High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘Sharing’

Good times linger longer when you share them with friends.  The banter, the laughter, the connectedness all take on a glow that stays in your heart long after everyone’s gone their separate ways.

It’s as if you collected a whole batch of treasures to take home with you:  This one’s laugh, that one’s gestures, the story that touched your heart, the news that informed you with a new point of view.  It all rolls together into one delicious, satisfying memory, and the warmth of it stays with you for hours and makes you feel good and richer and enlarged.

A couple weeks ago, I learned that the staying-power of connection is more powerful than I knew.  I was at a gathering of friends not long ago talking with a man whose live-in mother-in-law is in the late stages of Alzheimer ’s disease.  Her short term memory is nearly non-existent.  It was beginning to irritate him, he said, to be asked the same questions over and over within a few minutes.

But then he read an article describing a study that showed that friendly visits with loved ones uplifted the spirits of Alzheimer’s patients long after they had forgotten the visit took place.  So now he didn’t mind, he said, repeating the same stories over and over.  He could add new twists to them just to amuse himself, or make up better ones with happier themes.  Mom would be content for hours, and he felt good for contributing to her sense of well-being.  The warmth of shared good times provided lingering benefits to them both.  And now his telling of the story was adding uplift to my day as well.

Sharing good news  is a proven happiness element.  We all love happy-ending stories.  They’re one of the reasons we so enjoy being with other people.  But even when we share time with our buddies in silence, when our time together is spent in work or just strolling wordlessly together through the park, we get a lift from the connection.

Want to increase your happiness ratio?  Take some time for family and friends.  It will do your heart good.  And theirs, too.