Actually, it is impossible for a person to be happy all the time. Both good and bad things happen to everyone, even the most optimistic people.
Happy people are not happy because they ignore reality and refuse to accept negativity. It is a mistake to think that these people are happy because they have fewer objective problems.
What does being happy or not depend on?
Happiness depends on where one focuses one’s awareness and attention, as this will attract more positive or negative things.
Everyone has gone through a period of time when everything goes wrong. These periods seem endless, being a kind of loop where all the problems seem to attract each other. When people find themselves in this situation, many of the thoughts they have are negative.
The human brain has an automatic tendency towards the negative, as it subconsciously attracts more attention to a negative stimulus than to a positive one (Larsen, Smith, & Cacioppo, 1998).
Negative vs. positive attitude
Since the subconscious causes us to pay more attention to negativity, it is easier to have negative attitudes: it requires no effort because we are biologically programmed.
On the contrary, it requires effort to have a positive attitude towards obstacles. We will only become happy if we train our brain to change the focus of our attention.
Why “train the brain”? By looking at the brain, can we distinguish between happy and unhappy people?
Scientific studies have proven that the amygdala is sensitive to negative information and motivationally relevant stimuli.
Based on this discovery, the differences between the reactivity of the cerebral amygdala to affective images of negative, neutral or positive violence have been successively investigated and linked to the subjective perception of happiness.
This study sought to decipher whether the subjective perception of happiness depends on a lower activation of the amygdala after negative stimuli or a higher activation after positive stimuli.
The results proved that people with higher levels of happiness did not show lower activation after receiving negative information. The difference between the happiest happy people was higher activation after receiving positive stimuli.
Can happiness be trained?
As with any skill, our attitude can be trained. Despite the negative bias of our brain, we can learn to be happier. Neurofeedback training can regulate brain activity and transform brain patterns. In this way, we will be able to transform our perception.