently, polyphenols have gained much more attention, owing to their antioxidant capacity (free radical scavenging and metal chelating) and their possible beneficial implications.
How it will bring happiness
The antioxidants in dark chocolate can trigger the walls of your blood vessels to relax, lowering blood pressure and improving circulation. Study suggest that eating about an ounce and a half of dark chocolate daily for two weeks reduced levels of stress hormones in people who rated themselves as highly stressed. Dark chocolate also contains magnesium, a mineral that has been shown to help alleviate PMS symptoms, including fatigue, depression, and irritability.
Tip 5: Stretch the face and smile
Stretch the face and smile despite the circumstances. Though life won’t always give you what you want, when you want, you must be willing to keep moving forward and smile always.
dailygood
How it will bring happiness
When you open your mouth then it puts stress on happiness veins. It releases chemicals that bring happiness.
