You can thank your parents—in part—for how happy you are; roughly half of human happiness is genetically determined. Another 10 percent comes from your life circumstances, like how happy you are with where you live. But because people quickly adapt to changes, swapping Midwest winters for West Coast warmth, say, won’t lead to a lasting boost in life satisfaction, according to long time happiness researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California-Riverside. What can give us a lasting boost is how we think and behave, she says: About 40 percent of our happiness is under our conscious control. [Read more…]
Fitness for Life
Mind, Body and Spirit
What is mental health or emotional health?
Mental or emotional health refers to your overall psychological well-being. It includes the way you feel about yourself, the quality of your relationships, and your ability to manage your feelings and deal with difficulties. Good mental health isn’t just the absence of mental health problems. Being mentally or emotionally healthy is much more than being free of depression, anxiety, or other psychological issues. Rather than the absence of mental illness, mental and emotional health refers to the presence of positive characteristics. Similarly, not feeling bad is not the same as feeling good. While some people may not have negative feelings, they still need to do things that make them feel positive in order to achieve mental and emotional health.
People who are mentally and emotionally healthy have:
- A sense of contentment.
- A zest for living and the ability to laugh and have fun. [Read more…]
Beware The Free Divorce Advice You Get
By David Westwick
What is free divorce advice? Is it advice given to help you in your divorce to make the experience and outcomes better for you? Is it advice given to help you bypass mistakes that have cost other people? Or tactics you can incorporate to help you gain some advantage?
You will find that well intentioned advice is given freely by practically everyone you have contact with especially those who have an emotional investment in a divorce, theirs or someone close. The horror stories of how the system worked against a family member or the horrors of an ex doing the wrong thing and the system not intervening. There is also the advice about how someone received the lions share with a few tricks or strategies.
Free divorce advice online in forums or chat rooms is easily available and you can often read the interesting information that has helped in other cases.
The reality is that your marriage was individual and your divorce will be individual as well. Divorce laws differ from state to state and country to country and, quite frankly, from case to case. If divorce or any legal situation was easy to solve there would not be court dates or mediation or coaches or professionals working tirelessly to make the system better. [Read more…]