10 strategies everyone can use to discover pleasure and satisfaction in everyday moments:

1. Share positive feelings

Let your children know how great it feels to spend time with them. Tell your lover about the compliment your boss paid you. E-mail your best friend to tell her how fondly you remember the camping trip you took last year, and include a silly picture. Sharing happy memories and experiences with others—or even simply anticipating doing so—is one of the most powerful and effective ways to prolong and magnify joy, research shows. “It helps sustain emotions that would otherwise fade,” he says. Affirming connections with others is “the glue that holds people together.”

2. Build memories

Take mental photographs of memorable moments that you can draw on later. Recall vivid, specific events, and pinpoint what brought you joy. Do you love your red wool scarf because it’s stylish and warm, or because its smell reminds you of your childhood romps in the snow? Just be careful not to overanalyze and lose the wonder of the moment. What you want, says University of Virginia social psychologist Timothy D. Wilson, PhD, is to dissect your experiences just enough to appreciate how they’ve helped form you and then get back to simply living them. Interjecting mystery into happy moments—reflecting on what’s surprising or hard to understand about them, for example—can strengthen their power. “If you analyze special times in a way that makes them seem ordinary or predictable, then you don’t necessarily get as much benefit”.

3. Congratulate yourself

Take pride in a hard won accomplishment. If you spent a year sweating at the gym to reach a fitness goal, bask in your success—and share it with others. Self-congratulation doesn’t come easily to everyone. “A lot of people have trouble basking in an accomplishment because they feel that they shouldn’t toot their own horns or rest on their laurels”. It’s a fine line between joyous self-congratulation and shameless self-promotion, but don’t worry: You’ll know if you’re crossing it.

4. Fine tune your senses

Close your eyes while you roll a square of dark chocolate over your tongue or fill your lungs with salty sea air or eavesdrop on your grandchildren’s play and laughter. Shutting out some sensory stimuli while concentrating on others can heighten your enjoyment of positive experiences—particularly those that are short-lived.

5. Compare downward

Comparing upward makes us feel deprived, but comparing downward can heighten enjoyment. Think about how things could be worse—or how things used to be worse. Just keep it light—you don’t have to relive your cancer diagnosis or revel in a neighbor’s misfortune. Simply take note: Is today sunnier than promised? Are you fitter than you were a year ago?

6. Get absorbed

Some joyful moments seem to call for conscious reflection and dissection. At other times, we savor best when we simply immerse ourselves in the present moment, without deliberate analysis or judgment. Listen to your favorite music with headphones in a dark room. Lose yourself in a novel. Set aside enough time on the weekend for your favorite hobby so you can attain a level of absorption known as the “flow” state.

7. Fake it till you make it

Putting on a happy face—even if you don’t feel like it—actually induces greater happiness. So be exuberant. Don’t just eat the best peach of the season—luxuriate in every lip smacking mouthful. Laugh aloud at the movies. Smile at yourself in the mirror. After all “a surefire way to kill joy is to suppress it.”

8. Seize the moment

Some positive events come and go quickly—a surprise toast to your accomplishments at work, your daughter’s sweet 16 party. It seems obvious that the more quickly a positive experience evaporates, the more difficult it is to savor. Yet paradoxically reminding ourselves that time is fleeting and joy transitory prompts us to seize positive moments while they last.

9. Avoid killjoy thinking

The world has enough pessimists. Short circuit negative thoughts that can only dampen enjoyment, such as self recriminations or worries about others’ perceptions. When you find yourself awash in happiness, give it space to grow—don’t ruminate about why you don’t deserve this good thing, what could go wrong, how things could be better. Consciously make the decision to embrace joy.

10. Say thank you

Cultivate an “attitude of gratitude”. Pinpoint what you’re happy about—a party invitation, a patch of shade—and acknowledge its source. It’s not always necessary to outwardly express gratitude, but saying “thank you” to a friend, a stranger, or the universe deepens our happiness by making us more aware of it.

“only when you have lost everything, will you become all-things……”

meow reminded me…..thanx girl.

http://meow.livejournal.com/482536.html?thread=5666536#t5666536

Introduction

Things You’ll Need

Step One
Food. Before you drink, make sure you have a good meal in your stomach. Carbohydrates such as pasta or bread help absorb the alcohol in your stomach to slow the rate at which it enters your bloodstream. 

Step Two
Avoid energy drinks, coffee or anything else with caffeine in it. Caffeine will dehydrate you, contributing to a potential hangover. 

Step Three
Be careful about eating too much sugar before and while you drink. One cause of the terrible headache-hangover is the sugar hangover. Alcohol spikes your blood sugar levels. Think about how you would feel the morning after you ate 5-10 candy bars before you went to bed. Alcohol has a similar effect on your body plus other negative effects as well. 

Step Four
When you start drinking make sure you are hydrated. Make sure you stay hydrated all night by drinking water. You want about 1 cup of water for each drink. If you forget to drink water while you are drinking, then drink as much water as you can before you go to bed. If you drink beer all night, you may think you are hydrated because of the amount of liquid entering your system. You will not stay hydrated unless you also drink water. 

Step Five
Take vitamin B and vitamin C before you start drinking. Also, take an extra pill in the morning as well [after you eat something]. Do not try to take the pills on an empty stomach while you have a hangover. This may induce vomiting. 

Step Six
Start with cocktails and finish with beer. Better yet, try not mixing different types of alcohol. But if you must, remember, beer before liquor never been sicker, liquor before beer you’re in the clear. Sticking to beer will likely minimize a hangover. Cocktails tend to disguise the amount of alcohol in a drink, leaving you guessing why you can’t stand up after only 3 rum and cokes. 

Step Seven
Keep track of your drinks. One 12-oz. beer typically equals 1.5 oz. of 80-proof spirits and 5 oz. of wine. 

Step Eight
Drink light-colored alcohol. Drink white wine instead of red wine. Stay away from the darker spirits such as whiskey. Darker alcohol has more impurities that contribute to headaches. 

Step Nine
The next morning, drink tons of water. Eat carbohydrates such as pasta or crackers. Plain carbohydrates such as white pasta or crackers should be easier on your stomach. Also, drink a sports drink or eat an orange to raise your blood sugar levels and replenish your electrolytes. Take more vitamin C and vitamin B. Go back to sleep for 1-2 hours. Then, drink more water and try to eat some protein when you wake up. Remember to promise that you will never get that drunk again. 

Step Ten
Time will cure all hangovers. If all else fails, then just wait for the headache to go away.

Not that I need to adhere to my own advice or anything….. *_*