Bring out your inner child to add more joy for a happier and healthier life.

As we get older, and the responsibilities of life take up so much of our time, it can be a challenge to rekindle the joy we felt about life as children. It’s difficult to be joyful in the middle of doing taxes, cleaning toilets or spending time stuck in traffic, but research is showing just how important being happy can be for our health.

Fostering positive emotions can be just as important as keeping negative ones at bay. Research conducted by a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health shows that having a “a sense of enthusiasm, of hopefulness, of engagement in life, and the ability to face life’s stresses with emotional balance” can be just as important to our health as regular exercise not smoking. That’s pretty huge and that means there are very real benefits to bringing more happiness into your life and trying to tap into your inner child.

But how do you connect with your inner child when the real world is always ready to intervene?

Here are 7 ways you can channel your inner child for better health:

1. Add spontaneity to your life. Do something “just because” not because there’s necessarily a reason to do it–good health is reason enough.
2. Play. Whether it’s digging in the dirt (grownups call this gardening), skiing, starting a board game night amongst your friends, add more playtime to your life.
3. Take dance breaks. Not only will taking a 5 minute dance break reduce your stress, it will also get your circulation going–that’s a double win.
4. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Kids jump into things head first and it’s only as we age that we start to over analyze every decision. Happiness and joy can come from overcoming a challenge that comes from making mistakes.
5. Don’t get too caught up in what others think of you. There is powerful joy in being yourself and not spending too much time on how others perceive you.
6. Treat yourself. Don’t regularly overindulge but do allow yourself to occasionally enjoy a sweet treat. Better still, make it something you haven’t enjoyed since you were a kid.
7. Spend time around younger people. Having friends who are younger than you can help you tap into your younger more carefree self.

Resources:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/happiness-stress-heart-disease/

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1015863,00.html

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Pay attention to the positive.

“Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys.  If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.”

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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Here’s a mighty powerful question: What’s it going to take?

We usually mutter that question in dire circumstances. Worst case scenarios. Rock-bottom situations. What’s it going to take for you to wake up? What’s it going to take for me to stop? What’s it going to take for them to realize?

But life is always an urgent circumstance, when you think about it. Birth – miraculous. Survival – miraculous. Death – inevitable. Suffering – optional. Life – urgent.

I wonder what my days would be like if I approached my happiness with the same sense of urgency that I dedicate to deadlines and to-do’s.

Like, I’ve GOT to meet my dancing quota! Wild horses couldn’t keep me from lunch with my girlfriends! Come hell or high water, I WILL get a facial and lay in the sun! Most important deadlines: to meander, to laugh until I snortle by noon every day, to make pizza with my son.

So, in the spirit of urgent vitality – and not knowing if today will be my last – I’m asking myself, lovingly but firmly: LaPorte, what’s it going to take for you to be incredibly joyful? What’s it going to take for you to make an evolutionary leap as an artist, lover, mother, friend, human? What’s it going to take to get you to walk to the lake that’s four minutes from your house? What’s it going to take to get you on the dance floor? You want to eat life whole? To know God? To radiate pure love? Urgently, now: what’s it going to take?

I think it’s going to take everything I’ve got. Deep breath. Pause. Softening. And, smiling. Because I’ve got what it takes. As do you.

True desires rise from rich capacity.

Editor’s Note: Danielle LaPorte is the creator of WhiteHotTruth.com, which has been called “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.” She is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs, an inspirational speaker, former think tank exec, and news show commentator. You can read all of Danielle’s EcoSalon guest articles here, and find her on Twitter @daniellelaporte.

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