Please don’t confuse me here. A lot can be said for the happiness that comes from experiencing or doing something that gives you pleasure. Your favorite sports team won big over their longtime rivals and you feel significant pleasure. This can be a real boost to your outward happiness.

However, for those who study such things, this kind of pleasure, while good, does not do them as much good as what I call purposeful happiness. It is accepted that happiness and good health are a combo. Happy people feel less stress, have lower rates of depression, develop more vital immune systems, have fewer beats per minute, and generally live longer.

It turns out that happiness derived from pleasure, unlike purpose, has little to no effect on things like depression, stress, immunity, heart health, and longevity.

What is purposeful happiness? In general it is doing for others and carrying out your life purpose. Greater health benefits come from living with purpose and gaining outward happiness by doing good for others.

Again, I am not discounting the joy you may feel when you are celebrating your team’s victory. However, harmonizing with studies in this area shows that doing for others and furthering your life purpose gives you greater health and wellness benefits.

Give your life a sense of purpose. What are you going? What are you doing here? Do what gives you a genuine sense of well-being? Answer these questions and any others you can think of along these lines, and then put the answers into action in your life.

Such actions can have any purpose, such as raising and encouraging a family to be the best people they can be. Help out at the local food cooperative. Tutoring of students not so advanced in their field of specialization. What else can you think of? It is from this kind of purposeful living, in which you feel happy, that you reap the most health benefits.

It seems, again from studies, that we are genetically predisposed to live healthier lives when we generate this purposeful happiness within ourselves. There is a reward system built into you when you do things with purpose that help you feel good. We are selected to best survive as our immune systems respond positively to compassionate acts and selfless goals. Within each of us there is a self-rewarding organization.

This is not hard work. It is simply a matter of trying to positively connect with other people and their needs, as well as your own. You can do that. Of course. Then do it. Be happy Y healthier living happiness with purpose.