Japanese researchers
have mapped, using MRI where happiness emerges in the brain. The
study, published in Scientific Reports, paves the way for
objectively measuring happiness and provides insights on a
neurologically based way of being happy.
A team at Kyoto University has found an answer from a neurological
perspective. Overall happiness, according to their study, is a
combination of happy emotions and satisfaction of life coming
together in the precuneus, a region in the medial parietal lobe.
People feel emotions in different ways; for instance, some people
feel happiness more intensely than others when they receive
compliments. Psychologists have found that emotional factors like
these and satisfaction of life together constitutes the subjective
experience of being happy. The neural mechanism behind how
happiness emerges, however, remained unclear. Understanding that
mechanism will be a huge asset for quantifying levels of
happiness.
Their analysis revealed that those who scored higher on the
happiness surveys had more grey matter mass in the precuneus. In
other words, people who feel happiness more intensely, feel
sadness less intensely, and are more able to find meaning in life.
"Several studies have shown that meditation increases grey matter
mass in the precuneus. This new insight on where happiness happens
in the brain will be useful for developing happiness programs
based on scientific research." Am thinking my precuneus must be
enlarged, especially on a Happy Friday.