Self-Help Happiness Blog

When I was in consumer advocacy, essentially a combination lobbyiist and public relations function, I used to say that “thank you” is the most important thing you can say to influence people. Everybody, from the President to the guy whose boot is stuck in the mus a few feet below the oil slick in the Gulf, appreciates being appreciated.

This is the thank you card my younger daughter prepared for her teachers this year…

I mentioned a while ago that we are supporting the 12 for 12K Challenge, a charitable campaign launched through social media.  Each month in 2009, a new charity will be selected, and we are asking you to consider a small donation ($10, but feel free to give more if the spirit moves you).

The first charity, for January 2009, is War Child.  Why?  There is a good piece where Danny Brown puts the value of $10 in perspective. 

Here is a quick overview of the War Child Charity:

…and below is a video of Little Lady and Little Sister protesting against poverty.  In truth, they did this 100% spontaneously the first time, but I did not have a camera handy then.  So this is actually a “re-enactment” video.  Note that the banner reading “PlYSE” is supposed to read “Please” (not bad for a 7-year old learning to write in French), as in PlYSE support the 12 for 12K Challenge.

YouTube is not embedding this correctly, so here is the direct link to the video: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=ajimCKvI6-E

I’ve just sent my $10 donation; why not send yours now?

You can diet.  You can work out at the gym.  You can take up martial arts.  But why bother, when laughing is such a fun way to shed those pounds?

A burst of hearty laughter can give your body what neuroscientist Dr Helen Pilcher calls a “mini-aerobic workout”.  It makes your heart beat faster.  It makes your chest heave.  It makes your belly muscles tighten.  Facial muscles tighten (good for keeping the skin looking young). It’s a good all-round workout - a belly laugh can help shrink the belly.

There is some bad news and some good news in this.  The bad news is that you have to laugh heartily for an hour to burn off 100 calories.  The good news, is that an hour of extra laughing each day would be good for us party-pooper adults who forget to laugh throughout our day.  How can we add more laughter?

• Sign up for some humorous email broadcasts. 
• Follow some funny people on Twitter and befriend some funny people on FaceBook.
• Get up from your desk every now and then and drop in on the office clown, or anyone with whom you have found you can share a laugh.
• Tickle somebody (probably best to do this one at home); it often can end in getting very playful.
• Have kids.  Yes, they also can cause a lot of stress, but they give you someone you can repeatedly tickle.

How would you increase the laughter in your day?  Please let us know in the comments below.

By the way, you can tweet this post by clicking here: ReTweet this 

How often have I wrote about happiness being something we spread around?  That we create our own happiness by making others happy?

I would like to introduce you to a charity challenge that I am proud to be participating in - one that hopefully you will all choose to participate in, too.  The basic idea is that a different charity will be chosen each month in 2009, and all participants will help raise $12,000 for that charity…but nobody is forced to support a charity they might for whatever reason disagree with.

Thanks to Danny Brown and his team for setting this up.  He has worked really hard to put it together.

In her latest newsletter, Lynda Goldman tells of a trip to LA where she got on a bus expecting a tour of the city…until she started seeing signs for the airport. 

“He apologized, and said he always told people that we were on a collector bus to meet our tour. Because he did this every day, he assumed he had told us what we needed to know.  What a bad start to the tour. Instead of being happy passengers, we were all filled with anxiety, not knowing where we were going. ”

I know I am often guilty of this.  Guilty.  Guilty.  Guilty.  It is so important not to assume that other people know what we are thinking.  Why take the chance of creating stress, having to redo things or simply making people feel bad.

Let’s communicate. 

The Daily Dose of Happiness has been temporarily suspended due to spam complaints that threatened to shut down our Internet access.  Please rest assured that we are committed to finding a new means of delivery that will not expose us to this abuse.

Joyce Brothers has come out with a Happiness Quiz.  Nothing startling there, but still a good little quiz to start your day off right.  Or end it right. 

Hmm.  Wouldn’t the world be a lot better off if we could forget about this culture of getting, and instead spend a little time just enjoying the overabundance that we already have?  Here’s a song about that…