Introduction
's focus on energy may be a powerful psychological perspective. Humans are organisms composed of metabolic energy, and life can be seen as a process of obtaining and managing metabolic energy. Some work shows that evolution has chosen to gain more and more energy from the environment (such as sugar, oil) and use these energy efficiently.
Current work proposes the theory that happiness is a state of free availability or excess energy (i.e., when the availability of energy exceeds demand). The process of creating or maintaining this residual is accompanied by happiness. This article provides an in-depth review of the literature on happiness and conducts an experimental test of a hypothesis derived from this theory that the display of happiness is a signal that a person has a consumeable energy.
The purpose of this review is to propose a new theory of happiness to advance the research and understanding of the topic and to integrate and connect different research topics. Energy related to happiness can take two forms. One is biological and metabolic energy (such as glucose ). All cells in the human body use metabolic energy. When the supply of metabolites exceeds demand, an oversupply occurs.
Theoretically, when metabolic energy is low, people's sense of happiness will decrease. Other forms of energy related to happiness are secondary sources of metabolic energy – providing or preserving sources of metabolic energy. These include social relations (e.g., friends give each other food, facilitating efforts) and technology (e.g., modern transportation saves mechanical energy for walking, and computers reduce the metabolic energy needed for memory because they save information). Secondary sources of energy are thought to be related to happiness because they increase the possibility of residual energy.
Happiness is accompanied by available energy-a review of happiness literature
Many studies link happiness with available energy. People usually associate happiness with energy rather than lack of energy. Energetic music (e.g., higher pitch, faster rhythm, rising scale) is rated as happier with no vitality. Words that indicate happiness often reflect possession of energy to a greater extent than words that do not.
htm people are often more energetic, excited and enthusiastic than those who are not very happy. Happiness is related to increased activity. One study found that watching videos that induce happiness (relative to fear or anger) increased the number of activities participants wanted to participate in. In one study, men talked more with women after seeing stimulation that increased positive emotions.
Another study found that happy (relative to unhappy) cricketers showed more energy, enthusiasm, attention and confidence. The increase in extraversion, often associated with energetic behavior, is closely linked to happiness, even when making cross-country comparisons. Extroversion is associated with increased proximity, and likewise, happiness is associated with increased participation and social skills.
Depression has a strong negative correlation with happiness. A decisive feature of depression is low energy or fatigue. Even perceived deviations indicate that happiness is a state of excess energy. Participants who were induced into happy (relative to sadness) emotions thought the hills were not that steep.
The idea is that happy participants have enough energy to climb the hills so it doesn't look that steep. Therefore, happiness is often associated with the energy available, while low happiness (or sadness) is associated with low energy. This pattern is reflected in work on the primary and secondary sources of metabolic energy.
One-time energy Metabolic energy
Metabolic energy is the main energy, and all thoughts and actions occur through the use of this energy. There is evidence that happiness is reduced when glucose is metabolic energy lower or its use is affected, and happiness is increased when there is a sufficient amount of glucose available.
When glucose content is low, adverse or depressive emotions are more common. In patients with diabetes , they are less efficient in treating glucose and are prone to hypoglycemia.It has been found that glucose pincers (v control devices) that lower glucose levels can worsen mood.
On the contrary, glucose drinks can improve mood. Research on premenstrual syndrome symptoms provides consistent evidence. During premenstrual syndrome, metabolic energy use in the ovaries increases, thereby reducing the possibility of energy surplus. There is a lot of evidence that PMS is associated with more negative emotions. Using self-control can reduce glucose in the blood.
Therefore, using self-control may worsen the mood. Individual studies have found little evidence that using self-control can deteriorate emotions, however, a meta-analysis of of more than 600 participants found that self-control can deteriorate emotions in small ways. If metabolic energy improves mood, people may escape negative emotions by eating.
In fact, depression increases cravings for food, and eating is a typical response to relieve personal pain. In addition to glucose, physiological states related to metabolic energy distribution may also be related to emotions. Pleasant stimulation (such as odors, pictures) will reduce cortisol , and part of the function of cortisol is to increase blood sugar.
Another study shows that happiness (relative to anger or anxiety) indicates a decrease in blood pressure. Increased blood pressure may be accompanied by an increase in metabolite distribution. Some studies examining the use of energy in the brain are also consistent with the link between happiness and residual energy. Neuroscience Evidence shows that grief can increase brain energy use, while happiness can reduce it.
self-control allows emotional coping (e.g., regulate emotions to increase happiness and is inherently linked to glucose metabolism. A cross-country survey shows that coping is the main determinant of happiness. Other work further involves self-control and therefore also involves metabolism , linking happiness to energy. Noise impairs self-control, perhaps through the consumption of metabolites.
Similarly, noise pollution also indicates a decrease in happiness. Others believe that happiness is key to regulation and control of driving forces, impulses, and objects, similar to self-control. Neurotransmitters The composition of happiness can be used to test whether happiness is associated with an increase in energy.
predicts that happiness-related neurotransmitters contain more energy available than other neurotransmitters. Neurons fire by using adenosine triphosphate (ATP) obtained from breaking the carbon-carbon bond. dopamine is positively associated with happiness, which contains more carbon than other neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine , gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), or glutamate , thus supporting this prediction.
Requirements for metabolic energy
Use more energy can be considered a need for metabolic energy, and using more energy also reduces the possibility of free availability or residual energy. Many studies have increased the need for life, and therefore require increased use of energy, which is linked to a decrease in happiness.
Happiness is often associated with low energy and high demands, because these times there is a smaller chance of energy excess. Parents require a lot of energy (e.g., obtaining money). This also reduces happiness. Work is often hard and needs to overwhelm the inner to satisfy external motivations.
When work requirements are low- -For example, on weekends or with more leisure time, a greater sense of happiness will be stronger. Efforts to care for people with disabilities also indicate a decrease in happiness. High demands marriages reduce happiness compared to those who do not demand, just as difficult social relations are relatively easy. Other needs are also related to a decrease in happiness. The physical attraction of
for women, for whom a good appearance is particularly saving on the energy to pursue attractiveness and obtain a high-quality spouse, rather than men, has been found to predict an increase in happiness. Homeless people (with homeless people) have a lower sense of happiness. Social projects that reduce their living needs can also increase happiness.Happiness can be considered the opposite of experiencing personal threats, which arise when demand exceeds available resources to cope with.
Therefore, happiness should include having resources or experiencing low requirements. When metabolic energy is low, death is more threatening, and the significance of death may reduce glucose. It was found that more religious beliefs can reduce the threat of death significance and therefore reduce costs, and should therefore be related to the possibility of increasing residual energy (due to the reduction of the cost of coping with death).
associates this possibility with happiness, and religion is related to greater happiness. The threat of being bullied or sexually harassed among children indicates a decrease in happiness, just as greater social anxiety. Some theorists believe that the lower happiness is because we live in a world that is completely different from the world that our ancestors evolved, and life requires higher demands. Therefore, the metabolism-expensive regulatory system is overactive.
Target
One target is a metabolic demand that lasts for a period of time. Therefore, a goal can be expressed as a process of achieving and using metabolic energy (for example, every time a dieter sees a piece of cake, he or she will work hard to avoid it, and a person with physical goals consumes metabolic energy regularly every time he or she exercises).
When a target is stopped or abandoned, the energy previously committed to the target becomes the residual energy that is freely available. This motivation should affect happiness. In fact, achieving one or more goals can increase happiness.
Therefore, satisfaction with a particular area of life indicates an increase in happiness. Happiness is strongly influenced by the difference between what a person has and wants, perhaps because of the extent to which a person is motivated or formed to gain more goals. The goal of maximizing (v-non-maximizing)—people try to choose the best among each option—may also reduce happiness.
Psychological resources and fluency in processing
Biological resources-metabolic energy--are often referred to in social sciences as "spiritual resources" although this structure overlaps with actual metabolic energy. The findings of research on mental resources and processing difficulty are consistent with the view that happiness and energy are accompanied by.
htm people seem to have more psychological resources than those who are not very happy, such as they are more creative, more thoughtful, and more optimistic. They show a broader mindset and focus and are more open to information. Happy (with unhappy) children are found to delay for longer.
Negative emotions seem to impair self-control. Positive emotions are found to supplement self-control when self-control fatigue. A paradoxical discovery is that the sense of happiness increases the use of stereotype , indicating that mental resources are reduced. It may be that happy people have more energy and spiritual resources, although they may not always be willing to consume their energy or resources.
Therefore, happiness does not increase the use of stereotypes when participants are asked to be responsible for their use of stereotypes. Stimuli that require less energy treatment—such as those familiar—should be more popular than stimuli that require more energy treatment, which is consistent with having freely available energy and happiness.
To support this, easy-to-process and familiar stimuli are more popular than other stimuli, and these stimuli are found to produce less brain activation. People also like more prototypes or symmetrical stimuli, probably because they are processed faster and more efficiently.
expected (relative to unexpected) information is found to be processed faster, thus easier, and more enjoyable. Similarly, factors that promote stimulant treatment have been found to increase liking for stimulant. Numbers are easier to process in Chinese than in English, while mathematics is often more popular among Chinese users than in English.
Secondary Energy
The factors that provide energy or reduce their use (the source of secondary energy) also indicate the link between happiness and possession of energy. Two examples are social support and monetary wealth.
Social Support
Social Support can provide energy or reduce energy use in several ways. People provide food to each other. They also save energy for each other in many ways, such as helping each other, assisting with stress, or providing resources when relatively little work is required (e.g., parents give their children clothes).
a lot of evidence shows that people will be happier with better social support or more social participation. Happiness is positively related to self-esteem, and self-esteem reflects a sense of belonging. People report seeking social contact to increase their sense of well-being. Married people are often happier than unmarried people. Religious institutions can serve as a source of social support, and religious participation predicts an increase in happiness. Similarly, the end of social relations and death greatly reduce happiness.
Money Wealth
Money is another source of secondary energy. Money can be used to obtain metabolic energy (e.g., buy food), and save energy (e.g., pay taxis instead of walking, hire an accountant to do his own taxes, use air conditioners instead of sweating in the heat). Rich people can have a more leisurely and relaxed life than people without money.
Therefore, money should be related to the greater possibility of having available energy. A large number of studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between wealth and happiness. Between the country and the individual, wealth predicts happiness. Likewise, unemployment can lead to unhappiness. However, money may not lead to happiness when people desire more than they have. This is consistent with the idea that happiness decreases with the increase of demand or goal - in this case, more wealth is to be gained.
Experimental Test - Display of Happiness as a person with insufficient energy
If happiness is accompanied by having available or excess energy, then its expression may mean that a person has consuming energy. Expression of happiness may lead to reduced efficiency. Past work has found that patients with depression preserve energy in their exercise-they have relatively little exercise. After recovering from depression, people move more, more complex and more quickly. This suggests that happiness may be negatively correlated with the preservation of mechanical energy.
An experimental study showed that participants who received positive reviews of the experimenter (such as "I like your shirt") were less efficient when they went upstairs than those who received a neutral evaluation (i.e. "This is Hall C"), compared with participants who received a positive review (such as "I like your shirt") and raised their feet more efficiently when they went upstairs, χ2=2.78, P0.05 (one-tailed; see Figure 1).
review of the literature on happiness and an experimental test provide universal support for the idea that happiness is a state in which people have freely available or excess energy. This pattern appears in work on various topics, including metabolism, needs (parenting, work, difficult social relationships, personal threats), goals, difficulty in handling and liking.
shows the relationship between the number of people who are efficient or inefficient in step height and receiving praise or neutral statements. The theory brings together work in several different disciplines, including neuroscience, endocrinology, social psychology, economics, sociology and biology .
Theory of happiness and energy should help explain the discoveries about happiness beyond those reviewed. Happiness has been found to predict future success (e.g., in terms of marriage, friendship, wealth, work, and health, to the extent that happiness represents energy possession, then being able to perform activities that require energy (e.g., address difficulties with spouses) should lead to future success.
A seemingly inconsistent finding may be that hyperglycemia (i.e., when blood sugar levels are particularly high) has nothing to do with happiness, despite sufficient energy in the blood. Hyperglycemia may not be related to happiness because it may reduce glucose flowing to the brain.
People may conclude that people should consume less energy (e.g., sitting on the sofa all day) because they are generally seeking happiness. While this may happen (e.g., passivity is becoming more common in modern society), people obviously consume their energy regularly.Savings may be reduced because people have to use energy to get energy (e.g., work 40 hours a week to ensure adequate food supply), and the relationship between people's goals and energy is not very clear (e.g., reproductive goals).
Happiness is to have the remaining energy in the context of other meanings and values in life. One advantage of the proposed theory is that it proposes many new assumptions. In other cases where the conditions are equal, events that provide energy tend to produce greater happiness than events that provide less energy or take away energy.
If there is the possibility of riding with a taxi instead of always walking, people will be happier. The inefficient behaviors (such as game behaviors) that happy people engage in may be more likely to be considered meaningless or wasteful by others. Happy people consume energy more casually, so others may not perceive the value of these behaviors.
The relationship between happiness and energy may be cyclical. Having energy makes it easier for people to ensure future happiness. For example, at work, a happy person may be happy with another colleague by sending flowers, thereby increasing the likelihood that the colleague will reward the person in the future.
Methods to increase happiness should include those that release metabolic resources or provide resources, such as those that alleviate demand. People who are unhappy for a long time may have a tendency to overcommit and rarely experience energy surplus. In demanding situations, people may expect happy people to be less happy and use their energy to help. When energy is wasted, people should look at the manifestations of happiness negatively.
The factors that affect happiness should depend in part on their creation of metabolic needs. For example, arguments that bring new challenges should reduce happiness, while arguments that end harsh and energy-consuming relationships should reduce happiness to a lesser extent, or even increase happiness.
diabetes and glucose problems are related to less happiness (see above). Therefore, other metabolic disorders may be associated with happiness. Factors that may increase glucose use include high processing load, novelty, time pressure, and multitasking. These same factors may reduce happiness.
Happiness may come from having too much information to be processed, being overwhelmed by novel things or going through too much changes, lacking enough time to achieve goals, or trying to do too much. In a person's life, when people have more energy, their sense of happiness should be higher.
Some studies have found that young people tend to be happier than older people, and they tend to have more (main) energy. Whether energy can be used may be the key to determining happiness. Fatty people have more storage energy than thin people, but they may not be happier, partly because good physical fitness enhances the distribution of metabolites throughout the body. Happiness may increase by ending goals, not just by achieving them.
For example, giving up a failed goal may eventually increase happiness because people are able to use the energy originally used to pursue their goals. Energy is born with happiness. Happy people may express their happiness by lower energy efficiency or spending more energy than they need.
Happy people sing while taking a shower. A typical smile may use more energy than a typical frown. And, as proven - happiness reduces the efficiency of one's "step".
