I must confess, I am a bit of a hypochondriac. I love reading about health, watching medical shows and I do follow a couple of doctors on twitter.

So for those of you preferring a medical angle on happiness, I absolutely have to share Strategies for happiness: 7 steps to becoming a happier person. Web MD is a go to destination for hypochondriacs 🙂 No, seriously, they produce great content. Easy to read and always informative.

I like how the article talks about genetic predisposition for happiness but also says that despite this, we can and should choose to be happy. My favourite is this quote by Dr Tom G Stevens: “Choose to make happiness a top goal. Choose to take advantage of opportunities to learn how to be happy. For example, reprogramme your beliefs and values. Learn good self-management skills, good interpersonal skills and good career-related skills. Choose to be in environments and around people that increase your probability of happiness. The people who become the happiest and grow the most are those who also make truth and their own personal growth primary values.”

This is essentially a one paragraph recipe for being happy. And it also sums up neatly some of the big themes we cover on this blog.

There are also several mentions of various books on happiness in the article. They all sound like worth checking out. Another one I recently came across is Mindful Compassion by the professor of clinical psychology at the University of Derby, Paul Gilbert, which he co-wrote with a Buddhist monk. He talks there about meditation on kindness.

I have to read it.