Beginner's Fitness Programs

By now, most people realize that emotions really do affect our health. “Dying of a broken heart” is true; severe emotional depression can significantly affect our health, especially the heart. So, if we are happy, can we promote heart health? Until recently, there was no solid research to determine whether this positive relationship exists, but one such study now published in the European Heart Journal indicates that this is actually true.

Researchers followed more than 1,700 people for 10 years. After accounting for age, sex, and other cardiovascular risk factors they found that people who often feel pleasurable emotions such as joy, happiness, excitement, enthusiasm, and contentment have better heart health than those who tend to express negative emotions such as anger and depression.

Although they could not conclude that there are direct relationships between positive emotions and a healthy heart, and there is a possibility that these emotions and heart health are both positively related to another unknown factor, it seems like a good idea: Be happy to be healthy.

There are a couple of things, however, that we should know about being “happy” and being healthy. We are often told that we need to delay our pleasure to accomplish a goal. For example, you cannot eat chocolate for a month until you achieve a weight-loss goal. You can have tremendous happiness after achieving the goal and eat chocolate. This, however, is not quite the right way to BE happy.

One analogous example is wine. If you drink a small quantity of wine everyday, it protects your heart. However, if you don’t drink the wine for a month, and drink 5 bottles of wine overnight, what happens? You probably get really sick (and might even have a heart attack)!

This means that you need to be happy every day, if not every minute. Can we do that? Yes, we can.

Applied Research in Quality of Life has published some interesting research. They studied two groups of people and their vacations: one planning, then going away on a trip, and the other with the same amount of vacation time, but no trip. They found that, although the people who took the trip were much happier than the others, their level of happiness did not change significantly AFTER the vacation.

In other words, these people were happy when they were PLANNING the trip! They enjoyed the process of making plans, but the actual trip didn’t necessarily give them “happiness”.

How does this apply to our daily happiness? Simply enjoy whatever you are doing! If you really don’t like the job you are doing, it may seem hard, but you can probably find something you like. Enjoy it. Or plan for something you really like to do, and enjoy the process of getting there.

This directly applies to your physical fitness, too. I know it may be painful to run 5 miles, but think about the results you will get if you jog everyday, and enjoy the fresh air and beautiful scenery while running outside, you will be happier, and you can doubly make your heart healthy.

Anyway, have fun in your life everyday!

Source: Don’t worry, be happy: positive affect and reduced 10-year incident coronary heart disease: The Canadian Nova Scotia Health Survey. European Heart Journal, Feb 17, 2010

Vacationers Happier, but Most not Happier After a Holiday. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 2010

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