Spa-nundrum: On Happiness

By Milana Knowles

 

At a recent launch party I attended for Avène’s new body care line my dear friend, Karen Oliver, their public relations director, invited Deepak Chopra, M.D., her close friend and world-renowned authority in the field of mind-body healing, to speak on health and happiness.  I hadn’t met Dr. Chopra before but was of course aware of his books and wellness concepts, and was very much looking forward to hearing him speak on the subject of happiness.

 

I had always thought that happiness is an elusive state of mind, one that occurs only in glimpses and depends on the things that happen to us. Not so, says Dr. Chopra. In his popular book, The Happiness Prescription: Ten Keys to a Happy and Fulfilling Life, he describes how outside forces actually don’t make much of a difference in our happiness. Some programmed part of our brains determines whether we look at certain events in our lives as problems or as opportunities. He says that, with meditation and cognitive therapy, we can change that mindset and thereby experience long stretches of happiness. Because our happiness (or unhappiness) is reflected in every cell of our body, as Dr. Chopra believes, we can improve our overall health and well-being if we change our attitude.

Taking care of our bodies has long been proven to help maintain a positive outlook and keep ourselves in balance. Conversely, keeping a positive outlook seems to be the key to good health and longevity. Well, in the new year I will try to cultivate my good attitude toward all things that come my way and try to set aside time to take care of myself, physically and emotionally. My resolution is for happiness to permeate every cell in my body, all 70 trillion of them.

 

Happy New Year and loads of happiness to every single one of you spa buffs.

 

Do you consider yourself a happy person?