Hacking Into Happiness
With the morning sun, Nupur jogged briskly, running around in rounds. It was the third round. “Come on Nups! Let us sit here for our yoga session!” Adi said removing all the thoughts that were dwelling in his mind. They sat near the fountain where the water fell. The ivory white water splashed down with swooshing sound, splashing down the marble structure. Fresh, windy, cool and crispy air started whistling around. Birds were tweeting their morning melodies. The trees were swaying with the wind, dancing to welcome the morning. Their green leaves were whispering in chatter about the day’s plan. And the green grass looked as if someone had spread a green bedsheet. The green bumble bees swarmed up in the air searching for sweet honey. The colourful cute butterflies, filtering around aromatic flowers. “Morning seems so self calming, Sweetheart”, said Nupur.
“Yes honey! Look at the golden sun! It is looking as if a baby has started painting the dark pristine blue sky into a faint orange hue with the sunrise. Everything is so beautiful to start the day …!”
“Wow! I can see the happiness in your eyes. You know Nups, we have four hormones in our body which are responsible for our happiness.
Happiness does not depend on material or money. Sometimes body releases endorphins. As we exercise, Nups, the body releases the endorphins to cope up with the pain and fear of exercising. It makes us happy and we enjoy doing exercise. See, both of us enjoying our session here. I think you are understanding these issues. 30 minutes of exercise daily is needed so that to get our daily dise of endorphins. Daily we do lots of work big or small and people. We feel happy. Didn’t you feel happy when Mrs Roa gave you an assignment? An opportunity to work and we all acknowledged. You felt good as Dopamineis released. Mostly our homemakers are sad as their household work is not noticed many a times. Nups, you can imagine why ladies are so happy with shopping. Dopamine hormone makes us feel happy.”
“Being a doc’s wifey is so good in every shop we get good shot of advices.
Tell me about the other hormones too…”
“Nups, when we do some good work for the society or an act of kindness, it releases Serotonin. Providing useful information, writing blogs, answering people’s questions on facebook, generates Serotonin. So Nups, darling when you write articles or blog which is useful to the society, Serotonin is released.”
“Thats nice dear! And I really want to hug you for this piece of information!”
“And then, Oxytocin is released when we come close to each other. We kiss, or hug, shake hands, put arms around oir shoulders, various amounts of oxytocin is released.Now, you can understand why we need to hug a child who is in a bad mood.”
“Oh wow! My love! You make my life simple. Everytime I sit with you, exercise daily to get Endorphine. We have to finish up our goals and get Dopamine. Being nice to others to get Serotonin. Finally love our kids, families and friends to get Oxytocin. So we will be happy and when we are happy we deal with challenges efficiently and we make a happier world around us.”
“Yes sweetheart! Lets start our day to make our world happier.”
A bunch of kids were passing by. They were running with frisbee in their hand. Some of them stopped beside Adi and Nupur quizzically asked, “Hello Aunty! Hello Uncle! How are you today?” In reply, Adi waved back at them. Adi and Nupur watched the unadulterated laughter and joy of these children as they played with the frisbee. The kids had tremendous infectious energy and were moving as if they were playing to some unheard rhythm. Adi and Nupur wanted to join in the rhythm of the energy and be kids once more!
Adi kissed Nupur’s forehead and they both started their yoga session.