Luis Gallardo

Do You Have the Happiness Gene? Are You Predisposed to Happiness?

Luis Gallardo

Individuals throughout the world suffer from depression, anxiety, and severe mental illness every day. Research shows that these conditions each have a genetic component, although they are not purely genetic. What if happiness is genetic as well? What if individuals can not only learn to be happy, but are genetically predisposed to be happy and can repair psychological damage from within on a biological level?

Professors Meike Bartels and Enric Corbera have been researching into just this concept, quantifying the connection between happiness, genetics, and evolutive biology. Enric Corbera has been focusing on conferences in Bioneuroemoción, studying how our emotions dramatically affect our overall well-being, and has numerous publications detailing his work.  Meike Bartels focuses on well-being and the public health system, using her background in genetics to fuel advanced theories in these fields.

Living with Chronic Stress

Most stress responses happen based on an initial negative emotion, and many of these `stressed-out reactions are an unpleasant response to a negative event. For example, if a small child throws a fit about what is being served to them for dinner, it's common for the parent to have an adverse emotional reaction. Their body reacts negatively by lowering the immune system's defenses, tensing up all of the muscles, increasing the blood pressure, and in general responding as if it is a very high-stress situation.

This response is often far overblown for the amount of danger that the person is experiencing. In the case of our example, the parent is in no physical danger, yet their body responds as if they are. These physical responses can cause the body to be under stress and can cause an individual to feel awful on a regular basis.

Chronic stressful situations like this can affect the body's cortisol levels over time and can trigger depression, as well as immune, circulatory, and digestive diseases. Living in chronic stress can diminish your ability to live a happy and productive life. Learning to manage these stress levels is a key part of healthy living and can help reduce pain levels, lower symptoms, and manage chronic pain conditions. High stress levels can exacerbate pain, raise heart rate, increase cholesterol and blood pressure, trigger insomnia, and cause a host of other physical disorders and symptoms.

Neuro Emotional Technique

The Neuro Emotional Technique (NET) is a type of psycho-emotional therapy based on the body's typical responses to stress. The body tends to hold on to emotion that it experiences over time, and the mind remembers all experiences, both positive and negative. These feelings can be brought to the surface at most any time and can cause pain in the body. NET works to help resolve the gap that most people have between their emotional self and their physical body so that they can work with both as a cohesive unit.

This process also allows an individual to work with positive experiences, as well. By raising endorphin levels, one can trigger positive neural reactions. Positive interactions, positive skills like listening to music or practicing yoga, or participating in other enjoyable activities can all help individuals to work through more difficult experiences in their lives.

Knowing this about positive experiences makes learning from speakers and professionals at an event like The World Happiness Festival even more essential. General attendees and educators alike can learn crucial skills that they can then teach to others, spreading happiness throughout the world to those they come into contact with -- whether they have a happiness gene or not.