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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff from house stuff works dot com where

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Speaker 1: smart happens. Hi Marshall Brain with today's question, what can

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Speaker 1: you do to make yourself really unhappy? There have been

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Speaker 1: lots of articles about happiness. In fact, it could be

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Speaker 1: said that there's a growing science of happiness because so

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Speaker 1: much research is being done into it. But what about

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Speaker 1: the flip side unhappiness? How do you make yourself really unhappy?

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Speaker 1: And the idea is that if you know how to

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Speaker 1: make yourself unhappy, you could avoid those things, flip it

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Speaker 1: around and find happiness by undoing unhappiness. It turns out

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Speaker 1: that there's at least three ways to make yourself unhappy

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Speaker 1: fairly quickly. The first way is through health problems. Somebody

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Speaker 1: who's sick generally is not happy. Now. A lot of

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Speaker 1: health problems you have no control over. For example, if

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Speaker 1: you fall off a ladder and break your hip, you

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Speaker 1: don't have a lot of control over that, except not

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Speaker 1: getting up on ladders. Another thing would be cancer. If

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Speaker 1: you get cancer, a lot of times you don't have

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Speaker 1: control over that. But there are many health issues where

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Speaker 1: you do have a lot of control. And one of

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Speaker 1: those health issues is obesity. So if you want to

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Speaker 1: make yourself unhappy, you would become a couch potato. You

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Speaker 1: would get obese, you would start having all the problems

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Speaker 1: that go with obesity, high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes potentially,

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Speaker 1: and through that process you could make yourself really unhappy.

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Speaker 1: So if you want to be happy, you would probably

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Speaker 1: avoid lifestyle choices that lead to unhealthiness. Another way to

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Speaker 1: make yourself unhappy, surprisingly has to do with work. It

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Speaker 1: turns out that a lot of people right now are

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Speaker 1: not happy because they don't have enough work to do.

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Speaker 1: And it goes both ways. You can get unhappy by overworking,

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Speaker 1: by doing too much work, a lot more than you

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Speaker 1: want to be doing. But you can also be unhappy

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Speaker 1: by doing too little work, by being underutilized. And here

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Speaker 1: the solution is not necessarily quite so easy, because you

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Speaker 1: know there are big box retailers who are posting jobs

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Speaker 1: right now and getting two thousand applicants for a single job.

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Speaker 1: Things like that, there isn't enough work to go around.

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Speaker 1: But if you are finding yourself in an underwork situation,

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Speaker 1: one possibility might be volunteering somewhere. Maybe helping others to

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Speaker 1: help yourself would be the philosophy. It might lead to

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Speaker 1: more happiness, not necessarily ecstasy. But what if you want

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Speaker 1: to be really unhappy? There's an article out recently called

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Speaker 1: German Studies finds happiness is based on choices, not genes,

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Speaker 1: and it offers this tip quote. Relationships are very important,

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Speaker 1: But according to Wagner and his colleagues, choosing a neurotic

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Speaker 1: partner is a sure fire way to be unhappy. This

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Speaker 1: brings up the obvious question what is neurotic means? So

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Speaker 1: I went to a place called psychology World dot com

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Speaker 1: and looked it up. Here's their definition. They respond emotionally

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Speaker 1: to events that would not affect most people, and their

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Speaker 1: reactions tend to be more intense than normal. They are

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Speaker 1: more likely to interpret ordinary situations is threatening and minor

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Speaker 1: frustrations as hopelessly difficult. Their negative emotional reactions tend to

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Speaker 1: persist for unusually long periods of time, which means they

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Speaker 1: are often in a bad mood. These problems in emotional

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Speaker 1: regulation can diminish a neurotics ability to think clearly, make decisions,

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Speaker 1: and cope effectively with stress. Well, you can look at

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Speaker 1: that definition and you can see why that would make

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Speaker 1: someone unhappy. You may have heard the description drama queen

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Speaker 1: or drama king. Yes, it's easy to see how a

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Speaker 1: partner like that would drag you down. If you want

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Speaker 1: to be unhappy, hook up with a neurotic person who's

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Speaker 1: unable to think clearly, make decisions, and cope effectively with stress.

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Speaker 1: That does seem like a good recipe for disaster. If

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Speaker 1: you'd like to perform a trifecta of unhappiness, you can

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Speaker 1: put all three of these together. You could make choices

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Speaker 1: that make you unhealthy, you could work too much or

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Speaker 1: too little, and simultaneously, you could hook up with someone

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Speaker 1: who's neurotic. Putting those three things together would be a

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Speaker 1: surefire way to have a bad day for more illness

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Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does that how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com and don't forget to check out the brain

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Speaker 1: stuff blog on the house stuff works dot com home page.

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Speaker 1: You can also follow brain stuff on Facebook or Twitter

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Speaker 1: at brain stuff HSW. This episode of brain Stuff is

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