Happiness is a combination
of happy emotions and satisfaction of life coming together in the precuneus, a
region in the medial parietal lobe that becomes active when experiencing
consciousness. 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 objectively. A neuroscientist team
scanned the brains of research participants with MRI. The participants then
took a survey that asked how happy they are generally, how intensely they feel
emotions, and how satisfied they are with their lives. 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 have a
larger precuneus. So how does that help us?
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