All You Need Is Your Mind’s Permission to Feel Good About Your Life!

Myth: Money Will Make me Happy : Many of us believe money would solve most of our problems. We all have the dream of hitting the lottery and having our money problems disappear, assuming that will make us happier. Now of course if you are so broke you have no food or shelter, then yes your mood will be impacted. However, a very well known study was done to find out how true that was for the average person. What they found was that those who won the lottery described themselves as being “less happy or as happy” six months later than they were before they won. They then researched people who were left paralyzed after an accident. Many of those people were actually as happy if not happier than they had been the day before their accident. How could that possibly be? Because our situations do not determine our happiness.

Your amygdala, a little almond shaped area buried deep in your brain will look for problems regardless of how much money you have, if it didn’t rich people would be the happiest folks in the world. Lottery winners are still obsessed over every problem, real or feared. However, the paraplegic, on the other hand, has now found appreciation/gratitude in the small successes of even mundane tasks that you and I take for granted, from putting on shoes to holding a fork or feeding himself. This is because people get a serotonin hit every time they feel they have accomplished any kind of task, and in this case the paraplegics are very grateful for what they can do. (A neurochemical that rewards us with a feeling of pleasure and contentment) Of course they would prefer to be able to walk, but that does not affect their mood to the extent that one might expect.