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Are You Grateful Today? Being Grateful Everyday Pays Off

3 February 20213 February 2021 by Hannie

As a kid, I had to pray before meals and every night before sleep. As a rebellious teenager, I really didn’t feel like it anymore. Are you grateful today? Why does that matter?

In my twenties, I even deregistered from the Catholic parish. Seeing that misery in Northern Ireland or the Middle East, for example, only because one party believed in a different God than the other party. Not for me.

As a consequence, praying was off-limits for me as well.

I still don’t pray. Yet nowadays, I do express my gratitude for my life, for my husband, my family, and all other good things that happen to me on a daily basis.

Is Happiness the Key to be Successful or Vice Versa?

27 January 202127 January 2021 by Hannie

Is happiness the key to be successful or is success the key to be happy? It probably depends on who you ask this question. If you ask me, I say happiness comes first. But if you would have asked my Dad he would have said success is the main thing.

The mother of my father had to raise 6 children on her own during the crisis of the 30s because my grandfather died young. So my father had a job from age 12.

He was determined to study and work himself up to a better position. He went to night school and became a very skilled metalworker. During World War II he was imprisoned in an Arbeitslager in Germany. My father always claimed this hadn’t been too bad because he found refuge in his profession and could perfect his skill there.

How to Increase Longevity: Challenge Yourself to be Absolutely Happy

23 December 2020 by Hannie

If you are looking for ways how to increase longevity in a sustainable way the best method is: choose to be happy! It’s easier said than done, I know. Yet I also know from experience that choosing to be happy really is a possibility.

Through the years everybody encounters hardship. It’s part of life. The big question is: how do you react to these moments of need.

Will you sit in a corner and feel sorry for yourself?
Do you ignore that something is the matter?
Or will you grab yourself by the shoulders and shake yourself up?

10 Remarkable Health Benefits of Laughing and a Sense of Humor

4 November 2020 by Hannie

The first time I heard about the health benefits of laughing was at a health seminar. The story went like this:

A man heard from his doctor that further treatment of his cancer was of no use and that his life prospects were about 3 months. He had a lot of money and no heirs, so he decided to spend his last days as pleasant as possible.

He took up residence in a penthouse of a hotel with full board and access to the Humor Channel and watched funny movies and stand up comedians all day long.

After 3 months he was still alive. And also the next 3 months passed by without anything of importance happening. So he ran out of money, was kindly asked to pay the bill or else to leave the hotel, and returned to the hospital for a check-up.

His cancer was gone.

Unexpected Secrets for a Happy Marriage

21 October 202021 October 2020 by Hannie

Tom and I celebrated our 45th anniversary last Saturday. For a long time we hardly celebrated our anniversaries, which isn’t very smart. Because if we don’t celebrate our successes and acknowledge them, we diminish them. That’s one of the secrets for a happy marriage: celebrate!

Being together for such a long time and still being curious about each other and love and respecting each other can be marked as quite an accomplishment.

This year was special, because we had to deal with a Fase 1 Flexibilizada lockdown and its restrictions. We used to eat out on our wedding anniversary day, but during the lockdown the restaurants are partly closed. They are only allowed to open the terrace, not the inside, and we don’t want to be on the terrace with smokers all around us.

We did go out though – we went to the bakery for bread and en passant we took tea with cake in a corner.

Is true happiness possible in times like this?

6 May 202029 April 2020 by Hannie

These are trying times. With many people in lockdown, this is a major drain on our mental health. Even when life hasn’t changed that much, like Tom’s and mine, it is obvious that the mere fact we can’t do as we please causes discomfort and confusion.

Is true happiness possible in times like this? I think it is, but let’s be honest and realistic – it asks for more effort.

Effort? Isn’t being happy not just something you are or are not?

Many people who struggle in life often belittle happiness and like to claim that true happiness is not even possible at all. Trying times or not.

Happiness is more than thinking positive thoughts

15 June 202015 April 2020 by Hannie

What have neuromarketing and epigenetics to do with happiness and positive thoughts

When someone asks me “What defines your happiness?”, then for me it’s often studying and learning new things. Last year my focus point was neuromarketing. This year it is epigenetics.

Those 2 disciplines both have the primal brain as their object of study. Neuromarketing got my interest from a business point of view, where epigenetics triggers me on a personal level.

Epigenetics is a new discipline that studies the influence of our environment and our behavior on the activation of genes. It shows that anything we do, eat, drink or think can make us stronger or weaker.