justifying joy

"No pain, no gain," and "I'll be happy when X" are mantras of a society with no belief in joy's primacy.  Collectively, we permit ourselves the "luxury" of joy only after we've completed the roadblock of X, or worried sufficiently about today's news.

But joy is the truth of us.  Babies are exhibit #1.  They prove it: WE ARE BORN JOYFUL.  New beings embody and radiate so much natural love that it permeates the space around them, inviting us all to smile.  We even speak with gentled, cooing voices in their company, so profound is the impact of being that close to our (still-remembered-but-temporarily-obscured) true self. 

And then we move right back to X.

Today I invite us all to bask in joy.  Why wait for X?  Joy improves our mental and physical states, as science confirms.  And it can happen fast, since our body and mind remember who we were before we acquiesced to those tyrannical, squishing 70,000 daily thoughts.
  
Here are some prompts to help bring us back to our original joy ASAP:

• Sing: singing strengthens our prefrontal cortex (cognitive flexibility, emotional control, problem solving); corpus callosum (brain connectivity); ventral striatum and nucleus accumbens (reward system/dopamine release), etc.

• Thank: gratitude gets our anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) to make more serotonin, the happy hormone. It also buffs up our hippocampus (memory and stress regulation); hypothalamus (stress regulation); lowers cortisol (the stress hormone) and promotes oxytocin (the love hormone) release.

• Breathe Deeply: conscious breathing reduces inflammation (lower cytokine levels);  increases oxygen saturation (SpO₂); improves lung function (think COPD and asthma), and balances our vagal nerve.

These are just a few cues to help return us to ourselves.  They are free, and you can do them RIGHT now.  In fact, please do!