I find myself stressing about the economy/money/business a lot these days and I know I am not alone, not by a long shot. And while I am not that good at it, I keep trying different things to relieve my stress because there’s absolutely nothing healthy or productive about it. Quite the opposite, according to my voodoo doctor. (In case you’re curious, my voodoo doctor is the first person in the medical profession I’ve ever seen who has done something to limit my migraines from coming back and debilitating my life. I am not cheesy enough to call him my miracle doctor, so voodoo is the next best thing.)

In the absence of growing a money tree in our back yard or winning the lottery, both of which I am fairly certain would reduce some of my money-related stress, here’s what I’ve tried: Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not a happy-go-lucky person, by nature, nor do I paint everything in bleak colors. Kind of middle of the road, I suppose, in the mood department. But lately I’ve been having too many bad mood days — possibly having to do with endless investor meetings that leave me feeling beaten down and stupid or never-ending horrible economic news, which just. don’t. stop. So the constructive side of me is kicking in with some ideas to get back to my usual OK mood (or hey, good mood would be even better.) Here’s what I’ve thought up and will attempt to try on a somewhat regular basis:

1. Turn off the news. Read the rest of this entry »

If you want to be happier be thankful for things you have in your life more often.

That is the basic message in Thanks!, a book by Robert Emmons, a professor at UC-Davis who studies the field of positive psychology. I browsed through the book the other day at Barnes & Noble, after reading something about it in a magazine (if you are thinking I am going to be a good blogger and link to the article, you’re wrong — it was in some doctor’s waiting room and I couldn’t even tell you the title.)

This seems like a very simple concept but I know I don’t practice it enough. When I do, it works. Read the rest of this entry »

I never hide the fact that I love to work and I am extremely passionate about what I am doing right now. But you know, work is work, and sometimes it’s tough to get through my long workday. So over time I’ve found a few ways to make my workdays a bit more pleasant and thought I’d share them here:

1. Start each day by doing something that energizes you. In an ideal world, I’d work out in the morning, before work. Read the rest of this entry »

I am late to blog about the article in Newsweek about recent studies showing that having kids does not make you happy. But after I read it I had to think about it for a bit.

According to the article:

Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers,” says Florida State University’s Robin Simon, a sociology professor who’s conducted several recent parenting studies, the most thorough of which came out in 2005 and looked at data gathered from 13,000 Americans by the National Survey of Families and Households. “In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children.”

That sounds pretty definitive, doesn’t it? I mean, I think if I didn’t already have a daughter and I read this I’d have second thoughts about having children. Read the rest of this entry »

I am always really interested in the idea of happiness. There is something so desirable about being happy and yet happiness is so subjective and so not black-and-white that it fascinates me. I know I am not alone because the number of studies that try to determine what makes us happy and books written about this subject seems to grow every year. (I recently posted here about new job satisfaction and happinness research.)

So here’s another one: According to an article in Time magazine, several new studies suggest that our genes (and our age) have a lot more to do with our happiness level than our efforts to be happy:

In one study, researchers at the University of Edinburgh suggest that genes account for about 50% of the variation in people’s levels of happiness — the underlying determinant being genetically determined personality traits, like “being sociable, active, stable, hardworking and conscientious.” Read the rest of this entry »

As I’ve written about before, a bit more than six months ago our family went through a BIG life change. I quit my high-paying job in finance, we moved from our beloved-but-too-expensive-and-crazy New York City to a suburb of Boston, and I started a company (this here Work It, Mom!, of course!) As part of this transition we’ve gone from living on a fairly large income to living on mostly my husband’s income, which, while completely respectable, is a lot less than what we used to live on.

As this BIG change got closer I was completely freaked out. I was freaked out about leaving the city I came to love, moving to a new area, starting my own business, and changing our financial situation significantly. My husband and I are pretty frugal people - we saw our income increase 5x since our first jobs but we didn’t really change our life in a big way. Sure, I splurged on something for myself from to time, but I’d only buy things on sale and would agonize about spending significant sums of money just as much when I made lots of it as when I made little of it. But having the security of a steady and large paycheck is a nice luxury–your savings account grows, you don’t have to watch EVERY dollar, and the general stress level related to money is down.

So when the BIG change came, I was ready to be stressed and worried about money all the time and this impending stress made me very anxious. But as the weeks and months of our new life went on, the stress didn’t increase as much as I expected. It’s there, no doubt, but it’s not nearly as paralyzing as I anticipated.

To be honest, I am not quite sure why this is. I am an immigrant who has truly experienced what it’s like to be hungry and poor (welfare, food stamps, eating disguising canned fish — been there). My background has made me very conservative financially and I worry about our daughter’s college savings, our retirement and my parents’ retirement on a regular basis. (It’s OK to laugh at me now.) In other words, I am wired to stress about money and now that we have a lot less of it, I feel that I should be stressing more.

But I’m not. Read the rest of this entry »

The answer would seem to be yes.

As more and more women got out of the kitchen and went off to pursue their careers and financial independence they became less happy. Recent studies, written up in a recent New York Times article, show that in the last 40 years men have gotten happier while women have become less so.

“What has changed — and what seems to be the most likely explanation for the happiness trends — is that women now have a much longer to-do list than they once did (including helping their aging parents). They can’t possibly get it all done, and many end up feeling as if they are somehow falling short.”

I think this is extremely insightful and in my case, true. I am lucky to have a husband who is very involved as a dad, does not work crazy hours, and helps out a lot at home. But I still shoulder most of the responsibility for managing our home, taking care of our daughter, and making key decisions. I’ve also always been the main breadwinner, and while I like to work and I am extremely proud of my career achievements, the pressure I feel to take care of us financially definitely takes a toll on my happiness sometimes.

Read the rest of this entry »