9 Daily Habits That Will Make You Happier

9 Daily Habits That Will Make You Happier


These minor changes in your daily routine will make a major difference in your life and career.

Happiness is the only true measure of personal success. Making other people happy is the highest expression of success, but it's almost impossible to make others happy if you're not happy yourself.

With that in mind, here are nine small changes that you can make to your daily routine that, if you're like most people, will immediately increase the amount of happiness in your life:


1. Start each day with expectation.

If there's any big truth about life, it's that it usually lives up to (or down to) your expectations. Therefore, when you rise from bed, make your first thought: "something wonderful is going to happen today." Guess what? You're probably right.
2. Take time to plan and prioritize.

The most common source of stress is the perception that you've got too much work to do. Rather than obsess about it, pick one thing that, if you get it done today, will move you closer to your highest goal and purpose in life. Then do that first.


3. Give a gift to everyone you meet.

I'm not talking about a formal, wrapped-up present. Your gift can be your smile, a word of thanks or encouragement, a gesture of politeness, even a friendly nod. And never pass beggars without leaving them something. Peace of mind is worth the spare change.

4. Deflect partisan conversations.

Arguments about politics and religion never have a "right" answer but they definitely get people all riled up over things they can't control. When such topics surface, bow out by saying something like: "Thinking about that stuff makes my head hurt."

5. Assume people have good intentions.

Since you can't read minds, you don't really know the "why" behind the "what" that people do. Imputing evil motives to other people's weird behaviors adds extra misery to life, while assuming good intentions leaves you open to reconciliation.



6. Eat high quality food slowly.

Sometimes we can't avoid scarfing something quick to keep us up and running. Even so, at least once a day try to eat something really delicious, like a small chunk of fine cheese or an imported chocolate. Focus on it; taste it; savor it.

7. Let go of your results.

The big enemy of happiness is worry, which comes from focusing on events that are outside your control. Once you've taken action, there's usually nothing more you can do. Focus on the job at hand rather than some weird fantasy of what might happen.

8. Turn off "background" TV.

Many households leave their TVs on as "background noise" while they're doing other things. The entire point of broadcast TV is to make you dissatisfied with your life so that you'll buy more stuff. Why subliminally program yourself to be a mindless consumer?

9. End each day with gratitude.

Just before you go to bed, write down at least one wonderful thing that happened. It might be something as small as a making a child laugh or something as huge as a million dollar deal. Whatever it is, be grateful for that day because it will never come again.



  Source: http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/9-daily-habits-that-will-make-you-happier.html By: Geoffrey James

Training and HR Technology--Retrain the Brain.

As aging baby boomers look to keep on working, producers of `brain fitness' software—aimed at improving memory and keeping the mind sharp—see an opportunity to pitch their products to employers.

Software tools to keep the brain fit are headed to the workplace.

The products have been making a splash in the consumer market in recent years as older Americans wrestle with memory loss and other cognitive declines. And now vendors of "brain fitness" software are beginning to see employers as another fertile market, especially given the desire of baby boomers to stay in the workforce for years to come.

A host of challenges face this nascent industry. They include doubts about the effectiveness of the software, concerns that exercises in front of a computer will bore people, and the prospect that employees in their 40s, 50s and 60s will feel stigmatized signing up for what could be considered brain rehab.

But advocates are confident the burgeoning field of brain health is far more than a fad, and companies are likely to see significant benefits in areas such as productivity and retention through the use of the new software tools.

Posit Science, a San Francisco-based firm, says several employers are testing its software this year. Posit Science's Brain Fitness Program has been shown to improve the memory of people 60 years or older by 10 years or more, and the company's CEO, Jeff Zimman, expects solid results in corporate trials as well. "This is going to be a hot area," he says.

The Players

The brain fitness arena has its roots in scientific findings during the past two decades that the brain is fundamentally "plastic"—capable of rewiring itself even late in life. That's good news, because experts also note that brain functioning begins to fall off as early as age 25. Among the key researchers in the field is Posit Science founder Michael Merzenich, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco who was recently featured in a PBS program on brain fitness.

To combat the dulling of the mind and stave off the horrifying effects of dementia, a host of vendors now tout brain training software programs, including Happy Neuron.com, CogniFit, Posit Science and Fit Brains. Video game company Nintendo also is a player with its Brain Age software.

Posit Science expects solid results in corporate testing trials of its software. "This is going to be a hot area." --Jeff Zimman, CEO, Posit Science

The content of these programs varies. Happy Neuron.com, for example, offers games designed to work out five major brain functions: language, attention, memory, visual processing and "executive function," which includes logical reasoning. One of Happy Neuron's language games, "Split Words," asks users to match the parts of words divided into two or more sections, with the help of a general category for the session such as "gardening."

Fit Brains plans this month to introduce games for a range of cognitive functions. By the end of March, it intends to add games as well as other features such as brain fitness metrics.

Brain Age, built for the Nintendo DS mobile game device, runs users through activities such as solving math problems, playing sudoku puzzle games and reading literature aloud.

Posit Science, meanwhile, works to improve memory and train the brain on basic processing skills. In one activity, users are asked to listen to two tones played in rapid succession, then decide whether the second was higher or lower than the first.

Benefit Questioned.

The brain training software industry is new but promising. Brain Age and its sequel Brain Age 2 have together sold more than 14 million copies worldwide since 2005, says George Harrison, who was senior vice president of marketing at Nintendo of America before retiring from the company at the end of 2007. Nintendo's brain games are inspired by the work of Japanese neuroscientist Ryuta Kawashima, and they estimate the "age" of users' brains based on their performance. But the products are pitched primarily as fun, Harrison says. "We haven't done any scientific research to demonstrate any health claims," he says.

On the other end of the spectrum, Posit Science has had its software tested by researchers who have presented findings in scholarly journals and at conferences. In November, the company touted results of a study of 524 healthy adults 65 and older. Half of them completed up to 40 hours of the Posit Science program. The other half followed the advice that older people will benefit from new learning in different subject areas, and completed up to 40 hours of a computer-based educational training program on topics such as the history of Great Britain.

Those in the Posit Science group showed "significantly superior" gains in standardized, clinical measures of memory equal to roughly 10 years, the company said in a statement. The company also said participants in the Posit Science program showed significant gains in how they perceived their memory and cognitive abilities, such as remembering names and phone numbers or where they had left their keys, as well as communication abilities and feelings of self-confidence.

Even so, the degree to which software programs can slow the cognitive decline associated with aging has been questioned. Sandra Aamod, editor of the journal Nature Neuroscience, and Sam Wang, professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton University, offered a critical view of the products in a November New York Times opinion piece. A better bet, the authors argued, is physical exercise.

"So instead of spending money on computer games or puzzles to improve your brain's health, invest in a gym membership," the authors wrote. "Or just turn off the computer and go for a brisk walk."

Some advocates for computer brain fitness products say software training should be part of a broader range of brain health activities, including walking and swimming.

Paul Nussbaum, a neuropsychologist and chief scientific officer of Fit Brains, suggests a five-part program for brain health, with attention to socializing, physical activity, mental stimulation, nutrition and spirituality.

Targeting the workforce

Until now, companies haven't paid much attention to brain health, Nussbaum says. He notes the way corporate health fairs typically have tables set up for diabetes and bone density. "There's nothing at these health fairs focused on the brain," he says.

Corporate training departments also have ignored sharpening basic employee mental skills such as memory or language processing.

The graying of the workforce may change that. The number of U.S. workers 55 and older is projected to grow by 46.7 percent between 2006 and 2016, according to a December report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rate of expansion in the number of those older workers is nearly 5.5 times the 8.5 percent growth projected for the labor force overall. People 55 and older are expected to make up 23 percent of the workforce in 2016, up from 17 percent in 2006 and 12 percent in 1996.