Did you wake up with a song in your heart this morning? Scientists, however, say feeling happy has nothing to do with the heart – it’s all in the brain

Take a straw poll among passers-by about what happiness is and you are likely to get varied answers.

Some will say that having loving friends and family is tops. Others derive happiness from having a good job and a steady income.

"Happiness is knowing that I’ve been a good father to my five children," said 65-year-old taxi driver, Mr Yusup Abdul.

Sales promoter James Chng had a more practical criterion for happiness.

"Money makes me happy. Having enough means I can do whatever I want and also help my friends with it," said the 21-year-old.

Student Melissa Tang, 19, who rated herself an eight out of 10 on the happiness scale, said:

"I’m just happy by nature. Also, my friends always joke with me."

With the festive season just over, more Singaporeans will be facing the reality of the economic downturn head on. In light of such grim times, happiness could become a more precious commodity than ever before.

Mind Your Body spoke to health professionals and others for their take on what happiness is and what it does for a person’s well-being.

Finding meaning

"I view joy as a natural state of being that occurs when we are being authentic in accepting reality and living fully in the present" said Mr Kenny Toh, a professional life coach and member of the International Coaching Federation.

As a life coach, his job entails helping clients, mainly adult professionals, achieve personal growth in areas like their relationships, career and direction in life.

His advice to those facing the recession is to accept the reality of it and not waste energy complaining and worrying.

"Doing so frees us to live in the present and appreciate all the good things we currently have," he said.

Psychotherapist Stephen Lew at the Positive Psychology Centre said that many people do not know how to take stock of their own happiness.

"Our society tends to encourage cynicism and people know how to complain more than they know how to be happy," he said.

Citing some principles of positive psychology, he said that the path to happiness involves pleasure, engagement and meaning.

Taken in total, this means that those actively seeking happiness should engage in activities that are enjoyable, absorbing and deeply meaningful.

Volunteering with charity groups often fulfils such criteria,and Mr Lew said that he often helps set his up clients with such work.

"When you touch another person and make them happy, it will come back to you eventually," he said.


The science of happiness

While we hold on to the romantic notion that happiness is a heart full of joy, medical science tells us that it all comes from the brain.

The frontal lobes and the limbic system in the brain have been demonstrated to influence emotions, said DrNagaendran Kandiah, an associate consultant with the neurology department at the National Neuroscience Institute.

Scans on the brains of depressed people, he said, showed lower levels of frontal lobe activity than in normal, or happy, people.

This means that a happy person is liable to have a brain that is functionally very different from that of a depressed person, he said.

Interestingly, people who have experienced injury to their right frontal lobes tend to be euphoric, whereas those who have damaged their left tend to be depressed, said DrNagaendran.

"We know they’re all interconnected, but which one has a dominant role is still unknown," he added.

The levels and balance of specific neurochemicals in our brains also play a role, he added.

Serotonin, for instance, helps regulate our moods and low levels of it have commonly been found in suicidal people.

Dopamine, a form of "reward chemical" that affects our ability to experience pleasure, is also often associated with happy feelings.

Incidences of happiness, he said, can also be retained as memories in the hippocampus – an area of the brain that stores memories – and can be triggered again when the same, or similar, event occurs.

"A lot is still unclear about how exactly the brain and its neurochemicals regulate emotions, but this field is expanding rapidly," he said.

 
The benefits of being happy

Dr Adrian Wang, a psychiatrist in private practice, said that happy people are healthier people too.

"They are more effective at their jobs, more able to sustain healthy relationships, and may even be physically healthier," he said.

As an example, he cited a report from the Carnegie Mellon University that showed how happy test subjects were more resistant to cold and flu viruses than people with more negative attitudes.

Feelings of happiness, he added, can have a knock-on effect, leading people to other positive activities like opening up to others and exercising.

Conversely, depressed people are more likely to fall ill or succumb to serious illnesses.

People can be too happy as well, due to mental illnesses like bipolar disorder, which can cause extreme mood swings.

Drug and alcohol consumption can also produce short-lived feelings of extreme happiness, which can have very unhealthy consequences, he cautioned.

Dr Wang said that some people may have a genetic predisposition towards being sad or depressed, while others may be so due to stressful life circumstances.

"It boils down to thinking and coping strategies. Happy people are able to problem-solve instead of dwelling on the negatives," he said.

dhano@sph.com.sg