Happiness is a state of mind or feeling such as contentment, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy. The profound human quest has been on finding ways to achieve this. People have often turned to philosophical, religious, psychological and biological approaches to attain the profound feeling of contentment.
There are no specific, well defined ways to attain this, but studies have shown that it depends on a lot of different factors.
One of the major factors would be the socio economic environment around us. Studies have often linked happiness with socioeconomic status, marital status, health, income, and others. These are the measurable parameters which can be attained by different materialistic means. Their contribution towards the joy is estimated to be 10% t 15% depending on the people.
More than 50 % of one’s happiness comes from the genes. It has a correlation with the genetic identities of the individual mostly ones family. Studies have also shown that, happiness of the twins and triplets are correlated to their siblings, as much as 40% of it.
Despite these factors, the major factor which is the controlling parameter is one’s own deeds. The actions that one consciously takes will have a greater effect on happiness. If you are not happy with your own actions, then the guilt will override the happiness. With a boost in the physical exertion and in one’s own self confidence are known to increase one’s own well being by a large amount.
It is impossible to measure ones happiness, however you can probably study the state of mind of a person with the help of various techniques like brain scan, EEG or an MRI.
