Health News and Tips:
The Chemistry of Happiness:
Experiences and expectations are two parts of a chemical reaction that produces happiness.
The same happens with travel and other daily experiences like restaurants, movies and books.
When you overhype a destination in your mind through carefully polished Instagram reels, photos, and reviews, the experience rarely makes you happy, especially if it has been a tiring journey.
The destination might be good, but it doesn't live up to the skyscraper of an expectation you've built up in your mind.
So, should we not expect anything at all?
As Charlie Munger famously put it:
The secret to happiness is to lower your expectations...that is what you compare your experience with. If your expectations and standards are very high and only allow yourself to be happy when things are exquisite, you’ll never be happy and grateful.The key here is keeping expectations realistic.
Returning to the chemical reaction analogy in the beginning, there's a term in chemistry called activation energy — the minimum amount of energy required to trigger a chemical reaction.
Keeping low expectations means keeping the activation energy of your happiness low.
With realistic expectations, even a moderate level of awe and achievement can trigger daily happiness because the hurdle of expectations is not too high.
A good way of doing this is to focus on what feels right to you rather than building expectations based on others.
Income, goals and possessions are prime examples.
A comfortable annual income might suddenly feel lacking when your peer or the next-door neighbour makes double your takeaway salary.
Your good-enough car might seem less appealing after seeing your friend flaunting a more luxurious one on Instagram.
My book's pre-launch made me feel lacking because I set my target based on someone else's standards.
When we engage in this game of social comparison, we race to exceed high expectations based on the premise that “If they could, I could, too.”
This raises your happiness activation energy so high that you cannot enjoy achievements and experiences unless they are extraordinary.
Most daily experiences are not extraordinary. They're quite normal.
Keep happiness flowing in your life, even with modest daily experiences, by keeping expectations at the ground level.
It's a simple but utterly unused life hack.
Checking Measles Immunity
Aotearoa is at very high risk of a measles outbreak and not enough of us are immune. To be immune, you must have had measles before OR at least two doses of a measles vaccine after the age of 12 months. Local childhood immunisation rates are declining. Low immunity and the close contact nature of education settings means one infected person could quickly expose and spread measles to many others, starting an outbreak that could be hard to control.
People can be infectious before they develop measles symptoms and know they’re sick. Being immune is important for everyone’s safety – it’s the only way to make sure you won’t get or spread measles, even if you’ve been exposed. It’s a good idea for all staff to check their immunity to measles.
See information on checking immunity here:
Measles immunity – Health New Zealand | Te Whatu OraMy Health Record – Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora If you aren’t immune, or you’re not sure, two doses of the measles mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is your best protection. You can book a vaccine online: Home – Book my vaccine
For suspected or confirmed measles cases at your facility, contact your local public health service urgently.