A womans health and happiness

A womans health and happiness is a highly individual state that is not dependent on any one single factor but on a number of positive conditions that come together to create that state.

In mental health health we looked at the concept of happiness being a main contributor to maintaining a womans mental health. We also considered the various factors such as love, the support of your family, friends and job satisfaction, social and spiritual life, which all contribute to a womans health and happiness, and, ultimately her mental and emotional well-being. But What is happiness? What does being happy mean? And how can you maintain it?

It has already been established that in western societies in particular, happiness does not correlate with external circumstances, nor is it a direct result of being wealthy or successful - since many wealthy and successful people are far from being happy.

It is fitting that we now explore this personal and subjective state and the correlation between a womans sense of happiness and her mental and emotional well-being.

Definitions of a womans health and happiness

One definition of happiness is that of:

"A prolonged or lasting emotional or affective state that feels good or pleasing. Other states or experiences associated with happiness include wellbeing, joy, delight, health, security and love"

It is near impossible to objectively define happiness as we presently know and understand it. A womans health and happiness can be said to refer to a combination of psychological, mental and emotional elements. As such, it is an internal and subjective process.

It is 'how you process your experiences and your realities, rather than what your experiences actually are'. For instance, whether you take an optimistic or problem-oriented view of life's challenges. The optimistic stance processing for one women might see her enjoying a long lasting blissful life, while for another woman, her experiences of happiness are but fleeting emotions.

This supports the theory that true and lasting happiness always comes from within and is a direct result of how women process their realities.

For the benefit of womans health and happiness, happiness can best be defined as an emotion. Other emotions that can impact on your happiness quota include fear, love, sadness etc., With awareness and understanding of the cause of your emotions, you can learn how to control them. For instance, you might harbour fear about bringing into your life a much needed, positive change. Exploring the root cause of this fear will lead you to an awareness and understanding of how it keeps you blocked and what you can do to change it. Likewise, you can learn about the elements that constitute mental and emotional well-being - a womans health and happiness and how to go about changing them.

the correlation between a womans health, and 'happiness'

This point to the key ingredients in a womans health and happiness being awareness and the choices she makes.

However, the question of whether you can actually use your knowledge of what makes you happy to lift your levels of happiness permanently is being hotly debated by some psychologists. Yet, according to the positive psychologist Professor Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania 'it is possible to lift our biological set range of happiness, at least to some extent if we work at it'.

Since a womans health and happiness or mental health care is a process that requires you to engage in particular activities of choice, your selection will naturally arise out of the information you hold and out of your experiences. Such choices will largely be influenced by what gives you the most pleasure, rather than what gives you least.

There's a growing body of research showing that what's going on in your brain affects what's going on in your body, whether this is either positive or negative. Links are increasingly being made also between the mind/body connections and how this affect the body's immune system.

In a nutshell, having a feel-good factor will increase your chances of remaining healthy. While feeling low may mean your immune sysem is weak/you are likely to be un-healthy also. This clearly establishes the relationship between a womans health, and her happiness as being a strong and viable one.

Having now established the links between happiness and it being a significant contributor to mental and emotional well-being, by setting yourself personal goals to increase your happiness quota, you can take inspiration from the knowledge that at the same time you're learning how to be happier, you're also learing how to be healthy too.

Below are a number of healthy suggestions that you can cultivate to help you work on and improve your awareness of the choices you make and, ultimately how these choices impact positively or negatively on your happiness quota.

Time well spent on a womans health and happiness

A good measure of a womans health and happiness is the quality of time and attention she gives to her sensory experiences - e.g. emotions such as happiness, fear, guilt etc.,

Investing quality time to sensory activities will enrich both mental and physical functioning, enabling you to realise your potential more fully. Learn strategies for dealing with challenging situations.

Cultivating your woman health and happiness means tapping into your internal reservoir. By doing this, you not only gain insights into what is happening in the 'here and now', but you also learn how to correct past limiting experiences. Your attentiveness will enable a better perspective on events, helping you to rationalise and to manage more effectively experiences that seem difficult or negative. It gives you the ability to learn how to achieve the future outcomes you want and the power to visualise and then to create your life goals. When you create and achieve your goals, you make a credit to your womans health and happiness balance.

Here's an example of what I mean. Let's say that two women are in exactly the same situation with very similar circumstances of recently having a baby and being overweight. The first woman is attentive to her sensory experiences and is fully aware of the range of complex emotions which can come into play when you have a baby and is therefore able to work with them. she retains a sense of perspective and view weight loss as an important and valued goal for her personally. She understands and fully appreciate that having gained excessive weight through pregnancy, she'll have to follow a weight loss exercise and a healthy eating plan, to get her back into shape. She will most probably view her weight gain a very small price to pay for being blessed with the joys of motherhood. She is secure in her ability and in her motivation to bring a further positive change into her life - i.e, achieving her weight loss goals.

From a different perspective, the second woman has achieved the same success of motherhood. However, she remains focused on the issue of her excessive weight gain, seeing herself as being fat and unattractive. By focusing on the negative aspects of her experience, she allows the positive aspects of her transition to motherhood to become overshadowed, marring her real sense of happiness from her achievement. Needless to say, the more she focuses on the negative aspect, the more dis-satisfied she'll become with her Self Image. She'll also be more sensitive to any discussions about weight or weight gain that takes place around her. She'll naturally find this upsetting and will see this experience as further confirming a negative view, rather than being able to let it go - low self esteem.

As you can clearly see, a womans health and happiness boils down to choice and awareness. Choice entails either attentiveness or inattentiveness to how and what you're experiencing on a sensory level and consequently, either the negative or positive processing of your experiences. Accordingly, your happiness qoutient will either remain exactly where it has always been; be it a sense of dis-satisfaction with your life or over your perceived lack of achievement or short-coming; or even weight gain. On the the other hand, moving forward by focusing on the things in your life that make you feel valued, supported, happy and content, you can reach for the stars and for your woman health and happiness.

Self-Help: a womans health and happiness

A woman's inattentiveness to her womans health and happiness has other implications too. It has already been shown that people who have a happy disposition fare better in their mental well-being than people who do not. Harbouring for instance, feelings of discontent, resentment, jealousy or envy etc., can lead to stress and a whole range of other medical conditions.

While physical stress can ravage the body and perhaps better help it to stand up to the test of time, mental stress can leave longer lasting damaging scars and health conditions. Learning how to be happier can help you stay healthier, wealthier and wiser too.

Here are some pointers to help you cultivate your womans health and happiness. You can use the suggestions to help you define and set your happiness goals. They can equally form the basis of your action plans.

Key ingredients to a woman maintaining her health and happiness is acknowledging and respecting how and what she's feeling. This enables you to identify any action you need to take in order to grow. Your progress might be dependent upon you closing a chapter in your life that is presently limiting you. Do bear in mind though that 'as one door closes, another one opens'

Respond to people, situations or events that are troubling or limiting you. If you hold it inside and not act on any resentment, bitterness or displeasure you're feeling, you run the risk of being churned up inside as it becomes ingrained

What generalisations are you making about yourself/self-image or about your life or people in general? For example, what negative self-talk are you engaging in, about yourself and/or your achievements, beliefs or perceived weaknesses; are you focusing on the people or things that are making you unhappy or miserable such as - being passed over for promotion at work; or the way in which your partner is taking you for granted.

Or are you making the most of the things that gives you pleasure, confidence and happiness; such as being good at your job, or your confidence in your ability to find another partner who will vaue and respect you. Negative generalisations - whether internal or external, can also become ingrained, thus impacting on a womans health. Focus instead on seeking to change the things or situations that don't make you happy

Crucial to a womans health and happiness is getting into the habit of rephrasing negative generalisations into more positive ones, by using positive 'add on's' each time you catch yourself engaging in this practice. For example - "I've gained a great deal of weight" is added to as follows: "I've gained a great deal of weight which I will lose within three months". Just remember to keep adding something positive and in no time you'll notice the difference in how positive you're becoming

Put your new found womans health and happiness skills of self-awareness and your ability to exercise choice, to good use. Pursue the things you have found to be appealing, enjoyabl, deliciously challenging, fun or rewarding. Notice also the people from your who demonstrate these qualities or traits such as kindness, strength, humour or compassion etc., Do you admire them enough to model their behaviours - recreate these positive traits for yourself. By making the effort to appreciate and value the goodness in other people as well as in other things, when someone or something upsets you, it is less likely to unsettle your world-view. Rather, your response will be to treat it as an exception as opposed to confirming a negative view. This will enable you to more easily let go and move on

A womans health and happiness includes looking for the positive in every situation and in other people's conduct. Strive to extract positive and productive responses from them, instead of waiting in expectation. For instance, make a point of politely enquiring, commenting, greeting or praising other people. Making them feel good about themselves will make you feel happy too

There's no better way of working toward your womans health and happiness than by bringing to your awareness the the things in your life for which you should and could be grateful. Make a point of drawing up a list in your journal, of all the things in your life which you value. You'll find further information on how to get the best out of your journal writing, by clicking on the link journaling activity

Why not make a start on increasing your happiness quota, by setting a goal to this effect - personal goal setting. You'll be happy you did.

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. . (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

The information on this site is purely of educational value and is not intended to replace your seeking medical advice. You must consult your doctor over all your health concerns.

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