In the last few years, psy­chol­o­gists and researchers have been dig­ging up hard data on a ques­tion pre­vi­ously left to philoso­phers: What makes us happy? Researchers like the father-son team Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, Stan­ford psy­chol­o­gist Sonja Lyubomirsky, and ethi­cist Stephen Post have stud­ied peo­ple all over the world to find out how things like money, atti­tude, cul­ture, mem­ory, health, altru­ism, and our day-to-day habits affect our well-being. The emerg­ing field of pos­i­tive psy­chol­ogy is burst­ing with new find­ings that sug­gest your actions can have a sig­nif­i­cant effect on your hap­pi­ness and sat­is­fac­tion with life. Here are 10 sci­en­tif­i­cally proven strate­gies to be happy.

Self-talk col­ors our think­ing, and can affect our reac­tions to peo­ple, events and life in gen­eral. It can also affect how we see our­selves, how stressed we are and how we deal with problems.

Just a fun post. One of those quiz things. I have a new name for them: “pocket psy­chol­ogy”. You take the quiz for five min­utes, and voila, they give you back your psy­cho­log­i­cal pro­file in a flash. Well, you’re sup­posed to take every­thing tongue-in-cheek.
But hav­ing said that, I still felt good after read­ing the pro­file this par­tic­u­lar quiz gave me.

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbri­dled, untram­meled, and free.
In love, you feel the most alive when things are straight-forward, and you’re told that you’re loved.
You’d like your lover …

Got this from Andi . Her blog’s an inter­est­ing read. I just love the way she tries to explain so, uhm, OC-ly (haha! new word Andi!) her adven­tures (and mis-adventures). Her life, in her blog, is dis­sected and mas­ti­cated and squeezed as in an almost empty tube of tooth­paste. When you read her blog, you real­ize that life can indeed be pick­led and placed in a bot­tle; and you can come back to it later on, to eat and re-eat.

Your Score: Cary Grant

You scored 16% Tough, …