The Science of Happiness

The fields of Positive Pyschology and Neuroscience continue to examine the data around what constitutes "happiness" and "peace" in a scientific sense, and the kinds of behaviors and neural patterns that are associated with such states. This has implications not only for our ability to manage stress and be productive in a world of increasing complexity, but more importantly it addresses in a way the very fundamentals of "Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness".

Lately TED Talks has been providing us a huge service by allowing experts from this field who have been laboring for many years, and some for decades, to share their findings and perspective from the field of Positive Psychology, and allied fields in neuroscience and psycho-neuro-immunology.

NPR's TED Talk Hour has recently covered this subject and provided a high level view of some of the key researchers in this emerging field of study. This 1-hour program is a wonderful launching pad to a variety of TED Talks for anyone who wants to take in some of the data as well as inspiring perspectives from not only scientists but also people involved in other fields such as journalism and religion:

http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/267185371/simply-happy

There are many wonderful speakers and ideas referenced in here including:

- The positive impact of slowing down on our productivity and happiness
- The positive impact of misfortune on our overall satisfaction in life
- The role of gratitude in generating happiness
- The correlation of "being in the moment" with happiness and productivity

I would encourage anyone who has interest in their health, happiness, productivity and success to take a moment to explore some of these TED Talks and then possibly conduct further research into the work of some of these scientists and/or speakers.

Here are the original TED Talk home pages and videos of some of these speakers:

http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_killingsworth_want_to_be_happier_stay_in_the_moment

http://www.ted.com/talks/carl_honore_praises_slowness

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_steindl_rast_want_to_be_happy_be_grateful

https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend