{"id":4488,"date":"2014-04-10T22:54:04","date_gmt":"2014-04-11T04:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=4488"},"modified":"2014-04-10T22:54:16","modified_gmt":"2014-04-11T04:54:16","slug":"happiness-is-contagious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/happiness-is-contagious\/","title":{"rendered":"Happiness is Contagious!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A research study at Harvard Medical found that, in fact, happiness is contagious. It suggests that happiness is influenced not only by the people you know, but by the people they know. The study showed that happiness spreads through social networks, sort of like a virus, meaning that your happiness could influence the happiness of someone you`ve never even met. They found that there were statistical relationships not just between your happiness and your friend&#8217;s happiness, but between your happiness and your friends, friends, friends happiness! They concluded that the happiness of an immediate social contact increased an individual&#8217;s chances of becoming happy by 15%, the happiness of a second-degree contact, such as the spouse of a friend, increases the likeliness of becoming happy by 10%, and the happiness of a third-degree contact \u2014 or the friend of a friend of a friend \u2014 increases the likelihood of becoming happy by 6%. So what does that tell us \u2013 choose friends who are HAPPY!!!<\/p>\n<p>Now in attempt to help spread happiness to all of you as you head into the weekend ahead I will share some things that make me happy \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 \u2026<\/p>\n<p>Happiness is\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Listening to happy music while you take a warm shower at the start of your day<\/li>\n<li>Fitting into old clothes that used to be too small (my juice cleanse is working!)<\/li>\n<li>A diet coke fountain drink in the morning with a shot of cherry flavoring (especially if it has the good rabbit ice that comes in little balls)<\/li>\n<li>Singing in your car at the top of your lungs to your favorite song on the radio<\/li>\n<li>A smile from a stranger<\/li>\n<li>A clean office<\/li>\n<li>A compliment from anyone<\/li>\n<li>Someone who says thank you<\/li>\n<li>Making your parents proud<\/li>\n<li>When your children love you<\/li>\n<li>Having peace of mind<\/li>\n<li>Learning to do something new for the first time<\/li>\n<li>Knowing that God loves you<\/li>\n<li>Curling up with a good book that you can\u2019t put down<\/li>\n<li>Listening to little kids laughter<\/li>\n<li>Dancing in your kitchen when no one is around to watch<\/li>\n<li>Holding a newborn baby that smells like baby magic lotion<\/li>\n<li>Looking forward to a trip or a holiday<\/li>\n<li>Having amazing children that make you really proud to be their mom<\/li>\n<li>Being married to the hottest husband ever!<\/li>\n<li>Watching your favorite TV show with your family<\/li>\n<li>Listening to the rain from the warmth of your home<\/li>\n<li>A cup of hot chocolate on a cold day (especially when there is whip cream on top)<\/li>\n<li>Going to a movie you have been waiting to see with a big tub of popcorn with butter and your favorite candy (DOTS poured in a tub of popcorn is awesome!)<\/li>\n<li>Waking up early on a Saturday morning and realizing you don\u2019t have to wake up yet because it\u2019s not a work day!<\/li>\n<li>Knowing your son is coming home from his mission soon and your family will all be together again!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Most of all I think happiness is a feeling that comes when we recognize and appreciate the blessings in our life.\u00a0 And happiness is being surrounded by amazing friends who are grateful and happy themselves and who statistically increase your own level of happiness!<\/p>\n<p>Have an amazing weekend full of happiness and laughter and love.<\/p>\n<p>~Amy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A research study at Harvard Medical found that, in fact, happiness is contagious. It suggests that happiness is influenced not only by the people you know, but by the people they know. The study showed that happiness spreads through social networks, sort of like a virus, meaning that your happiness could influence the happiness of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[501,1637,1245,89,1239,3722,33,29,65,55,180,568,3922,237,2957,12,635,464,87,2972,1345,448,3927,3383,1520,544,3150,447,2239,81,3925,3923,3926,22,3928,3924],"class_list":["post-4488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-appreciate","tag-clean","tag-contagious","tag-dance","tag-dancing","tag-diet-coke","tag-friend","tag-god","tag-gratitude","tag-happiness","tag-happy","tag-harvard","tag-harvard-medical-school","tag-holiday","tag-hot-chocolate","tag-husband","tag-influence","tag-joy","tag-laughter","tag-married","tag-movie","tag-music","tag-newborn-baby","tag-proud","tag-rain","tag-relationships","tag-shower","tag-sing","tag-skinny","tag-smile","tag-social-contact","tag-social-networks","tag-spread-happiness","tag-trip","tag-tv-show","tag-virus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4488"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4490,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4488\/revisions\/4490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}